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Title: The Fantasy Fan, Volume 2, Number 2, October 1934 - The Fan's Own Magazine
Author: Hornig, Charles D.
Language: English
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2, OCTOBER 1934 ***
THE FANTASY FAN
THE FANS' OWN MAGAZINE
Published
Monthly
Editor: Charles D. Hornig
(Managing Editor: Wonder Stories)
10 cents a copy
$1.00 per year
137 West Grand Street,
Elizabeth, New Jersey
Volume 2
September, 1934
Number 2
Whole No. 14
[Transcriber's Note: Extensive research did not uncover any
evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
OUR READERS SAY
With this issue, we are dedicating each number to someone or something.
H. P. Lovecraft, one of the greatest writers of the weird alive today,
well deserves the honor of being the first, with a story and long
instalment of his "Supernatural Horror in Literature" for October. The
November issue will be dedicated to Clark Ashton Smith, December to
Edgar Allan Poe, (in this issue Mr. Lovecraft's article deals entirely
with Poe and is the longest one yet) and the January number to Weird
Poetry. Schedule subject to change without notice. Let us know what you
think of these dedications, and submit your vote telling who or what
you want the following issues to be dedicated to.
This issue has gone to press before reports have come in on the
September number, which boasted the smooth paper cover, so all letters
refer to the August or previous issues.
"Read the new TFF yesterday with great interest and pleasure. The
sketches by Barlow and Morse are very notable. Let us hope that the
success of volume one will be brilliantly duplicated in 1934-5."--H. P.
Lovecraft, Providence, R.I.
"Congratulations on your successful piloting of TFF through the first
year of its existence! The high grade of the subject matter and the
careful planning visible in its presentation have made it always
interesting and instructive. I sincerely hope that you will soon
be able to realize your hopes of expansion."--Richard F. Searight,
Detroit, Mich.
"The August issue is very good, Richard Ely Morse's 'Ebony and Ash'
being an outstanding little thing. I hope to see more verses, if
possible, from the 'Dreams of Yith' by Duane W. Rimel."--Robert Nelson,
St. Charles, Ill.
"Great is the August issue of TFF! I enjoyed immensely the splendid
tale 'Ebony and Ash,' by Richard Ely Morse. Let's have many more fine
stories by this new talented author. I enjoyed very much, too, the
excellent poems, 'Necromancy' and 'The Unremembered Realm.' These two
poems were certainly the product of masters of the art. 'The Annals of
the Jinns' was also very good, as was the entire issue. I shall never
grow tired of reading such a grand issue! Enclosed find ten cents for
an additional copy."--Fred John Walsen, Denver, Col.
"Just a line to let you know how much I enjoyed the August TFF.
R. H. Barlow scores again with his story 'The Fall of the Three Cities'
and the one by Richard Ely Morse was splendid. Your brief editorial
interested me a great deal and points toward a better and larger TFF!
The poems by Clark Ashton Smith and Robert Nelson were superb."--Duane
W. Rimel, Asotin, Wash.
"Enclosed you will find a dollar for another year's subscription to our
great little magazine, TFF. Allow me to congratulate you for keeping
it alive, even at a financial loss to yourself, for the interests
of the weirdfan. The outstanding features of the more recent issues
are Kenneth B. Pritchard's 'True Experiences.' I imagine that the
late Charles Fort would have liked to interview him."--Bob Tucker,
Bloomington, Ill.
"Your August number is well up to average. The Morse story was
well-written and interesting; and the two poems really quite good."--R.
H. Barlow, De Land, Fla.
"The last issue of TFF was diversified enough to satisfy all of us.
My only complaint is that the magazine is far too small. I'd like
to see two or three times the number of pages. Let's hope the day
soon arrives when you will be able to do so. An occasional notice by
Wright would no doubt work wonders. I was glad to see that Petaja has
continued his little column on 'Famous Fantasy Fiction.' However, he
lists 'Sinister Stories' written by Walker. I suspect he has in mind
the book 'Sinister Stories' _written_ by Jasper John and _published_ by
Walker in England in 1930. Again he mentions 'Wolves of Darkness' by
Algernon Blackwood. If memory serves me correctly, I believe the only
story in the book written by Blackwood was the title story, 'Wolves of
Darkness.' All the others were written by Wilford Wilson."--H. Koenig,
New York, N.Y.
