parentalia

the facts concerning sir arthur jermyn and his family are these...

'' his great-great-great-grandfather, sir wade jermyn, was one of the earliest explorers of the congo region, in 1765 this fearless explorer had been placed in a madhouse at huntingdon ... madness was in all the jermyns, and people were glad there were not many of them ...

''the jermyns never seemed to look quite right--something was amiss ...certainly the madness began with sir wade, ... it showed in his collection of trophies ... and appeared strikingly in the oriental seclusion in which he kept his wife ... whom he had met in africa; ... she with an infant son born in africa; had accompanied him back from the second and longest of his trips, and had gone with him on the third and last, never returning. ...

'' wade jermyn's son philip was a highly peculiar person ... he married the daughter of his game keeper, a person said to be of gypsy extraction, but before his son was born joined the navy ... he was heard of as a sailor on a merchantman in the african trade, finally disappearing one night as his ship lay off the congo coast ...

''in the son of sir philip jermyn the family peculiarity took a strange and fatal turn ... robert jermyn began life as a scholar and investigator. it was he who first studied scientifically the vast collection of relics which his mad grandfather had brought from africa ... his second son nevil ... ran away with a vulgar dancer ... he came back a widower with an infant son, alfred who would one day be the father of arthur jermyn. ...

'' the explorer samuel seaton called at jermyn house with a manuscript of notes collected among the ongas ... when sir robert jermyn emerged from his library he left behind the strangled corpse of the explorer, and before he could be restrained, had put to an end to all three of his children, nevil jermyn died in the successful defence of his own two-year old son, ...

'' sir alfred jermyn was a baronet before his fourth birthday ... at twenty he had joined a band of music-hall performers, and at thirty-six had deserted his wife and child to travel with an itinerant american circus ... arthur jermyn was the son of sir alfred jermyn and a music hall singer ... and arthur jermyn went out on the moor and burned himself ... ''

h.p.lovecraft, arthur jermyn.

i: jermyn family portraits by alex castro via notcothulhu.