The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Fantasy Fan April 1934, by Various
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Title: The Fantasy Fan April 1934
The Fan's Own Magazine
Author: Various
Editor: Charles D. Hornig
Release Date: July 23, 2015 [EBook #49511]
Language: English
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE FANTASY FAN APRIL 1934 ***
Produced by Greg Weeks. Les Galloway and the Online
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THE FANTASY FAN
THE FANS' OWN MAGAZINE
Published Editor: Charles D. Hornig 10 cents a copy
Monthly (Managing Editor: Wonder Stories) $1.00 per year
137 West Grand Street, Elizabeth, New Jersey
Volume 1 April, 1934 Number 8
OUR READERS SAY
"Some of us have seen Paul's illustrations so long that we can't get
used to Morey's or Wesso's or anyone else's. I would suggest that THE
FANTASY FAN have a _different_ artist to illustrate a _different_ kind
of picture in a _different_ way. We don't want that stereotyped kind of
illustrating we are getting in the other magazines. And we don't want
that stereotyped kind of writing that is being done so much lately."
--Art Skold
It will probably be quite some time before THE FANTASY FAN can afford
to have its stories illustrated, for it is an expensive proposition.
Weird stories such as we print should have illustrations by artists
who know how to draw _weird_ pictures such as Hugh Rankin and
Brosnatch.
"The March THE FANTASY FAN looks like an excellent issue--typographical
impression improved. But may I ask that some extremely misleading
misprints in my letter be corrected? One is especially bad, giving
a direct contradiction of what I really wrote--this being the
substitution of AN for NO in the phrase meant to read '_no_ especial
morbidity.' (Your Views department). Other errors are 'prospection'
for 'perspective' and the omission of 'g' from the word judgment.
"Glad to see the interesting tale by Robert E. Howard and the powerful
poem by Clark Ashton Smith."
--H. P. Lovecraft
We are very sorry about the typographical errors in your article and
our printer has promised to do better proofreading in the future.
"I enjoyed the February issue. 'Polaris' carries off the honours. I
liked very much the poem by William Lumley and hope you will print more
of his work. Barlow's fifth 'Annals of the Jinns' is another gem.
"I am sorry that the argument in 'The Boiling Point' has aroused any
ill-feeling. Perhaps you are wise to discontinue the column and start
one on a more abstract intellectual basis. Later on, I may have a
little to say on the problems broached for discussion.
"I look forward to seeing the stories announced for future publication.
More power to TFF!"
--Clark Ashton Smith
"The 'Our Readers Say' is always interesting, and I'm glad you're
increasing the length of Lovecraft's article in the next issue. Lester
Anderson's article was good, as well as humorous, and so is Hoy Ping
Pong, as usual."
--Kenneth B. Pritchard
"The March THE FANTASY FAN was a wow!--hope it keeps improving!"
--Bob Tucker
"The March issue is very interesting. Howard's story is both unusual
and well-written, and any poetry of Smith's is predestined to
excellence."
--R. H. Barlow
"I read 'Polaris' and especially liked the Pole Star's poetry--the
ten line rhyme in the center of the story. I found Miss Marianne
Ferguson's 'Visit to Jules de Grandin' the most interesting article in
the February issue, while the Spacehound's column was very good. I look
forward to the stories you forecast."
--Forrest J. Ackerman
"The tales in TFF are clever and entertaining little things, and
now and then one is a classic, like 'Polaris' by Lovecraft in the
last issue. Also the other features of the magazine--entertaining,
provocative of thought, and withal interesting and divertive. Whatever
others thought of it, I thought the hot-fire 'debate' between Ackerman
and C. A. Smith highly amusing. Best wishes to TFF, and I hope your
dire predictions of bi-monthly-ism do not come true."
--Eando Binder
"Glad you substituted 'Your Views' (a prosaic heading) for 'The Boiling
Point.' The readers' department is sometimes too long, but your stories
are short and excellent. Lovecraft's article has always been too short.
'The Ghoul' was _great_. Barlow is consistently good. About the best
thing in the February issue was Smith's article on M. R. James. I hope
you can persuade Smith to write some articles on Machen, Blackwood,
Bierce, etc. They are highly informative."
--Lester Anderson
"H'ray and so forth! I've discovered a magazine that isn't published in
N'Yawk--namely THE FANTASY FAN. Well, be that as it may, I must tell
you that I enjoyed your February issue. I like such a page as you have
wherein the readers can have their sayso about stories and authors and
whatnot that fills a magazine. I always look for such a page in any
magazine, and I was both surprised and pleased to find that you feature
yours on the first page. Boy, I must admit that I liked that tale by H.
P. Lovecraft, 'Polaris.' I enjoyed Miss Ferguson's visit to Jules de
Grandin (hope she reads this)."
--Gertrude Hemken
"I hope that your future issues will be as good as this February issue
was and is. All of the articles were very fine, and the stories were
very good, too."