"Just finished the first volume of TFF and am writing to tell you it's
a grand mag. Far the best stories were Howard's 'Gods of the North' and
Morse's 'Ebony and Ash.' Other high spots were Hoy Ping Pong's satires;
numbers one, three, five, and eight of the 'Annals of the Jinns'; 'From
Beyond,' by H. P. Lovecraft; 'Spurs of Death' by Natalie H. Wooley;
Lovecraft's serial article; and 'Weird Whisperings.' I have only two
kicks coming. You don't have enough science fiction material and I
don't care for Mr. Pritchard's exciting experiences."--J. Sam Smart,
New Bloomfield, Mo.
"It was easy to see that Barlow's 'The Fall of the Three Cities' was
the best feature of the August issue. The best column was 'Gleanings'
by Louis C. Smith. I hope to see this new feature every month. All in
all, this issue was well above standard and I hope that during the next
year you can give us fans as high a grade of material as you have been
doing. My congratulations on the past year's success! We are with you
in the future, too!"--F. Lee Baldwin, Asotin, Wash.
Write in to "Our Readers Say" and give us your opinion of the current
issue of THE FANTASY FAN. Your suggestions and criticisms are welcome
too.
* * * * *
WITHIN THE CIRCLE
by F. Lee Baldwin
At one time Forrest Ackerman had a complete collection of _Ghost
Stories_--the old large-size magazine of the photographic
illustrations, featuring strange stories by Victor Rousseau, Ray
Cummings, Frank Belknap Long, Jr., etc.--but disposed of them all upon
coming across science fiction. This was when he saw his first Amazing
Stories--Vol. 2, No. 6, the September 1926 number. Incidentally, this
issue contains the only story by H. P. Lovecraft ever to appear in
Amazing, "The Colour Out of Space."
Farnsworth Wright is a former music critic of _The Chicago American_.
This seems to be quite a season with our authors for travelling, E.
Hoffmann Price has just recently paid a second visit to Clark Ashton
Smith of Auburn, Calif.; Robert E. Howard spent some time exploring the
gigantic Carlsbad Caverns in New Mexico. Perhaps we'll be getting some
tales along that line, after a while. Richard F. Searight spent some
time amid the scenic grandeur in Houghton, Michigan; H. P. Lovecraft
has just returned from a visit with R. H. Barlow of De Land, Florida
and is now taking a trip to ancient Nantucket Island, off the coast of
Massachusetts; Jack Williamson has also returned from a sojourn in Key
West where he met Edmond Hamilton; Donald Wandrei has been on a fishing
trip in the woods of his native state, Minnesota.
H. P. Lovecraft denies all connections with the "The Battle that Ended
the Century" (Ms. found in a time machine). He was in De Land or in
St. Augustine at the time it was mailed, and by the time he was in
Washington D. C., the Eastern readers had received their copies.
Richard Ely Morse is the son of an Amherst professor and an assistant
librarian at Princeton.
Louis C. Smith of Oakland, Calif. is a collector of weird and fantastic
books and has a library of over two hundred volumes.
* * * * *
WEIRD TALES
is the only magazine on the market today
presenting really literary weird
fiction--masterpieces of the macabre
and unearthly. Boost it and help its
circulation by securing new readers
whenever you can.
Subscribe to
THE FANTASY FAN
* * * * *
SUPERNATURAL HORROR IN LITERATURE
by H. P. Lovecraft
Part Thirteen
(copyright 1927 by W. Paul Cook)
VI. Spectral Literature on the Continent
On the continent literary horror fared well. The celebrated short
tales and novels of Ernst Theodor Wilhelm Hoffmann (1776-1822) are a
byword for mellowness of background and maturity of form, though they
incline to levity and extravagance, and lack the exalted moments of
stark, breathless terror which a less sophisticated writer might have
achieved. Generally they convey the grotesque rather than the terrible.
