I don't imagine this will interest many people, but I happened across it recently and could think of no better place to make it known than here.
At the end of the celebrated Introduction to Arthur Machen's "Bowmen and Other Legends of the War" there occurs a strange allusion to some people called the "Cocoa Prophets." I reproduce the relevant paragraph here:
>But, taking the affair as it stands at present, how is it that a nation plunged in materialism of the grossest kind has accepted idle rumours and gossip of the supernatural as certain truth? The answer is contained in the question: it is precisely because our whole atmosphere is materialist that we are ready to credit anything—save the truth. Separate a man from good drink, he will swallow methylated spirit with joy. Man is created to be inebriated; to be "nobly wild, not mad." Suffer the Cocoa Prophets and their company to seduce him in body and spirit, and he will get himself stuff that will make him ignobly wild and mad indeed. It took hard, practical men of affairs, business men, advanced thinkers, Freethinkers, to believe in Madame Blavatsky and Mahatmas and the famous message from the Golden Shore: "Judge's plan is right; follow him and stick."
The first time I read this passage I was puzzled by it, but ultimately I wrote off "Cocoa Prophets" as just an unusually strange insult and put the matter out of my mind. But as I was rereading the Introduction today it struck me that the line about "methylated spirit" sounded familiar, that I must have read it somewhere else before; and indeed, it turns out to have originated in G. K. Chesterton's biography of William Blake, published in 1910, five years before Machen's book. Here is the relevant passage:
>I have often been haunted with a fancy that the creeds of men might be paralleled and represented in their beverages. Wine might stand for genuine Catholicism and ale for genuine Protestantism; for these at least are real religions with comfort and strength in them. Clean cold Agnosticism would be clean cold water, an excellent thing, if you can get it. Most modern ethical and idealistic movements might be well represented by soda-water—which is a fuss about nothing. Mr Bernard Shaw's philosophy is exactly like black coffee—it awakens but it does not really inspire. Modern hygienic materialism is very like cocoa; it would be impossible to express one's contempt for it in stronger terms than that. Sometimes, very rarely, one may come across so
... keep reading on reddit ➡Before the Roman came to Rye or out to Severn strode,
The rolling English drunkard made the rolling English road.
A reeling road, a rolling road, that rambles round the shire,
And after him the parson ran, the sexton and the squire;
A merry road, a mazy road, and such as we did tread
The night we went to Birmingham by way of Beachy Head.
I knew no harm of Bonaparte and plenty of the Squire,
And for to fight the Frenchman I did not much desire;
But I did bash their baggonets because they came arrayed
To straighten out the crooked road an English drunkard made,
Where you and I went down the lane with ale-mugs in our hands,
The night we went to Glastonbury by way of Goodwin Sands.
His sins they were forgiven him; or why do flowers run
Behind him; and the hedges all strengthening in the sun?
The wild thing went from left to right and knew not which was which,
But the wild rose was above him when they found him in the ditch.
God pardon us, nor harden us; we did not see so clear
The night we went to Bannockburn by way of Brighton Pier.
My friends, we will not go again or ape an ancient rage,
Or stretch the folly of our youth to be the shame of age,
But walk with clearer eyes and ears this path that wandereth,
And see undrugged in evening light the decent inn of death;
For there is good news yet to hear and fine things to be seen,
Before we go to Paradise by way of Kensal Green.
From New Witness, 1913
I've always had a unique love for cards of any form since childhood, be it sending them handmade to loved ones afar or near, or still treasuring all of the letters and cards I've received in return. I've held onto a habit of including a few postcards or greeting cards to all my Christmas packages every year and when I do so, I've wondered if anyone still appreciates cards or handwritten letters, or adore them like I do. I was under the impression they were looked upon as outdated and a bit cheesy even, until I found there are tons of people who still love cards like everyone here in this sub.
It was very lovely to read through each & every note, and fascinating to learn about people, their varied experiences, how the days went, random facts, and the personal messages plus random ones. Thank you to each one of you for sending these out with such adorable efforts. They all brought a huge smile onto my face and they will all be treasured well. Had a lot of thoughts pass through as I read every one of them but I'll try to keep them short.
The highlight for me were the really cool and super pretty stamps on each mail. They were all beautiful ones. I collected stamps about 15 years ago, but dropped the hobby in later years, so it brought back a lot of nostalgia and the reasons I appreciated them a lot then. I enjoyed all the stickers and the decorations very much!
Quite some mails have reached the location within a week or two of posting and the rest have taken pretty long. But the delivery has apparently taken time, so apologies if the thank you has been delayed because of it. Surprisingly a few have even made it without complete details. I'm very glad they did make it eventually. :)
Once again, thank you to all of you who brought in some delightful mail cheer to me. Wishing you all crazy good days ahead! ♡
(Alphabetized for ease of reading.)
u/amad9705g | u/AppleCritter723 (×2) | u/austsianodel | u/baredoim (×2) | u/brifrischu | u/bluehairedqueer | u/CapnCobbler | u/catnatomy | u/ColorlessMurakami | u/ContessaLolaMontez (×3) | u/C0vidi0t19 | u/Daisy_787 | u/elmerek | u/FollowingTheBeat (×3) | u/germymany (×2) | u/invasivezim | u/Internet_Creep_SM (×10) | u/Intrepid_Researcher (×2) | u/isitlightagain | u/JschexxyOG | u/LaCuntessa (×5) | u/Maxmax09 | u/Mikepenpal6 | u/Nohumidity | u/ordinaryclover (×8)
"The rich did literally turn the poor out of the old guest house on to the road, briefly telling him that it was the road of progress. They did literally force them into factories and the modern wage-slavery, assuring them all the time that this was the only way to wealth and civilization.
Just as they had dragged the rustic from the convent food and ale by saying that the streets of heaven were paved with gold, so now they dragged him from the village food and ale by telling him that the streets of London were paved with gold.
As he entered the gloomy porch of Puritanism, so he entered the gloomy porch of Industrialism, being told that each of them was the gate of the future. Hitherto he has only gone from prison to prison, nay into darkening prisons, for Calvinism opened one small window upon heaven. And now he is asked, in the same educated and authoritative tones, to enter another dark porch, at which he has to surrender, into unseen hands, his children, his small possessions and all the habits of his fathers.”
-G.K. Chesterton