--Fred John Walsen
"I enjoyed the February issue of THE FANTASY FAN thoroughly.
Lovecraft's story was fine, as usual, and I particularly like C. A.
Smith's article about M. R. James. Could you persuade him to write
further articles about other famous fantasy writers? Your list of
stories to come looks very good."
--Emil Petaja
"Those poems by Richard F. Searight and William Lumley in the February
issue are great and certainly have a touch of the bizarre that grips
one. I am looking forward to the verse by Clark Ashton Smith in much
anticipation. The story by Lovecraft hits the bull's-eye for February,
but is closely followed by the excellent series by Barlow, 'The Tomb of
the God' in the 'Annals of the Jinns.' I hope, like the rest, that the
future instalments of Lovecraft's 'Supernatural Horror in Literature'
will be longer. I just about get interested when I read 'continued next
month.' I'm all for THE FANTASY FAN and hope it gets better and better!"
--Duane W. Rimel
"I liked Lovecraft's 'Polaris' even better than 'The Other
Gods'--beautifully told--like a sweet-scented wind from the tainted
unknown."
--Robert Nelson
"The February issue of TFF was the best of the issues up to date.
The choice of material was much better than usual and there was more
variety which is a very strong factor. Keep it up! Of course, I know
you get that song and dance from all quarters, but I may as well add
mine, too. 'The Weird Works of M. R. James' was a very fine review.
This is what makes a magazine. I hope it will be possible to have Mr.
Smith write one of those fine columns every month."
--F. Lee Baldwin
"I was delighted to see the bibliographical note on 'The Time Machine'
by R. H. Barlow in the last issue. Similar short items on some of the
better known stories should prove of extreme interest to the readers. I
hope to see many more of them.
"May I take the liberty of adding a bit of information for the benefit
of collectors of Wells' works? The college magazine 'The Science
Schools Journal' was founded by Wells in 1886. In the April, May and
June, 1888, issues Wells contributed and published his serial entitled,
'The Chronic Argonauts'--the main idea being one of time-traveling.
As Mr. Barlow points out, this story was the first version of the
time-machine. Collectors of Wells, however, will find that copies of
the Journal are extremely rare and almost impossible to obtain because
about 20 years ago, Wells purchased all of the back numbers still
in stock and destroyed them. I have no doubt that Wells did this in
order to prevent book dealers and others from cornering the supply and
selling the issues at a high premium.
"Howard's story and Smith's poem were both splendid and I am indeed
glad to learn that you intend to lengthen the instalments of
Lovecraft's article."
--H. Koenig
Let's hear what you think of the April issue, readers. In this number
you will find the first weird fiction attempt of Eando Binder, famous
science fiction author. Next month we will give you the sixth 'Annals
of the Jinns' by R. H. Barlow, 'The Flower-God,' and 'Phantom Lights'
by August W. Derleth.
Here's big news! Beginning next month, we are presenting a brand new
newsy fantasy column by those super-snoopers supreme, Julius Schwartz
and Mortimer Weisinger.
_Fantasy Magazine_ will have a change of Editors with its June number.
Chr is retiring because, he says, "I'm going to be too busy with the
printing, and besides that, Julius Schwartz will do a much better job,
I won't be missed a little bit."
PROSE PASTELS
by Clark Ashton Smith
I. _Chinoiserie_
Ling Yang, the poet, sits all day in his willow-hidden hut by the river
side, and dreams of the Lady Moy. Spring and the swallows have returned
from the timeless isles of amaranth, further than the flight of sails
in the unknown south; the silver buds of the willow are breaking into
gold; and delicate jade-green reeds have begun to push their way among
the brown and yellow rushes of yesteryear. But Ling Yang is heedless
of the brightening azure, the light that lengthens; and he has no eye
for the northward flight of the waterfowl, and the passing of the last
clouds, that melt and vanish in the flames of an amber sunset. For him,
there is no season save that moon of waning summer in which he first
met the Lady Moy. But a sorrow deeper than the sorrow of autumn abides
in his heart: for the heart of Moy is colder to him than high mountain
snows above a tropic valley; and all the songs he has made for her, the
songs of the flute and the songs of the lute, have found no favor in
her hearing.
* * * * *
Leagues away, in her pavilion of scarlet lacquer and ebony, the Lady
Moy reclines on a couch piled with sapphire-coloured silks. All day,
through the gathering gold of the willow-foliage, she watches the
placid lake, on whose surface the pale-green lily pads have begun to
widen. Beside her, in a turquoise-studded binding, there lie the
verses of the poet Ling Yung, who lived six centuries ago, and who sang
in all his songs the praise of the Lady Loy, who disdained him. Moy has
no need to peruse them any longer, for they live in her memory even as
upon the written page. And, sighing, she dreams ever of the great poet
Ling Yung, and of the melancholy romance that inspired his songs, and
wonders enviously at the odd disdain that was shown toward him by the
Lady Loy.
