cultus aeternus

''my knowledge of the thing began in the winter of 1926-27 with the death of my grand-uncle george gammell angell, professor emeritus of semetic languages in brown university, providence, rhode island. ... locally, interest was intensified by the obscurity of the cause of death. the professor had been stricken whilst returning from the new-port boat; falling suddenly, as witnesses said, after having been jostled by a nautical-looking negro who had come from one of the queer dark courts on the precipitous hillside which formed a short cut from the waterfront to the deceased's home in williams street, ...

''as my grand-uncles heir and executor, for he died a childless widower, i was expected to go over his papers with some thoroughness; and for that purpose moved his entire set of files and boxes to my quarters in boston , ... but there was one box i found exceedingly puzzling, and which i felt averse from shewing to other eyes. for what could be the meaning of the queer clay bas-relief and the disjointed jottings, ramblings, and writings which i found? ... the bas-relief was a rough rectangle less than an inch thick and about five by six inches in area; obviously of modern origins. ... it seemed to be a sort of monster, or symbol representing a monster, of a form only a diseased fancy could conceive. ... the writing accompanying this oddity was, aside from a stack of press cuttings, in professor angell's most recent hand; and made no pretence to literary style. what seemed to be the main document was headed "cthulhu cult" in characters painstakingly printed to avoid the erroneous reading of a word so unheard-of. ...

''the matter of the cult still remained to facinate me, and at times i had visions of personal fame from researches into the origins and connexions ... for i felt sure that i was on the track of a very real, very secret, and very ancient religion whose discovery would make me an anthropologist of note. ... one thing i began to suspect, and which i now fear i know, is that my uncle's death was far from natural. ... i think professor angell died because he knew too much, or because he was likely to learn too much, whether i shall go as he did remains to be seen, for i have learned much now. ...

''if heaven ever wishes to grant me a boon, it will be a total effacing of the results of a mere chance which fixed my eyes on a certain stray piece of shelf-paper. ... i had largely given over my inquiries into what professor angell called the "cthulhu cult", and was visiting a learned friend in paterson, new jersey; the curator of a local museum and a mineralogist of note. examining one day the reserve specimens roughly set on the storage shelves in a rear room of the museum, my eye was caught by an odd picture in one of the old papers spread beneath the stones. ... the picture was a half-tone cut of a hideous stone image. ...

''eagerly clearing the sheet of its precious contents, i scanned the item in detail; and i carefully tore it out for immediate action. it read as follows. [mystery derelict found at sea vigilant arrives with helpless armed new zealand yacht in tow. one survivor and dead man found aboard. tale of desperate battle and death at sea. rescued seaman refuses particulars of strange experiance. odd idol found in his possesion inquiry to follow.]

''here were new treasuries of data on the cthulhu cult, ... what was the unknown island on which six of the emma's crew had died, and about which the mate johansen was so secretive? ... i was now resolved to visit mate johansen in oslo ... i made the brief trip by taxicab, and knocked with palpitant heart at the door of a neat and ancient building with plastered front, a sad faced woman in black answered my summons, and i was stung with disappointment when she told me in halting english that gustaf johansen was no more. he had not survived his return, said his wife, for the doings at sea in 1925 had broken him. ... during a walk through a narrow lane near the gothenburg docks, a bundle of papers falling from an attic window had knocked him down. ...

''i now felt gnawing at my vitals that dark terror which will never leave me till i too am at rest; "accidentally" or otherwise. ... but i do not think my life will be long. as my uncle went, as poor johansen went, so i shall go, i know too much, and the cult still lives.''

h.p.lovecraft, the call of cthulhu.

reflecting on fragments

''naturally we cannot expect all weird tales to conform absolutely to any theoretical model. creative minds are uneven and the best of fabrics have their dull spots... moreover, much of the choicest weird work is unconcious; appearing in memorable fragments scattered through material whose massed effect may be of a very different cast... therefore we must judge a weird tale... by the emotional level which it attains at its least mundane point... if the proper sensations are excited, such a "high spot" must be admited on its own merits as weird literature,''

h.p.lovecraft, super natural horror in literature.


''the spring day had started slowly as i had come to paris by train from london. the carriages had meandered through southern england, as if to give the passengers time to appreciate the picture postcard views of kent, before speeding through the featureless landscapes of northern france, impatient for the graceful architecture of paris, among which is one of the most remarkable perspectives in europe.

''from the midpoint of the arch de triomphe the line of sight along the champs elysees leads first to the obelisk at the centre of the place de la concorde and then runs the length of the tuileries gardens to the open arms of the louvre. where this line passes through the tuileries it has been used like a mirror with such draughtman's like precision the two halves of the garden are perfect reflections of one another. ...

''the entrance to the tuileries holds sinister statues of philosophers, gods, and dead frenchmen in its embrace; to your left and to your right the guardians stand in perfect symmetry. ... to every statue on one side there is a statue on the other, to every tree a tree, to every flower garden on the north side there is another planted at the same distance to the south. a water fountain sprays from the mouth of a nymph who is gazing soulfully at its clone, forever seperated by twice the distance to the centre line of the park.

