The White People

[Richard Romeo]

Just read a rather interesting short story by the reknowned occultist, 
Arthur Machen, called _The White People_. (1906) 
(http://www.mtroyal.ab.ca/programs/arts/english/gaslight/whtpeopl.htm)

Kinda of an interesting melding of Vheissu-like horror (the middle section 
includes the wanderings of a girl thru a strange place called "Voor") and 
philosophical speculations on the nature of a Blicero-like evil.

examples:
"SORCERY and sanctity," said Ambrose, "these are the only realities. Each is 
an ecstasy, a withdrawal from the common life."

"Exactly. Holiness requires as great, or almost as great, an effort; but 
holiness works on lines that were natural once; it is an
effort to recover the ecstasy that was before the Fall. But sin is an effort 
to gain the ecstasy and the knowledge that pertain alone
to angels and in making this effort man becomes a demon. I told you that the 
mere murderer is not therefore a sinner; that is true,
but the sinner is sometimes a murderer. Gilles de Raiz is an instance. So 
you see that while the good and the evil are unnatural to
man as he now is--to man the social, civilized being--evil is unnatural in a 
much deeper sense than good. The saint endeavours to
recover a gift which he has lost; the sinner tries to obtain something which 
was never his. In brief, he repeats the Fall."

rich


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