I have found Dion Fortune's occult novels worth reading more for the occasional neat summaries and thought-provoking, commentary-inspiring remarks than for the plots and people and elements such as robes and rituals, magic and mystery, temples and ceremonies and the Old Gods.
The quotations in this article come from The Goat-foot God (1936), in which there are descriptions of both occult and everyday activities. The contrast can be very amusing: people invoke the god Pan and fry sausages for example!
Some spot-on comments
“An empty mind's as uncomfortable as an empty stomach.”
Some people's unsatisfied hunger for knowledge, for food for their minds, does indeed make them very unhappy. The article about the 'eat or buy books' dilemma is relevant here.
“You don’t know what you do want, but you do know what you don’t want.”
This is exactly how many dissatisfied people feel, and not just when they have not got the right people to interact or share their lives with: it could apply to someone who is trying to find suitable work or the right place to live for example. They don't know what they want because they have never seen or experienced it, but they do know that whatever is currently available to them is not what they want.
The Goat-foot God describes how it feels when someone starts to get an idea of what it is that they have been wanting all this time:
“Doing your best to carry on on wrong lines till you feel you will burst, and then suddenly getting the clue that opens everything out to you.“
I know from experience how liberating it is when the answer finally comes and an escape route from a life that is all wrong opens up: “That's it! That's what I'll do! That's what I want!”
The essentials of real comfort
The Goat-foot God contains descriptions of a ramshackle home that does not look very attractive but provides what I consider to be the basic elements of a good domestic life.
In Dion Fortune's words:
“The general shabbiness and dilapidation counted for nothing. The old bookseller had got the essentials of real comfort.”
The old bookseller's living area is dingy but cosy. An oil lamp provides a gentle light and a coal fire with hobs for keeping the tea hot warms the room. There are huge piles of books everywhere.
The bookseller and his friend make toast on the fire and drink innumerable cups of strong tea. They also eat many tasty traditional English meals. They sit around in shabby old dressing gowns and talk about books.
This sounds almost idyllic! Some people would not ask for anything more.
The above quotation reminds me of something that I once read in a very different book.
Stella Gibbons had similar views about what the essentials of real comfort are, and she too liked to make pronouncements about life. She says this about primary comforts in The Matchmaker (1949):
“...that love of pleasure...suddenly, delightfully awoke in him, in spite of the uncouth surroundings and the shabby table appointments. (The poor man did not realise that he was surrounded by the true luxury—beautiful light, flowers, fragrant scents, simple but delicious food—which appeals instantly to the senses and does not rely upon such secondary comforts as stainless steel or draught-proof walls...)”
True luxury for me includes a large supply of good-quality reading material, but books are not mentioned here as Stella Gibbons is describing a harvest supper!
