the student were all fictions of my own brain!_

_"The Great God Pan" and "The Inmost Light" are tales of an earlier
date, going back to 1890, '91, '92. I have written a good deal about
them in "Far Off Things," and in a preface to an edition of "The Great
God Pan," published by Messrs. Simpkin, Marshall in 1916, I have
described at length the origins of the book. But I must quote anew some
extracts from the reviews which welcomed "The Great God Pan" to my
extraordinary entertainment, hilarity and refreshment. Here are a few of
the best:_

_"It is not Mr. Machen's fault but his misfortune, that one shakes with
laughter rather than with dread over the contemplation of his
psychological bogey."--Observer._

_"His horror, we regret to say, leaves us quite cold ... and our flesh
obstinately refuses to creep."--Chronicle._

_"His bogies don't scare."--Sketch._

_"We are afraid he only succeeds in being ridiculous."--Manchester
Guardian._

_"Gruesome, ghastly and dull."--Lady's Pictorial._

_"Incoherent nightmare of sex ... which would soon lead to insanity if
unrestrained ... innocuous from its absurdity."--Westminster Gazette._

_And so on, and so on. Several papers, I remember, declared that "The
Great God Pan" was simply a stupid and incompetent rehash of Huysmans'
"La-Bas" and "A Rebours." I had not read these books so I got them both.
Thereon, I perceived that my critics had not read them either._

A Fragment of Life

I

Edward Darnell awoke from a dream of an ancient wood, and of a clear
well rising into grey film and vapour beneath a misty, glimmering heat;
and as his eyes opened he saw the sunlight bright in the room, sparkling
on the varnish of the new furniture. He turned and found his wife's
place vacant, and with some confusion and wonder of the dream still
lingering in his mind, he rose also, and began hurriedly to set about
his dressing, for he had overslept a little, and the 'bus passed the
corner at 9.15. He was a tall, thin man, dark-haired and dark-eyed, and
in spite of the routine of the City, the counting of coupons, and all
the mechanical drudgery that had lasted for ten years, there still
remained about him the curious hint of a wild grace, as if he had been
born a creature of the antique wood, and had seen the fountain rising
from the green moss and the grey rocks.

The breakfast was laid in the room on the ground floor, the back room
with the French windows looking on the garde