SIDE GLANCES
by F. Lee Baldwin
R. H. Barlow is getting out a fine book of the late Rev. Henry S.
Whitehead's letters. It will contain some fifty extremely interesting
letters to the editor of Weird Tales and various other important
persons in the fantastic group. The entire edition will consist of but
thirty-five copies.
* * * * *
H. P. Lovecraft has written a story in collaboration with E. Hoffmann
Price--"Through the Gates of the Silver Key" which will appear in the
July issue of Weird Tales.
* * * * *
Seabury Quinn, who was formerly a lawyer, is now editor of a trade
journal.
* * * * *
A 1927 issue of Amazing Stories contained a fan letter of 2300 words
and a 1928 number presented one of 2600. How have you been doing,
Forrie?
[Illustration: Decorative motif]
The Ancient Voice
by Eando Binder
First of all I want to say that Norman Ross was normal. What I mean is
that there was nothing odd or peculiar about him. He was just a common,
ordinary, likable, erring human being like the rest of us. I say this
now so that at the end of the story you won't have any illusions about
him.
Sometimes I wonder if I shouldn't escape all this--these tossing
nights of sleeplessness, that awakening in a cold sweat of horror, the
tortured thoughts that rack my brain continuously? It would be so easy;
a quiet, dark night, the rippling water--one splash and it would be
done. Perhaps I will be driven to it; I feel that way sometimes.
But I will tell the story as best I can.
Norman Ross and I were operators for the International Radio News
Service. Thrown together by chance, we had become good friends in the
two years before this happened. We had always been on the day shift and
handled calls from Europe. We liked the work and got good pay and often
went out together for a little recreation. That is why I can say that
Norman Ross was normal; two years of friendship means a lot.
Well, one day just after working hours Hegstrom, our boss, called us
into his office--both of us together.
"Boys," he said, "I need two operators for Central Asia calls in the
night shift. I've always had my eye on you two and I'm going to offer
the positions to you two first. There's a little more responsibility
and difficulty, but the pay is higher. Then it's night work. Do you
want it? Think it over and tell me tomorrow. It's nothing compulsory."
We thought it over that evening, over glasses of beer, and decided to
take it for a change. Hegstrom was pleased.
So we took up the night work. A veteran Oriental call operator broke us
in the first night and then we went on our own.
We found the work mightily interesting. Many of the calls came in in
broken English. You know, the English that a foreigner speaks that he
learned from a book. I handled Persia and a couple of little countries
with funny names. My friend Ross took the calls from China.
It was a little odd at first getting used to being alone. When we
had the day shift, we were only two out of fifteen operators taking
calls from Europe. In the night shift, the big room was empty except
for us two. The sound of our typewriters was always extra loud in the
silence. But we got used to it, and inside three weeks didn't mind the
loneliness a bit. We had a chance to talk to each other occasionally,
if Ross and I both happened to get short calls at the same time, and
had to wait for the next ones. But the rest of the time the calls kept
us busy, taking the messages from the Far East.
We had a little trouble, too, getting used to sleeping in daylight.
Even with the blinds down you can't forget it's daylight outside and
that makes it hard to go to sleep. Neither of us was married so we
would hop right home after work (Ross lived with an uncle and aunt)
I roomed alone and sleep until middle afternoon. Then we'd dress
up and have a meal together and later roam around together looking
for diversion. With the increased pay we got for the night work, we
were able to see all kinds of expensive shows. Our lady companions
liked that and we had just about a choice of any. Then after the show
we would steer to some beer garden (thank the Lord Prohibition was
repealed ten years ago) and laugh and talk the hours away. Ross and
I would boast about our work and tell the girls strange--and a bit
distorted--stories of some of the calls we took in from the mysterious
East.
But I had better leave these abstract ruminations and return to the
story. Only I wanted to show you that Norman Ross was really normal in
all respects. Then, too, it eases my troubled mind now to think back to
those happy days--days that will never be again.
It was just a month after our transfer that it all happened. Ross was
sitting as usual with one leg off the floor, the heel of his shoe on a
big throw switch on the control panel. It was a dead switch, though,
that had never been taken out. Down low close to his stomach was the
typewriter and he typed with his elbows resting on the arms of the
chair. It was his own chair that he had bought for that particular
purpose because he said he couldn't do any work with the regular
armless chair that other operators used. He had used that chair for two
years; Hegstrom didn't care a bit, so long he did his work and did it
good. Personally, I think Ross had a spark of laziness in him.
Well the particular night this whole story centers about--now my hand
is trembling, I hate to go on. But I must. It will explain things to
others. Anyway, Ross was imbedded as per custom with that right leg of
his in the air. During ordinary calls he would slowly swing his toe
back and forth as his heel rested on the dead switch. Once in a while
it would stop and then I would know that something a little exciting
was coming to him, war news from the north or perhaps a bandit raid in
the stormy western part of China. His typewriter, too, would clack a
little sharper as he bore down harder on the keys.
