The "Decorative Imagination" and "Iron Maid" bits also seems like a make-weight. As I approach the end of Machen's Three Impostors, I'm feeling that the usual judgment is correct, that the much-anthologized "Black Seal" and "White Powder" are the only stories therein that have much going for them.
Machen's London, in this book, likely owes something to Stevenson's London in The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde -- not just the nocturnal London descriptions, but the use of bachelor conversationalists as characters.
From "Decorative Imagination" may be salvaged this:
One night we conversed so eagerly together over our pipesand whiskey that the clock passed unnoticed, and when I glanced up I realizedwith a shock that I had just five minutes in which to catch the last tram. Imade a dash for my hat and stick, and jumped out of the house and down thesteps, and tore at full speed up the street. It was no good, however; there wasa shriek of the engine whistle, and I stood there at the station door and sawfar on the long dark line of the embankment a red light shine and vanish, and aporter came down and shut the door with a bang.
"How far to London?" I asked him.
"A good nine miles to Waterloo Bridge;" andwith that he went off.
Before me was the long suburban street, its drearydistance marked by rows of twinkling lamps, and the air was poisoned by thefaint sickly smell of burning bricks; it was not a cheerful prospect by anymeans, and I had to walk through nine miles of such streets, deserted as thoseof Pompeii. I knew pretty well what direction to take; so I set out wearily,looking at the stretch of lamps vanishing in perspective; and as I walked,street after street branched off to right and left,—some far reaching todistances that seemed endless, communicating with, other systems ofthoroughfare; and some mere protoplasmic streets, beginning in orderly fashionwith serried two-storied houses, and ending suddenly in waste, and pits, andrubbish heaps, and fields whence the magic had departed. I have spoken ofsystems of thoroughfare, and I assure you that, walking alone through thesesilent places, I felt phantasy growing on me, and some glamour of the infinite.There was here. I felt, an immensity as in the outer void, of the universe. Ipassed from unknown to unknown, my way marked by lamps like stars, and oneither band was an unknown world where myriads of men dwelt and slept, streetleading into street, as it seemed to world's end. At first the road by which Iwas travelling was lined with houses of unutterable monotony,—a wall of graybrick pierced by two stories of windows, drawn close to the very pavement. Butby degrees I noticed an improvement: there were gardens, and these grew larger.The suburban builder began to allow himself a wider scope; and for a certaindistance each flight of steps was guarded by twin lions of plaster, and scentsof flowers prevailed over the fume of heated bricks. The road began to climb ahill, and, looking up a side street, I saw the half moon rise over plane-trees,and there on the other side was as if a white cloud had fallen, and the airaround it was sweetened as with incense; it was a may-tree in full bloom.
And from the "Iron Maid" may be salvaged this:
One night we conversed so eagerly together over our pipesand whiskey that the clock passed unnoticed, and when I glanced up I realizedwith a shock that I had just five minutes in which to catch the last tram. Imade a dash for my hat and stick, and jumped out of the house and down thesteps, and tore at full speed up the street. It was no good, however; there wasa shriek of the engine whistle, and I stood there at the station door and sawfar on the long dark line of the embankment a red light shine and vanish, and aporter came down and shut the door with a bang.
"How far to London?" I asked him.
"A good nine miles to Waterloo Bridge;" andwith that he went off.
Before me was the long suburban street, its drearydistance marked by rows of twinkling lamps, and the air was poisoned by thefaint sickly smell of burning bricks; it was not a cheerful prospect by anymeans, and I had to walk through nine miles of such streets, deserted as thoseof Pompeii. I knew pretty well what direction to take; so I set out wearily,looking at the stretch of lamps vanishing in perspective; and as I walked,street after street branched off to right and left,—some far reaching todistances that seemed endless, communicating with, other systems ofthoroughfare; and some mere protoplasmic streets, beginning in orderly fashionwith serried two-storied houses, and ending suddenly in waste, and pits, andrubbish heaps, and fields whence the magic had departed. I have spoken ofsystems of thoroughfare, and I assure you that, walking alone through thesesilent places, I felt phantasy growing on me, and some glamour of the infinite.There was here. I felt, an immensity as in the outer void, of the universe. Ipassed from unknown to unknown, my way marked by lamps like stars, and oneither band was an unknown world where myriads of men dwelt and slept, streetleading into street, as it seemed to world's end. At first the road by which Iwas travelling was lined with houses of unutterable monotony,—a wall of graybrick pierced by two stories of windows, drawn close to the very pavement. Butby degrees I noticed an improvement: there were gardens, and these grew larger.The suburban builder began to allow himself a wider scope; and for a certaindistance each flight of steps was guarded by twin lions of plaster, and scentsof flowers prevailed over the fume of heated bricks. The road began to climb ahill, and, looking up a side street, I saw the half moon rise over plane-trees,and there on the other side was as if a white cloud had fallen, and the airaround it was sweetened as with incense; it was a may-tree in full bloom.
