strange couplet

'' outside the ordered universe, where no dreams reach; that last amorphous blight of nether most confusion which blasphemes and bubbles at the centre of all infinity--the boundless daemon sultan azatoth, whose name no lips dare speak aloud, and who gnaws hungrily in inconceivable, unlighted chambers beyond time amidst the muffled, maddening beating of vile drums and the thin, monotonous whine of accursed flutes; ...

'' that last amorphous blight of nether-most confusion where bubbles and blasphemes at infinity's centre the mindless daemon-sultan azathoth, whose name no lips dare speak aloud ... those inconcievable, unlighted chambers beyond time wherein azathoth gnaws shapeless and ravenous amidst the muffled, maddening beat of vile drums and the thin, monotonous whine of accursed flutes. ''

h.p.lovecraft, dream quest of unknown kadath.

which came first ...

'' whether the dreams brought on the fever or the fever brought on the dreams walter gilman did not know ... possibly gilman should not have studied so hard. non euclidean calculus and quantum physics are enough to stretch any brain; and when one mixes them with folk lore, ... one can hardly expect to be wholly free from mental tension ...

'' the professors at miskatonic had urged him to slacken, and had voluntarily cut down his courses at several points. moreover they had stopped him from consulting the dubious old books on forbidden secrets that were kept under lock and key in a vault at the university library ...

'' the touch of brain fever and the dreams began in febuary ... about this period his inability to concentrate on his formal studies worried him considerably, his apprehensions about the mid-year examinations being very acute ...

'' the dreams were wholly beyond the pale of sanity, and gilman felt they must be a result, jointly, of his studies in mathematics and in folklore ... he had been thinking too much about the vague regions which his formulae told him must lie beyond the three dimensions we know, ...

'' gilmans dreams consisted largely in plunges through limitless abysses of inexplicably colored twilight ... he did not walk or climb fly, or swim, crawl or wriggle ... the abysses were by no means vacant, being crowded with indescribably angled masses of alien hued substance, some of which appeared to be organic while others appeared to be inorganic ... all the objects--organic and inorganic alike--were totally beyond description or even comprehension. ...

'' in the deeper dreams everything was likewise more distinct and gilman felt that the twilight abysses around him were those of the fourth dimension. ''

h.p.lovecraft, the dreams in the witch house.

skull of zenig

''you have come to see the great ones whom it is unlawful for men to see. ... when barzai the wise climbed hatheg-kla to see the greater ones dance and howl above the clouds in the moonlight he never returned. the other gods were there, and they did what was expected. zenig of aphorat sought to reach unknown kadath in the cold waste, and his skull is now set in a ring on the little finger of one whom i need not name."

h.p.lovecraft, the dream quest of unknown kadath.

landscape piece

james ferdinand morton
pattern of predictable precision
may 15, 1930 thursday.

''god i swoon! i swoon with the conciousness of compleat and culminant beauty! ia! shubniggurath! yogsothoth!!!! i have seen maymont!!!!!! ...

''you are no doubt sensible, from many observations of mine, that to me the quality of utter, perfect beauty assumes two supreme incarnations or adumbrations. one the sight of mystical city towers and roofs out lined against a sunset and glimps'd from a fairly distant baulstrade terrace.

''and the other, the experience of walking [or as in most of my dreams, aerially floating] thro' aethereal and enchanted gardens of exotick delicacy and opulance, with carved stone bridges, labyrinthine walks, marble fountains, terraces and staircases, strange pagodas, hillside grottoes, curious statues, termini, sundials, benches, basins, and lanthorns, lily'd pools of swans and streams with tiers of waterfalls, spreading gingko-trees and drooping, feathery willows, and sun-touched flowers of a bizarre, klarkash-tonick pattern never beheld on sea or land ...

''well, by god, sir, call me an aged lier or not--i vow i have actually found the garden of my earliest dreams--and in no other city than richmond home of my beloved poe! maymont! i shall dream of little else all the few remaining days of my long life!!--

raptorously thine--
theobaldus.

h.p.lovecraft, selected letters.

maymont estate.

fragment

''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.

''chaos--the absence of form and order--above all other words chaos haunts western man. it fills his mind with visions of seas running into rivers, men giving birth to frogs, fish flying through grassy cloud, it is the unnamed heart of every horror story--the unexpected, the unpredictable, the uncontrollable, the lawless--chaos.''

adrian savage, introduction to chaos magic.

antidemeaculumn

''i know not where i was born, save that the castle was infinitely old and infinitely horrible; full of dark passages and having high ceilings where the eye could find only cobwebs and shadow.

''nor was there any sun outdoors, since the terrible trees grew high above the topmost accessible tower. there was one black tower which reached above the trees into the unknown outer sky, but that was partly ruined and could not be ascended save by a well-nigh impossible climb up the sheer wall, stone by stone.

''once i tried to escape from the forest, but as i went farther from the castle the shade grew denser and the air more filled with brooding fear; so that i ran frantically back lest i lose my way in a labyrinth of nighted silence.

''then in the shadowy solitude my longing for the light grew so frantic that i could rest no more, and i lifted entreating hands to the single black ruined tower that reached above the forest into the unknown outer sky. and at last i resolved to scale that tower, fall though i might; ...

''in the dank twilight i climbed the worn and aged stone stairs till i reached the level where they ceased, and there after clung perilously to small footholds leading upward. ghastly and terrible was that dead stairless cylinder of rock; black, ruined, and deserted, ...

''all at once after an infinity of awesome; sightless crawling up that concave and desperate precipice, i felt my head touch a solid thing, ... and i knew that i must have gained the roof, or at least some kind of floor. in the darkness i raised my free hand and tested the barrier, finding it stone and immovable ...

''i knew that my climb was for the nonce ended; since the slab was the trap-door of an aperature leading to a level stone surface of greater circumference than the lower tower, no doubt the floor of some lofty and capacious observation chamber. i crawled through carefully, ...

''believing i was now at a prodigious height, far above the accursed branches of the wood, i dragged myself up from the floor and fumbled about for windows that i might look fo the first time upon the sky, and the moon and stars ...

''unexpectedly my hands came upon a doorway, where hung a portal of stone, rough with strange chiseling. trying it i found it locked; but with a supreme burst of strength i overcame all obstacles and dragged it open inward.

''fancying now that i had attained the very pinnacle of the castle, i commenced to rush up the few steps beyond the door; ... which i tried carefully and found unlocked, but which i did not open for fear of falling from the amazing height to which i had climbed. then the moon came out.

h.p.lovecraft, the outsider.

night of the night-gaunts

dear miss bonner:--
4th may 1936
the garden house
1, ely's court
providence plantation

''no--we are never scarred of the dark now, though we used to be prior to 1895 or'96. our grandfather cured us of the tendancy by daring us [when our years numbered approximately five] to walk through certain chains of dark rooms in the fairly capacious old home at 454 angell.

''little by little our hardihood increased--and by the time we graduated from the fully-inhabited 2nd floor to the merely servant--and--store--and--guest--room occupied 3rd floor, we were reasonably hard-boiled so far as the amorphous entities of shadow were concerned.

''actual nightmares though, were another story, we still have one or two per year--though even the worst is pallid beside the real 1896 product. i invented the name of night-gaunts for the things i dreamed of in 96 and 97.''

yr. most oblig'd and obt. servt,
h.p.lovecraft 3rd asst under-secy--k.a.t.

h.p.lovecraft, selected letters.