THE BOWMEN -
An Introduction
page 1
by Arthur Machen
Machen wrote this introduction in 1915 when the story was first
published in book form
 I HAVE been asked to write an introduction to the story of
THE BOWMEN, on its publication
in book form. And I hesitate. This affair of THE BOWMEN has been such an odd one from first to last, so many
queer complications have entered into it, there have been so many and so divers
currents and cross-currents of rumour and speculation concerning it, that I
honestly do not know where to begin. I propose, then, to solve the difficulty by
apologising for beginning at all.
For, usually and fitly, the presence of an introduction is held
to imply that there is something of consequence and importance to be introduced.
If, for example, a man has made an anthology of great poetry, he may well write
an introduction justifying his principle of selection, pointing out here and
there, as the spirit moves him, high beauties and supreme excellencies,
discoursing of the magnates and lords and princes of literature, whom he is
merely serving as groom of the chamber. Introductions, that is, belong to the
masterpieces and classics of the world, to the great and ancient and accepted
things; and I am here introducing a short, small story of my own which appeared
in THE EVENING NEWS about ten months ago (September 1914).
I appreciate the absurdity, nay, the enormity of the position in
all its grossness. And my excuse for these pages must be this: that though the
story itself is nothing, it has yet had such odd and unforeseen consequences and
adventures that the tale of them may possess some interest. And then, again,
there are certain psychological morals to be drawn from the whole matter of the
tale and its sequel of rumours and discussions that are not, I think, devoid of
consequence; and so to begin at the beginning.
This was in last August, to be more precise, on the last Sunday
of last August. There were terrible things to be read on that hot Sunday morning
between meat and mass. It was in THE WEEKLY DISPATCH that I saw the awful
account of the retreat from Mons. I no longer recollect the details; but I have
not forgotten the impression that was then on my mind, I seemed to see a furnace
of torment and death and agony and terror seven times heated, and in the midst
of the burning was the British Army. In the midst of the flame, consumed by it
and yet aureoled in it, scattered like ashes and yet triumphant, martyred and
for ever glorious. So I saw our men with a shining about them, so I took these
thoughts with me to church, and, I am sorry to say, was making up a story in my
head while the deacon was singing the Gospel.
This was not the tale of THE BOWMEN. It was the first sketch, as it were, of
THE SOLDIERS' REST. I
only wish I had been able to write it as I conceived it. The tale as it stands
is, I think, a far better piece of craft than THE
BOWMEN, but the tale that came to me as the blue incense
floated above the Gospel Book on the desk between the tapers: that indeed was a
noble story--like all the stories that never get written. I conceived the dead
men coming up through the flames and in the flames, and being welcomed in the
Eternal Tavern with songs and flowing cups and everlasting mirth. But every man
is the child of his age, however much he may hate it; and our popular religion
has long determined that jollity is wicked. As far as I can make out modern
Protestantism believes that Heaven is something like Evensong in an English
cathedral, the service by Stainer and the Dean preaching. For those opposed to
dogma of any kind--even the mildest--I suppose it is held that a Course of
Ethical Lectures will be arranged.
Well, I have long maintained that on the whole the average
church, considered as a house of preaching, is a much more poisonous place than
the average tavern; still, as I say, one's age masters one, and clouds and
bewilders the intelligence, and the real story of THE
BOWMEN, with its "sonus epulantium in ęterno convivio",
was ruined at the moment of its birth, and it was some time later that the
actual story got written. And in the meantime the plot of THE BOWMEN occurred to me. Now it has been
murmured and hinted and suggested and whispered in all sorts of quarters that
before I wrote the tale I had heard something. The most decorative of these
legends is also the most precise: "I know for a fact that the whole thing was
given him in typescript by a lady-in-waiting." This was not the case; and all
vaguer reports to the effect that I had heard some rumours or hints of rumours
are equally void of any trace of truth.
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