Harlesden is a place, one of the “out-quarters” of London, even past the suburbs.
To prove his case, he tells Salisbury about the Harlesden case.
THE INMOST LIGHT TATTOO FULL
(At this point in his life, Machen was also able to devote himself full time to writing because of an inheritance he received.)Īfter hearing from Dyson about his love of London’s mysteries and how the city needs its own Homer (a role Machen, with his love of the Illiad, may have seen for himself), Salisbury declares Dyson’s imagination about London “too fervid”. Since their last meeting, Dyson fell on hard times as a writer until he inherited some money. The story opens, as many early Machen stories do, with some random wanderings about London, and Dyson meeting his old friend Salisbury again after five years. The story is told, like Machen’s “ The Great God Pan”, episodically, but the story relies more on coincidence than a network of personal acquaintances. It’s also the only Machen story I would describe, after reading more than two-thirds of his fiction, as genuinely, viscerally horrifying. The great city the physiology of London literally and metaphysically the greatest subject that the mind of man can conceive. He is not a student of the occult like Algernon Blackwood’s John Silence nor does Dyson claim psychic sensitivity.ĭyson calls himself a “man of science”, and his science (like many a Machen protagonist) is However, he uses no apparatus like William Hope Hodgson’s Carnacki does with his electric pentacle. It’s also his first story with Dyson, a character in four Machen works who has sometimes been called an occult detective. Machen has turned has his back for good on writing society tales. Written in 1892, there are several notable things about this story.
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