The Secret Glory - Arthur Machen - Bog

Was Ambrose Meyrick insane or born in the wrong millennium?

A Welsh orphan, he went to live with his uncle at a public school in the industrialized midlands, where he was seen as a lazy, idle, unrealistic and impractical dreamer. So he was caned by the teachers, bullied by his classmates, and bored by his classes.

His father, before his death, had developed an enthusiasm in him for antiquities, especially the ancient Celtic branch of Christianity, taking him to desolate places in Wales, to the remnants of saint's wells and ruins of ancient buildings and holy sites, telling him stories of them and the saints and heroes of an almost forgotten era. But his father told him to conceal his interests from the world, which would not understand.

Ambrose found out the hard way that his father had been right, and that he had to hide this fascination in order to conform to the expectations of his classmates and teachers. After all, they would never believe that he had seen the Holy Grail. And the school and its teachers had no interest in developing a mystic.

He became a model student and athlete, and got admitted to Oxford. Meanwhile, at night he meditated and had dreams and visions. His uncle's young Irish maid, also an orphan, developed an interest in him, although she had doubts about his sanity. A couple of chance encounters with strangers suggested that he has a destiny of being an unappreciated outsider and a martyr.

He eventually rebelled against the hypocrisy around him, but then discovered that he, too, had been a hypocrite, and must change himself.