''and so it went on until i saw the headless devil twenty metres down a side path. i knew that behind me, as yet unseen, would be a mirror image of this path that would lead to a correspondingly positioned plinth and fiendish statue. i half expected that this too would be broken, so preserving the symmetry of the park, but when i turned and looked i saw that its diabolic twin grinned from its plinth as it had done since the creation. in the entire garden the designer symmetry was perfect with the sole exception of the headless lucifer.''

frank close, lucifer's legacy.

wilburmas

''it was in the township of dunwich, in a large and partly inhabited farm house set against a hillside four miles from the village and a mile and a half from any other dwelling, that wilbur whately was born at 5am on sunday, the second of febuary, 1913. this date was recalled because it was candlemas, which people in dunwich curiously observe under another name; and because the noises in the hills had sounded, and all the dogs of the country side had barked persistently, throughout the night before. ...

''there was a hideous screaming which echoed above even the hill noises and the dogs' barking on the night wilbur was born, but no known doctor or midwife presided at his coming. neighbors knew nothing of him till a week afterward, when old whateley drove his sleigh through the snow into dunwich village and discoursed incoherantly to the group of loungers at osborn's general store. ... "i dun't keer what folks think--ef lavinny's boy looked like his pa, he wouldn't look like nuthin' ye expeck. ye needn't think the only folks is the folks here abouts ... let me tell ye suthin'--some day yew folks'll hear a child o' lavinny's a-callin its faher's name on the top o' sentinel hill!"

''the only persons who saw wilbur during the first month of his life were old zechariah whately, of the undecayed whateleys' and earl sawyers common-law wife, mammie bishop. mammie's visit was frankly one of curiosity, and her subsequent tales did justice to her observations; ... public interest in the whateleys subsided after most of the country folk had seen the baby, and no one bothered to comment on the swift development which the newcomer seemed everyday to exhibit ... his motiions and even his vocal sounds showed a restraint and deliberateness highly peculiar in an infant, and no one was really unprepared when, at seven months he began to walk unassisted, whith falterings which another month was sufficient to remove...

''the next january gossips were mildly interested in the fact that "lavviny's black brat" had commenced to talk, and at the age of only eleven months ... his facial aspect, too, was remarkable for its maturity; for though he shared his mother's and grandfather's chinlessness, his firm and precociously shaped nose united with the expression of his large, dark, almost latin eyes to give him an air of quasi-adulthood and well nigh preternatural intelligence. he was, however, excedingly ugly despite his appearance of brilliancy, ... he was soon disliked even more decidedly than his mother and grandsire, ... dogs abhorred the boy, and he was always obliged to take various defensive measures against their barking menace ...

''when wilbur was a year and seven months old--in september of 1914--his size and accomplishments were almost alarming. he had grown as large as a child of four, and was a fluent and incredibly intelligent talker ... at home he would pore diligently over the queer pictures and charts in his grandfather's books, while old whateley would instruct and catachise him through long, hushed afternoons ... wilbur was growing up uncannily, so that he looked like a boy of ten as he entered his fourth year. he read avidly by himself now; but talked much less than formerly ... the aversion displayed toward him by dogs had now become a matter of wide remark, and he was obliged to carry a pistol in order to traverse the countryside in safety. his occasional use of the weapon did not enhance his popularity amongst the owners of canine guardians ...

''it had for some time been noticed that dogs had begun to hate and fear the whole whately place as violently as they hated and feared young wilbur personally ... about 1923, when wilbur was a boy of ten whose mind, voice, stature, and bearded face gave all the impressions of maturity, ... wilbur was by this time a scholar of really tremendous erudition in his one-sided way, and was quietly known by correspondence to many librarians in distant places where rare and forbidden books of old days are kept . he was more and more hated and dreaded around dunwich because of certain youthful disappearances which suspicion laid vaguely at his door, ... he was now tremendously mature of aspect, and his height, having reached the normal adult limit, seemed inclined to wax beyond that figure ... his height had increased to more than seven feet, and shewed no signs of ceasing its development.

''the following winter brought an event no less strange than wilbur's first trip outside the dunwich region ... almost eight feet tall and carrying a cheap new valise from osborn's general store, this dark and goatish gargoyle appeared one day in arkham ... he had never seen a city before, but had no thought save to find his way to the university grounds; where, indeed, he passed heedlessly by the great white-fanged watchdog that barked with unnatural fury and enmity, and tugged frantically at it stout chain ... deep and terrible the snarling, half-mad growls and barks continued; always in mounting volume, but with hideously significant pauses. then there rang out a scream from a wholly different throat--a scream as roused half the sleepers of arkham and haunted their dreams ever afterward.''

h.p.lovecraft, the dunwich horror.