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| “Man’s Place in Nature and Other Anthopological Essays”, 1894. |
Opening Statement:
Searchers after horror haunt strange, far places. For them are the catacombs of Ptolemais, and the carven mausolea of the nightmare countries. They climb to the moonlit towers of ruined Rhine castles, and falter down black cobwebbed steps beneath the scattered stones of forgotten cities in Asia. The haunted wood and the desolate mountain are their shrines, and they linger around the sinister monoliths on uninhabited islands. But the true epicure in the terrible, to whom a new thrill of unutterable ghastliness is the chief end and justification of existence, esteems most of all the ancient, lonely farmhouses of backwoods New England; for there the dark elements of strength, solitude, grotesqueness, and ignorance combine to form the perfection of the hideous.What in Brown Jenkin's Name..?
While visiting a stranger, a man notices that his host has a fascination with historical pictures portraying savage rituals of an epicurean nature.Synopsis:
A man takes refuge from a storm in a decrepit-looking house. He notices a rare book inside, containing a horrific picture of a Congo cannibalism rite. The occupant, a huge hairy man (impossibly old) who speaks with a very primitive (colonial) accent, appears and starts talking about how he got the book and how much the cannibalism picture inspired him. The narrator becomes uneasy, especially when a drop of blood leaking through the ceiling (from the room above) lands on the horrible picture in the book. Lightning strikes the house and the narrator escapes.Essential Saltes:
“Killin’ sheep was kinder more fun—but d’ye know, ’twan’t quite satisfyin’. Queer haow a cravin’ gits a holt on ye— As ye love the Almighty, young man, don’t tell nobody, but I swar ter Gawd thet picter begun ta make me hungry fer victuals I couldn’t raise nor buy—here, set still, what’s ailin’ ye?—I didn’t do nothin’, only I wondered haow ’twud be ef I did— They say meat makes blood an’ flesh, an’ gives ye new life, so I wondered ef ’twudn’t make a man live longer an’ longer ef ’twas more the same...”From Dr. Armitage's Notes:
- First mention of Miskatonic Valley and Arkham.
- 1st New England backwoods dialect.
- The drawing referred to possibly comes from W.H. Wesley’s redrawing (top of page) of the brothers Debry’s original artwork from Pigafetta’s "Regnum Congo" (below). Wesley’s drawing is in Thomas Henry Huxleys appendix (“On the Methods and Results of Ethnology”) to “Man’s Place in Nature and Other Anthopological Essays”, 1894.
I followed his glance, and beheld just above us on the loose plaster of the ancient ceiling a large irregular spot of wet crimson which seemed to spread even as I viewed it. I did not shriek or move, but merely shut my eyes. A moment later came the titanic thunderbolt of thunderbolts; blasting that accursed house of unutterable secrets and bringing the oblivion which alone saved my mind.
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| From Pigafetta’s "Regnum Congo". |
Follow'd by "Ex Oblivione".