It was along about three a. m. that we had a breathing spell after
we both had short calls. We discussed a few clipped plans for the
following evening and which of the ladies we would take out. When Ross
talked to me, he wouldn't budge an inch. He would merely twist his
neck in my direction and talk with that toe of his swinging lazily.
We both kept our eye on the clock so that we wouldn't be late for a
call--Hegstrom would get mighty fussy over complaints from the central
wave-traffic office that operators at our station took calls late, even
a few seconds.
So about half a minute before his next call was due, Ross turned from
me with a sigh--that is, turned his neck back--and stretched a lazy
hand to the dial to get ready for the carrier wave. My next call
wasn't due for another two minutes so I watched my friend without any
particular purpose in mind.
He reached a slow hand to his head and adjusted the phones on his ears
a bit. Then both his hands dropped into position above the typewriter
and I heard him say tonelessly, "Call-call-call--xxw2 call--" and then
his voice clipped off like a voice in a broadcast clips off when a tube
blows out.
Watching him I saw first that toe of his stop swinging. Something
important, I thought to myself. But then I began to sit up tense. In
the first place, Ross hadn't touched his keys; in the second place he
leaned forward in his chair and _dropped his leg to the floor_.
Now that may sound silly that I mention his leg dropping to the floor,
but to a person that knew Ross as well as I did that _is_ something. I
had never seen it happen before.
I sat up stiff as a board. He had just reached up his two hands to the
phones and was pressing them closer to his ears like the message was
faint.
Now I knew something big was up and I jumped from my chair.
"What's got into you, Norm?" I said, getting in front of him.
But he didn't seem to hear me or know I was there. He only pressed the
earphones tighter. When I looked at his face, I was shocked. Only once
before had I ever seen that rapt expression--when he got the call from
London two years before at the end of that three-month war telling how
the whole city had been gassed and bombed, leaving not one soul alive.
I looked at the clock. It was a minute past the time for his regular
call.
I shook his shoulder. "Listen here, Norm," I yelled. "You've got to get
that call or--"
"Listen to this, Bob," he cut in, handing me the phones.
I put them about my ears. All I heard was a faint voice. I pressed the
phones close as Ross had done. Then I distinguished it.
In strangely muffled tones, the voice came in, full of sharp hissing
sounds and hard consonants. I could understand not a word.
I tore off the phones. "You fool!" I cried. "What's the idea
of listening to some foreign station? Look!"--I pointed to the
clock--"You're over a minute late on your regular call!"
Ross pointed to the wave-length dial. "See?" he said. "I've got it on
the right wave. Eighteen point seven five meters."
I stared a moment in bewilderment. Sure enough, it was where it should
be.
"Sure you want eighteen point seven five? Better check," I cried in a
small panic, thinking of what Hegstrom would say.
Ross gave me a withering glance which said without words, "Sure I want
it? Did I ever lose my memory.
"Well, I can't fuss around here," I said with a hasty glance at the
clock. "My call is due in about ten seconds."
Before I took my call I cried to my friend. "Probably something wrong
with the dial control. You better try and find your call on some other
number."
Then I snapped my button. The carrier wave was already coming in. I had
caught my call just in time.
"Call-call-call--xxw2-zz5" I spluttered.
Next minute I was busily typing the routine news from Persia. With
everything going along smoothly, I turned my eyes in Ross's direction.
A good operator can do anything with his eyes while taking routine
news; he can even use half his brain to think about other things.
I saw Ross playing with the dial and felt relieved that he was taking
my suggestion that something had gone wrong with the works so that
the dial was in error. Hegstrom would be awful sore when he got the
complaint that Ross had failed to get his call. But then I would be
witness that it wasn't his fault at all--that some foreign station had
come in on that wave-length and spoiled the regular call. Only it was
funny--it came to me then--that the regular call hadn't registered
at all; I hadn't heard a background of English in the few seconds I
listened to the foreigner. Maybe something had happened to the station
in China!
I turned my eyes back to my favorite spot--a dull paint spot on the
panel--because I was getting some technical stuff and needed to
concentrate.
When I next looked at Ross about two minutes later, I heaved a mighty
sigh of relief. He was picking at the keys, taking his call. Only
one thing bothered me: his leg was still on the floor. "Oh, well," I
thought to myself, "that upset him so much that he's a bit off center,"
and with this philosophy, I went on with my call in a much more
peaceful frame of mind.
I finished my call in about fifteen minutes and then I had a breathing
spell of four. I looked at Ross. He still had that leg of his down
on the floor and worse yet, his elbows were not resting on the arms
of the chair; they were in the air and he was sitting up in his chair
stiff as a knife. But he was peacefully typing out his call so after
all everything was all right. I did notice one other thing then but
not until later did it become significant: his face, as much of its
expression as I could get from a side view, had a look of--I know
now what it was although then I couldn't get it--amazement; stark,
bewildered amazement.
