Beef and Beer

Introduction

With gusto, Arthur Machen enjoyed a good argument. In his “Introduction” to Precious Balms (1924), he wrote, “Opposition … is one the chiefest zests and relishes of life . . .” Therefore, he certainly didn’t mind an argument being waged publicly and he refused to ever back down. This is evident in the following series of exchanges in response to his “I Believe in Beef and Beer” article.

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Beef and Beer
Criticisms of Mr. Machen and His Reply
by
Arthur Machen
May 13, 1916

Mr. Arthur Machen’s article, “I Believe in Beef and Beer,” which appeared in “The Evening News” on Thursday, has brought a lively and interesting correspondence. We print below a selection from the letters received, with Mr. Machen’s comments thereon.

From Worthing, Mr. Charles W. Forward writes:—

It seems charitable to assume that Mr. Arthur Machen intended to follow the example of Artemus Ward and inform his readers that his article was “writ sarcastik.”

If the conduct of the war by the Germans is the result of beef-eating—as perhaps it may be—I should think we ought all to turn vegetarians to-morrow. Even East Prussian cup, of which Mr. Machen is good enough to furnish the recipe, would not have made Hindenburg victorious but for his superiority in artillery and troops.

Has Mr. Machen forgotten our brave Hindoo troops, who are not consumers of beef and beer? And our Allies, the French, whose “delicacy” in food drink led to their defeat a century ago? Have the “most terrific drinkers of beer,” who “eat meat all day,” anything to boast of at Verdun?

I cannot recall any “chine-fed” maid-of-honour who contributed to our “drama and lyrical poetry” in the Elizabethan age, but do remember that Shelley, no mean lyrical poet, was a vegetarian.

If Mr. Machen cannot eat porridge, it has sustained a good many intellectual Scotsmen, and not a few tough Scottish fighters also.

For these and other reasons I cannot help thinking Mr. Machen is playing a practical joke upon us all. Were it otherwise, I should remind him of what Sir Andrew Aguecheek said on the subject:—“I am a great eater of beef, and I believe that does harm to my wits.”

Personally, I have abstained from butcher’s meat for thirty-five years, and am better in every way for so doing. I write because I fear some of your readers will take Mr. Machen au serieux.

Arthur Machen’s reply:—

Mr. Forward is mistaken: the “Beef and Beer” article was quite seriously written. I repeat that the Germans, a race of great eaters and drinkers, have so far fought successfully against tremendous odds.

It was not superiority in artillery and troops that gave von Hindenburg the victory in Tannenburg, but superiority in strategy, in “gumption,” in plain common-sense, which, as I demonstrated in my article, are the natural results of sound regimen in meat and drink.

I did not say that any “chine-fed maid of honour” contributed to English literature in the Elizabethan age. The argument is thus: if a maid of honour, a woman ate such a breakfast, what sort of breakfast did a poet, a man, eat? If the maid drunk a quart, the man probably drank a gallon.

Shelley is the only vegetarian on the roll of the great poets.

Sir Andrew Aguecheek was a fool; there is no reason to suppose that he ever had any wits to harm. His remark is merely evidence of his idiocy.

As to porridge, I was pointing out idiosyncrasies in diet. I did not say that porridge was bad food; but that I disliked it, and therefore that it was not good for me.

. . .

Lieut.-Commander H. M. Fraser, writing from Chelsea, says:—

Mr. Machen is a very distinguished and a very charming writer. And there is in the English character a tendency to accord to super-eminence, in any one particular field of activity, a sort of blank cheque of attention and consideration in all others.

So, even if Mr. Machen is only in fun, yet he is able to express the most dreadful dietetic heresies, and be acclaimed as a prophet, not only by the many who are eager to justify, not so much to others as to themselves, those hideous and semi-cannibalistic ceremonies which they call meals; but also by the few in whose pallets the dawn of a new, sane, and beautiful gastronomic millennium might just have been on the verge of breaking.

These poor souls, alas, have thus perhaps been cunningly seduced from an aesthetic and dietetic salvation, and flung callously back among the greasy flesh-pots of Egypt. And all by the witchery of a pen.

For when we come to examine Mr. Machen’s arguments, we find that they rest on the assumption that, for example, the mental and material superiority of the West over the East (supposing it to be so) is due, not to character, but to diet.

Whereas, on the contrary, diet, to be efficient, must suit the character. Thus, canary seed will not make a horse whistle, but, on the contrary, probably sick. Nor will oatmeal turn an Englishman into a Scotsman, though it will probably give him some of the latter’s stamina. Oatmeal, not porridge, that horrible modern travesty of the old-time brose.

Perhaps the German diet suits the German character, but I should never have thought of that as an argument in favour the diet.

Arthur Machen’s reply:—

To Lieutenant-Commander H. M. Fraser I would say, in spite of his kindly compliments, that my argument relies not on written rhetoric, but on the hard facts of the case.

All the good work of the world has been done by eaters of meat and by drinkers of strong drink. All the best thought of the world has come from a like source.

Socrates, in the “Symposium,” drinks his disciples under the table. Tennyson loved his pint of port, and was once heard to murmur as he went into dinner, “Well, after all, there is some good in being poet laureate. He gets the liver wing of the chicken.”

Roughly speaking, the teetotallers and the vegetarians have won no battle, built no bridges, painted no pictures, written no poems, indited no romances. Their doctrine and practice derive from a certain horrible heresy called Manicheaism, the teaching of which heresy may be condensed into the phrase: “The earth is the Devil’s and the fullness thereof.”

As to the suggested connection between a meat diet and ferocity, Lieutenant-Commander Fraser will remember that the vegetarian East is not exactly renowned for its humanity.

. . .

“Moro” writes: The plat du jour, referred to in the concluding paragraph of the article by Arthur Machen, must be of so much interest to many readers that I suggest he give the public the method of assembling and cooking it.

Arthur Machen’s reply:—

I am sorry that I have not got the recipe for the stew of the Jolly Sandboys.*

. . .

*Editor’s Note:

From The Old Curiosity Shop, Ch 18:

“Mr Codlin sat smiling in the chimney-corner, eyeing the landlord as with a roguish look, he held the cover in his hand, and, feigning that his doing so was needful to the welfare of the cookery, suffered the delightful steam to tickle the nostrils of his guest. The glow of the fire was upon the landlord’s bald head, and upon his twinkling eye, and upon his watering mouth, and upon his pimpled face, and upon his round fat figure. Mr Codlin drew his sleeve across his lips, and said in a murmuring voice, ‘What is it?’

‘It’s a stew of tripe,’ said the landlord smacking his lips, ‘and cow-heel,’ smacking them again, ‘and bacon,’ smacking them once more, ‘and steak,’ smacking them for the fourth time, ‘and peas, cauliflowers, new potatoes, and sparrow-grass, all working up together in one delicious gravy.’ Having come to the climax, he smacked his lips a great many times, and taking a long hearty sniff of the fragrance that was hovering about, put on the cover again with the air of one whose toils on earth were over.”

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Introduction and supplementary material: Copyright 2026 by Christopher Tompkins. All Rights Reserved.