keep calm--call up

But oddly enough, the worthy gentleman owned himself most impalpably disquieted by a mere minor detail. On the huge mahogany table there lay face downward a badly worn copy of Borellus, bearing many cryptical marginalia and interlineations in Curwen’s hand. The book was open at about its middle, and one paragraph displayed such thick and tremulous pen-strokes beneath the lines of mystic black-letter that the visitor could not resist scanning it through. Whether it was the nature of the passage underscored, or the feverish heaviness of the strokes which formed the underscoring, he could not tell; but something in that combination affected him very badly and very peculiarly. He recalled it to the end of his days, writing it down from memory in his diary and once trying to recite it to his close friend Dr. Checkley till he saw how greatly it disturbed the urbane rector. It read:

“The essential Saltes of Animals may be so prepared and preserved, that an ingenious Man may have the whole Ark of Noah in his own Studie, and raise the fine Shape of an Animal out of its Ashes at his Pleasure; and by the lyke Method from the essential Saltes of humane Dust, a Philosopher may, without any criminal Necromancy, call up the Shape of any dead Ancestour from the Dust whereinto his Bodie has been incinerated.”

keep calm the entire text of h.p.lovecrafts "the case of charles dexter ward" can be read online at the lovecraft archive.

Posted with Blogsy

robert bloch--shadow from the steeple

" the doctor proceeded down the hall to the rear exit and emerged upon the moonlit splendour of the garden behind the house on benefit street.
the radiant vista was walled off from the world, utterly deserted. the dark man stood in the moonlight, and its glow mingled with his own aura.
at this moment two silken shadows leaped over the wall. they crouched in the coolness of the garden, then slithered forward toward dr. dexter. they made panting sounds.
in the moonlight he recognized the shapes of two black panthers.
immobile, he waited as they advanced, padding purposefully toward him, eyes aglow, jaws slavering and agape.
dr. dexter turned away. his face was turned in mockery to the moon as the beasts fawned before him and licked his hands."

the shadow from the steeple, robert bloch

Posted with Blogsy

felis saturnus

" a yowl came from the farther peak, and the old leader paused in his conversation. it was one of the army's outposts, stationed on the highest of the mountains to watch the one foe which earths cats have fear; the very large and peculiar cats from saturn, who for some reason have not been oblivious of the charms of our moons dark side. they are leagued by treaty with the evil toad-things, and are notoriously hostile to our earthly cats; so that at this juncture a meeting would have been a somewhat grave matter."
the complete text of lovecrafts dream quest of unknown kadath can be read on line or downloaded for later reading from the lovecraft archive.
h.p.lovecraft, the dream quest of unknown kadath.

Posted with Blogsy,

keep calm and read

keep calm, you can read the entire text of dagon at the lovecraft archive.

Posted with Blogsy

reverence of saint ibid

marcos (pickman) carrasquer

''his remains, notwithstanding the troubled state of italy, were taken to ravenna for interment ... were exhumed and ridiculed by the lombard duke of spoleto, who took his skull to king autharis ... ibid's skull was proudly handed down from king to king of the lombard line ... the skull was seized by the tottering desiderius and carried in the train of the frankish conqueror ... charlemagne took ibid's skull to his capital at aix, ... william the conqueror, finding it in an abbey niche ... did reverence to its osseous antiquity; ...

'' it was captured by the private soldier read-'em-and-weep hopkins, who not long after traded it to rest-in-jehovah stubbs ... stubbs, upon sending forth his son zerubbabel to seek his fortune ... gave him st.ibid's ... skull as a talisman. upon landing in salem zerrubbabel ... having become addicted to gaming, lost the skull to one epenetus dexter, ... it was in the house of dexter, in the northern part of the town near the present intersection of north main and olney streets, ... but the austere head of ibid continued on its wanderings ...

'' petrus van schaack, secured the distinguished cranium for the modest sum of two guilders, he having recognised its value from the half-effaced inscription carved in lombardic miniscules ... from van schaack, sad to say the relic was stolen in 1683 by a french trader, jean grenier ... fired with virtuous rage at the possession of this holy relic by a protestant, crushed van schaack's head one night with an axe and escaped to the north with his booty; soon however being robbed and slain by the half-breed voyageur michael savard, who took the skull ... to add to a collection of similar but more recent material ...