Restless as I could be while waiting for my next call, I walked to a
position just behind Ross to see what it was that had so excited him
that his foot was on the floor and his elbows in the air.
I bent down close to see what he had typewritten and then blinked my
eyes. The stuff he was taking down was not English any way you looked
at it. It was a mess of consonants and s's that sent chills up my spine.
"Listen here," I shouted when I got my wits back, "listen, Ross! What
in Heaven's name are you doing? What in thunder is that stuff?"
But Ross kept right on typing as if his life depended on it. Only in
one way did he show that he had heard me. He tossed his head sharply
once in an unmistakable gesture for me to let him alone.
From this point on my blood pressure rose and my heart pounded--my
heart has been pounding ever since then even when I forget for a moment
about all this.
I automatically looked at the clock and saw that my next call was due.
I calmed down somewhat as I pecked down the routine news. But I felt
a growing fear in my heart as time and again I looked over to my
friend to see him typing like a robot, his foot on the floor, elbows
in the air. Then my friend, my only real pal, was going crazy--how
that thought tortured me. I knew perfectly well that he didn't know
any other language than English. Why in the wide world should he be
clacking down something he didn't understand?
It was just three thirty that suddenly Ross ripped the head-phones off
and dropped them to the floor. He stood a moment looking at the paper
in his hand and I noticed then that his skin was deadly white.
I couldn't stand it anymore. I jerked off my own phones and ran to him.
Call or no call, I couldn't stand by while my pal was in danger of
losing his mind or something else as bad.
"Norm!" I cried, "for God's sake! Tell me what it is! What--"
But I didn't finish. With an explosion of curses, Ross crumpled the
paper in his hand and began to walk up and down the room. He was so
unconscious of everything else that he bumped squarely into me, reeled
a moment, and then went on racing up and down feverishly.
I tried to stop him--grabbed his arm and jerked it--but Ross was a much
bigger and stronger fellow than I am, and he went on without noticing
me. He didn't shake me off, you understand, but just tore on as if he
hadn't even felt my hand. I didn't say anything because I had lost my
voice looking at the terrible picture of his face twisted in some agony
of his mind.
Then he began to speak, throwing his hands about hopelessly, and
swinging his head like a maniac. While I--I just stood there, out of
the path of his walk, panting like I had run ten miles, and listened.
"Great God in Heaven," he cried in a voice that I hope never to hear
again in reality, although I hear it every night in my tortured dreams.
"It can't be ... it's impossible ... I'm going mad ... I _am_ mad!...
what did I ever do to deserve this?... how can it be? oh! how _can_ it
be?"
For a while he just repeated those things until I wanted to scream
out in frenzy. But I didn't do a thing. I could see he was beyond my
reach--beyond anybody's reach.
Then his voice changed, it became low, full of intense energy,
ominously quiet. "What did he say? He said the weather had become
frigidly cold ... that it would not be long ... that soon the Ice would
cover the whole earth...."
Then he stopped a moment, his eyes burned maniacally. "But ... I
know something about geology ... that was over fifty thousand years
ago ... do you hear me?"--he wasn't talking to me, he was talking to
himself--"do you get that?... _fifty thousand years ago!_"
His voice became low and intense again so that my blood turned to
water: "What did he say?... he said to his friend that the land was
being flooded with creatures--maddened men and frenzied animals--that
were retreating before the Ice ... retreating before the Ice ... the
_ice_ ... but good God! I tell you that was fifty thousand years ago!"
Then his voice became high-pitched and sobbing: "Oh! Dear Mary and
Our One God! release me from this mad dream ... save me from the
destruction that will overwhelm me ... how can it be?... it's
impossible ... how _can_ it be?"
He repeated that dozens of times while he rumpled his hair and ground
his teeth.
I mustered up courage and grabbed him by the shoulders. Next moment I
was spinning backward and hit the wall with a thump. I fell down and
stayed there, looking up at Ross with an expression that I sometimes
wonder could be. I know my eyes became salty with tears of mental
agony--maybe it was blood that I sweated out that night.
Then I heard him again, head to one side, staggering like a drunken
man: "The radio was only invented twenty-five years ago ... _this_
was fifty thousand years ago ... what did he say?... he said to his
friend that this would probably be his last broadcast as the heat
coils were running out ... goodbye ... he said ... goodbye, my friend
... civilization is doomed ... the Ice will cover all ... but I know
something about geology, I tell you!... that was over fifty thousand
years ago!... do you see what that means?"
He paused as if expecting an answer, but I knew--my chilled brain told
me--that he wasn't talking to me, didn't know I was there. He was still
arguing with himself.
"You see?... it means that I have received a message broadcast fifty
thousand years ago just before the Ice came! ... that's what it means
... do you hear me?"
Then he fell into a senseless jargon that I knew meant the coming of
the end of his mind's fortitude. It would collapse soon.
"And then," came his voice to me, a bloodcurdling knife of a voice,
"and then, how can you explain that I _understood_ that voice?... tell
me that ... I never heard that language before ... it was just a jumble
at first ... and then ... and then ... in a flash ... I _understood_ it
... just as if I had lived there ... lived there fifty thousand years
ago."
His voice became a wild shriek, a voice that a ghost might have: "Ah!
Saviour! God! How can it be?... how _can_ it be?"
That was all. I sprang to my feet joyfully--as joyfully as I could
after passing through that--and ran to him. The light of madness had
died out of his eyes. He had seen me and recognized me. His shoulders
drooped as if he carried the weight of a world on them.
With a babble of sobs and broken cries I threw my arms around him and
thanked the Lord he had been saved.
He gently disengaged me.
"O.K. Bob," he said weakly. "I'm over it now."
"Darn right you are!" I said more calmly, realizing I must show a
braver front than I had. "And what's more, we're going to get out of
here!"
I took him to the door of his uncle's house and left him there,
satisfied that the crisis was over. Then I went back to the station
and finished up my calls. How I had the courage and fortitude to do
it, I don't know. Before the day shift came in, before I did a lot of
explaining how Ross had been suddenly taken sick in the stomach and had
to go home, I picked up a crumpled piece of paper from the floor, tore
it into little bits, and threw the confetti in a waste paper basket.
I got the news when I went to my room. Norman Ross had committed
suicide at seven o'clock in the morning. That was an hour after I left
him at his door.
* * * * *
I told Hegstrom plain out that I wouldn't work that night shift anymore
for love or money. He said he'd have me transferred but would I stay
one more night until he got a new man? Like a fool, I agreed.
* * * * *
It was three a.m. that next night that I turned the dial to where the
China Station should come in that had failed once. I sat petrified for
five seconds while I listened to a muffled voice that spoke in hisses
and sharp consonants.
Then I tore the earphones off my head, smashed them against the panel
with all my strength, and dashed out of the room. I remembered seeing
the other operator--the one who had taken my calls--popping his eyes
out. Then I was out in the cool air, panting like I had been running
for hours.
* * * * *
So it is that I wonder if I shouldn't escape it all--tossing nights,
cold sweats of stark terror, a tortured, fevered brain? It would be so
easy: a dark night, real dark, you know, so no one would see me and
try to stop me, then the cool water to moisten my feverish brow--nice
cool water, inviting water--just one little splash, not a noisy one--no
one would know--no one would care--no one would understand--just one
splash--and then peace.
* * * * *
My friends tell me not to take on so over the death of my one and only
pal. They do not know the story. I have told no one. My friends, they
tell me there is a haunted look in my eyes, that lines are deepening in
my face. They tell me to buck up, to face life squarely.
* * * * *
But I can't. I simply can't. I'll tell you why. After that night
when I ripped out the earphones and blew a fuse in the station by
short-circuiting a switch on the panel (I found that out later) I
went back in answer to a call from Hegstrom. He was very kind and
sympathetic. Wanted to know what had caused me to act so strangely
the night before--also wanted to know what had caused Ross's suicide.
Hegstrom is sharp. He saw the connection. But I clamped my jaws
together and refused to say anything.
* * * * *
Then Hegstrom asked if the thing he held in his hand had anything to
do with Ross. I took the paper. Then I think I gasped or screamed or
something. It was a paper filled with some of that balderdash that Ross
had written that night. He must have filled two sheets, and I only
destroyed one.
* * * * *
I left Hegstrom as mystified as ever, but I had that paper in my
pocket. I had a plan to save my sanity. I took the paper to a professor
at a college--a professor famous as a language specialist, ancient and
modern. I gave him the paper and one hundred dollars (he afterwards
returned the money) and asked him to find out from what country or
place it came from.
* * * * *
I got my answer a week later.
* * * * *
There was no such language in either the modern or recorded ancient
times!
SUPERNATURAL HORROR IN LITERATURE
Part Seven
by H. P. Lovecraft
(Copyright 1927 by W. Paul Cook)
III. The Early Gothic Novel
The shadow-haunted landscapes of _Ossian_, the chaotic visions of
William Blake, the grotesque witch-dances in Burns's _Tam O' Shanter_,
the sinister daemonism of Coleridge's _Christabel_ and _Ancient
Mariner_, the ghostly charm of James Hogg's _Kilmeny_, and the more
restrained approaches to cosmic horror in _Lamia_ and many of Keats's
other poems, are typical British illustrations of the advent of the
weird to formal literature. Our Teutonic cousins of the continent were
equally receptive to the rising flood, and Burger's _Wild Huntsman_
and the even more famous daemon-bridegroom ballad of _Lenore_--both
imitated in English by Scott, whose respect for the supernatural was
always great--are only a taste of the eerie wealth which German song
had commenced to provide. Thomas Moore adapted from such sources the
legend of the ghoulish statue-bride (later used by Prosper Merimee
in _The Venus of Ille_, and traceable back to great antiquity) which
echoes so shiveringly in his ballad of _The Ring_; whilst Goethe's
deathless masterpiece _Faust_, crossing from mere balladry into the
classic, cosmic tragedy of the ages, may be held as the ultimate height
to which this German poetic impulse arose.