'' his half-breed son pierre traded it among other things to some emissaries of the sacs and foxes, ... charles de langlade, founder of the trading post at green bay, ransomed it at the expense of many glass beads; later traded to jacques caboche, another settler, it was in 1850 lost in a game of chess or poker to a newcomer named hans zimmerman; ... where falling into the burrow of a prairie-dog, it passed beyond his power of discovery or recovery ...

'' so for generations did the skull ... lie hidden beneath the soil of a growing town ... at first worshipped with dark rites by the prairie-dogs, who saw in it a diety sent from the upper world, ... and at last one fateful night a titan thing occured. subtle nature, convulsed with a spiritual ectasy, ... laid low the lofty and heaved high the humble and behold! ... subterrene arcana hidden for years came at last to light. for there in the rifted roadway, lay bleached and tranquil in bland, saintly and consular pomp the dome like skull of ibid.''

h.p.lovecraft, ibid.

Posted with Blogsy

 

the entire text of h.p.lovecrafts ibid can be read at the lovecraft archive.

 

Posted with Blogsy

opening lines hinting at madness

I am forced into speech because men of science have refused to follow my advice without knowing why. It is altogether against my will that I tell my reasons for opposing this contemplated invasion of the antarctic—with its vast fossil-hunt and its wholesale boring and melting of the ancient ice-cap—and I am the more reluctant because my warning may be in vain. Doubt of the real facts, as I must reveal them, is inevitable; yet if I suppressed what will seem extravagant and incredible there would be nothing left. The hitherto withheld photographs, both ordinary and aërial, will count in my favour; for they are damnably vivid and graphic. Still, they will be doubted because of the great lengths to which clever fakery can be carried. The ink drawings, of course, will be jeered at as obvious impostures; notwithstanding a strangeness of technique which art experts ought to remark and puzzle over.

In the end I must rely on the judgment and standing of the few scientific leaders who have, on the one hand, sufficient independence of thought to weigh my data on its own hideously convincing merits or in the light of certain primordial and highly baffling myth-cycles; and on the other hand, sufficient influence to deter the exploring world in general from any rash and overambitious programme in the region of those mountains of madness. It is an unfortunate fact that relatively obscure men like myself and my associates, connected only with a small university, have little chance of making an impression where matters of a wildly bizarre or highly controversial nature are concerned.

the first two paragraphs from h. p. lovecrafts tale " at the mountains of madness ". the entire text of the story can be read at the lovecraft archive.

Posted with Blogsy

italio lovecraft calvino--cities of the dreamworld

george (pickman) stubbs painting of a dreamworld zebra at yales british art gallery.
"Carter hired a zebra and set out one morning on the road by Yath’s shore for those inland parts wherein towers stony Ngranek. ... By evening he was near the nameless ancient ruins on Yath’s farther shore, and though old lava-gatherers had warned him not to camp there at night, he tethered his zebra to a curious pillar before a crumbling wall ..."

"The sun had just come up over the great slope whereon leagues of primal brick foundations and worn walls and occasional cracked pillars and pedestals stretched down desolate to the shore of Yath, and Carter looked about for his tethered zebra. Great was his dismay to see that docile beast stretched prostrate beside the curious pillar to which it had been tied, and still greater was he vexed on finding that the steed was quite dead, with its blood all sucked away through a singular wound in its throat."
h.p.lovecraft, dreamquest of unknown kadath. the complete text can be read at the lovecraft archive.
invisible cities, italio calvinos guide to the cities of the dream world. the best places to water your zebra and shop for onyx
"at the end of three days, moving southward, you come upon anastasia. a city with concentric canals watering it and kites flying over it. i should now list the wares that can profitably be bought here: agate, onyx, chrysoprase, and other varieties of chalcedony: ... if for eight hours a day you work as a cutter of agate, onyx, chrysoprase, your labour which gives for to desire takes from desire its form, and you believe you are enjoying anastasia wholly when you are only its slave."
italio calvino, invisible cities. made in to english by william weaver.

Posted with Blogsy