But it remained for a very sprightly and worldly Englishman--none
other than Horace Walpole himself--to give the growing impulse
definite shape and become the actual founder of the literary
horror-story as a permanent form. Fond of mediaeval romance and mystery
as a dilettante's diversion, and with a quaintly imitated Gothic castle
as his abode at Strawberry Hill, Walpole in 1764 published _The Castle
of Otranto_, a tale of the supernatural which, though thoroughly
unconvincing and mediocre in itself, was destined to exert an almost
unparallelled influence on the literature of the weird. First venturing
it only as a 'translation' by one "William Marshal, Gent." from the
Italian of a mythical "Onuphrio Muralto," the author later acknowledged
his connection with the book and took pleasure in its wide and
instantaneous popularity--a popularity which extended to many editions,
early dramatizations, and wholesale imitation both in England and in
Germany.
The story--tedious, artificial, and melodramatic--is further impaired
by a brisk and prosaic style whose urbane sprightliness nowhere permits
the creation of a truly weird atmosphere. It tells of Manfred, an
unscrupulous and usurping prince determined to found a line, who after
the mysterious sudden death of his only son, Conrad, on the latter's
bridal morn, attempts to put away his wife Hippolita and wed the lady
destined for the unfortunate youth--the lad, by the way, having been
crushed by the preternatural fall of a gigantic helmet in the castle
courtyard. Isabella, the widowed bride, flees from this design; and
encounters in subterranean crypts beneath the castle a noble young
preserver, Theodore, who seems to be a peasant yet strangely resembles
the old lord Alfonso who ruled the domain before Manfred's times.
Shortly thereafter supernatural phenomena assail the castle in divers
ways; fragments of gigantic armour being discovered here and there,
a portrait walking out of its frame, a thunderclap destroying the
edifice, and a colossal armoured spectre of Alfonso rising out of the
ruins to ascend through parting clouds to the bosom of St. Nicholas.
Theodore, having wooed through death--for she is slain by her father
by mistake--is discovered to be the son of Alfonso and rightful heir
to the estate. He concludes the tale by wedding Isabella and preparing
to live happily ever after whilst Manfred, whose usurpation was the
cause of his son's death and his own supernatural harassings, retires
to a monastery for penitence; his saddened wife seeking asylum in a
neighboring convent.
Such is the tale; flat, stilted, and altogether devoid of the true
cosmic horror which makes weird literature. Yet such was the thirst
of the age for those touches of strangeness and spectral antiquity
it reflects, that it was seriously received by the soundest readers
and raised in spite of its intrinsic ineptness to a pedestal of lofty
importance in literary history. What it did above all else was to
create a novel type of scene, puppet-characters, and incidents; which,
handled to better advantage by writers more naturally adapted to weird
creation, stimulated the growth of an imitative Gothic school which in
turn inspired the real weavers of cosmic terror--the line of actual
artists beginning with Poe. This novel dramatic paraphernalia consisted
first of all of the Gothic castle, with its awesome antiquity, vast
distances and ramblings, deserted or ruined wings, damp corridors,
unwholesome hidden catacombs, and a galaxy of ghosts and appalling
legends, as a nucleus of suspense and daemoniac fright. In addition,
it included the tyrannical and malevolent nobleman as villain; the
saintly, long-persecuted, and generally insipid heroine who undergoes
the major terrors and serves as a point of view and focus for the
reader's sympathies; the valorous and immaculate hero, always of high
birth but often in humble disguise; the convention of high-sounding
foreign names; mostly Italian, for the characters; and the infinite
array of stage properties which includes strange lights, damp
trapdoors, extinguished lamps, mouldy hidden manuscripts, creaking
hinges, shaking arras, and the like. All this paraphernalia reappears
with amusing sameness, yet sometimes with tremendous effect, throughout
the history of the Gothic novel; and is by no means extinct even today,
though subtler technique now forces it to assume a less naive and
obvious form. An harmonious milieu for a new school had been found, and
the writing world was not slow to grasp the opportunity.
German romance at once responded to the Walpole influence, and soon
became a byword for the weird and ghastly. In England, one of the first
imitators was the celebrated Mr. Barbauld, then Miss Aiken, who in 1773
published an unfinished fragment called _Sir Bertrand_, in which the
strings of genuine terror were truly touched with no clumsy hand. A
nobleman on a dark and lonely moor, attracted by a tolling bell and
distant light, enters a strange and ancient turreted castle whose doors
open and close and whose bluish will-o'-the-wisps lead up mysterious
staircases toward dead hands and animated black statues. A coffin with
a dead lady, whom Sir Bertrand kisses, is finally reached; and upon the
kiss, the scene dissolves to give place to a splendid apartment where
the lady, restored to life, holds a banquet in honour of her rescuer.
Walpole admired this tale, though he accorded less respect to an even
more prominent off-spring of his Otranto--_The Old English Baron_, by
Clara Reeve, published in 1777. Truly enough, this tale lacks the real
vibration to the note of outer darkness and mystery which distinguishes
Mrs. Barbauld's fragment and though less crude than Walpole's novel,
and more artistically economical of horror in its possession of only
one spectral figure, it is nevertheless too definitely insipid for
greatness. Here again we have the virtuous heir to the castle disguised
as a peasant and restored to his heritage through the ghost of his
father; and here again we have a case of wide popularity leading to
many editions, dramatizations, and ultimate translation into French.
Miss Reeve wrote another weird novel, unfortunately unpublished and
lost.
[Illustration: continued next month]
YOUR VIEWS
"I should venture that the fascination of the weird is through a
vaguely masochistic pleasure that derives delight from frightening
one's self! I believe the simile is ancient that our gaze will often
return to the ugliest person in a room rather than the most handsome.
Perhaps it is that constant saccharine palls. I claim it is untrue that
'the beautiful, the good, is the aim of every true artist.'"
--R. H. Barlow
"The element of horror in a tale often makes the story; it gives you
that weird, creepy sensation and cold chills. Thus, the greater those
feelings affect us after, or during, the reading of the yarn, the
greater we say the story is. Of course, if the horror part is of too
intense a nature in that it causes a continued after-effect producing
nervousness in the reader, then the virtue of the use of horror may be
questioned. However, strong horror can be read by strong minds, or by
uncomprehending minds, without damage. It would appear, then, that it
depends equally upon the reader and the quality of horror used. Horror
has a certain fascination to everyone; it is a thing that seems inborn
in us--perhaps it is because we try to understand subconsciously,
something mysterious, just beyond the conscious cognizance of the
things that are known."
--Kenneth B. Pritchard
"In the horror story, one can find true beauty--beauty that is
glorified from tossing seas of blackness--shining beauty that comes
with cosmic fear, lurid silence, frightful death--all this and more
fascinates one's appreciation of true art. 'When people read these
and say that they are distasteful to the well and normal mind' then
these certain people should not read them. No one is compelling them
to do such. And why do we wish to read a sinister tale of evil or
monstrosities? Listen, readers! Those of us who know life and have
grown tired of its futile strivings, its worries, its hard realities,
(and most of us have by now) are able to forget it all by steeping
ourselves with the nameless terrors and evil spawns of that 'darkness
visible'."
--Robert Nelson
"As to the virtue of horror stories, one might ask what virtue there is
in any yarn? What are we looking for in a story?--mental relaxation,
thrills, morals, spine chills, or what have you. Certainly, they are
_different_ from the usual run of blood and thunder, hero stuff. They
are also something to think about _after reading_. We read them again
to feel the effect of the words once more. I dare say that the average
story one reads is enjoyed while being absorbed, then forgotten. I am
probably wrong, but pass over it. The point is, we read horror tales
because we _like_ them."
--Duane W. Rimel
"Aren't most tales that are weird and fantastic a bit
horrifying? Consider the strange beings around which the tale is
woven--incomprehensible monsters, neither animal nor reptile; strange
man-things bearing only a resemblance in bodily structure, but too
warped to be human. I can see no virtue in them, except that when I
finish the story and come back to the normal world, I'm glad that I am
what I am. It takes real intelligence to write something that is not
known to the general populace. I read weird tales for variety. I get a
bit tired of the general run of stories found in _sensible_ magazines."
--Gertrude Hemken
"Just what is a normal mind? This pertains, I think, to the commonly
accepted _norms_ in vogue at any specified time in history. Even in
different communities, what is considered normal in one is sometimes
abnormal in others. This must be constantly kept in mind. On the other
hand, how many people are what you might call 'normal'? Not many, I
imagine. The ones that are probably the most utterly boring, stupid,
lifeless creatures that roam this planet are the _normal_ ones. Also,
please remember that when a person dislikes something he (or she)
usually says it's distasteful to a 'normal' mind."
--Lester Anderson
Now, fans, write this department immediately and tell us who your
favorite author is and what quality in his work puts him at the head of
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Transcriber's Notes
Minor corrections have been made to punctuation, otherwise the text
is as in the original.
The "Your Views" section was split across "Supernatural Horror".
The two sections have been joined.
Italics are represented thus _italics_.
End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Fantasy Fan April 1934, by Various
*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE FANTASY FAN APRIL 1934 ***
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