Most artistic of all the continental weird tales is the German classic
_Undine_, (1814) by Friedrich Hein-Karl, Baron de la Motte Fouque. In
this story of a water-spirit who married a mortal and gained a human
soul there is a delicate fineness of craftsmanship which makes it
notable in any department of literature, and an easy naturalness which
places it close to the genuine folk-myth. It is, in fact, derived from
a tale told by the Renaissance physician and alchemist Paracleus in his
_Treatise on Elemental Sprites_.
Undine, daughter of a powerful water-prince, was exchanged by her
father as a small child for a fisherman's daughter, in order that
she might acquire a soul by wedding a human being. Meeting the noble
youth Huldbrand at the cottage of her foster-father by the sea at the
edge of a haunted wood, she soon marries him, and accompanies him to
his ancestral castle of Ringstetten. Huldbrand, however, eventually
wearies of his wife's supernatural affiliations, and especially of
the appearances of her uncle, the malicious woodland waterfall-spirit
Kugleborn; a weariness increased by his growing affection for Bertalda,
who turns out to be the fisherman's child for whom Undine was
exchanged. At length, on a voyage down the Danube, he is provoked by
some innocent act of his devoted wife to utter the angry words which
consign her back to her supernatural element; from which she can,
by the laws of her species, return only once--to kill him, whether
she will no, if ever he prove unfaithful to her memory. Later, when
Huldbrand is about to be married to Bertalda, Undine returns for her
sad duty, and bears his life away in tears. When he is buried among
his fathers in the village churchyard a veiled, snow-white female
figure appears among the mourners, but after the prayer is seen no
more. In her place is a little silver spring, which murmurs its way
almost completely around the new grave and empties into a neighbouring
lake. The villagers show it to this day, and say that Undine and her
Huldbrand are thus united in death. Many passages and atmospheric
touches in this tale reveal Fouque as an accomplished artist in the
field of the macabre; especially the descriptions of the haunted wood
with its gigantic snow-white man and various unnamed terrors, which
occur early in the narrative.
Not so well known as _Undine_, but remarkable for its convincing
realism and freedom from Gothic stock devices, is the _Amber Witch_ of
Wilhelm Meinhold, another product of the German fantastic genius of the
earlier nineteenth century. This tale, which is laid in the time of
the Thirty Years' War, purports to be a clergyman's manuscript found
in an old church at Coserow, and centres round the writer's daughter,
Maria Schweidler, who is wrongly accused of witchcraft. She has found
a deposit of amber which she keeps secret for various reasons, and the
unexplained wealth obtained from this lends colour to the accusation;
an accusation instigated by the malice of the wolf-hunting nobleman
Wittich Appelmann, who has vainly pursued her with ignoble designs. The
deeds of a real witch, who afterward comes to a horrible supernatural
end in prison, are glibly imputed to the hapless Maria; and after a
typical witchcraft trial with forced confessions under torture she is
about to be burned at the stake when saved just in time by her lover,
a noble youth from a neighbouring district. Meinhold's great strength
is in his air of casual and realistic verisimilitude, which intensifies
our suspense and sense of the unseen by half persuading us that the
menacing events must somehow be either the truth or very close to the
truth. Indeed, so thorough is this realism that a popular magazine once
published the main points of _The Amber Witch_ as an actual occurrence
of the seventeenth century!
In the present generation German horror-fiction is most notably
represented by Hanns Heinz Ewers who brings to bear on his dark
conceptions an effective knowledge of modern psychology. Novels like
_The Sorcerer's Apprentice, Alranae_, and short stories like _The
Spider_ contain distinctive qualities which raise them to a classic
level.
But France as well as Germany has been active in the realm of
weirdness. Victor Hugo, in such tales as _Hans of Iceland_, and Balzac,
in _The Wild Ass's Skin_, _Seraphita_, and _Louis Lambert_, both employ
supernaturalism to a great or less extent; though generally only as
a means to some more human end, and without the sincere and daemonic
intensity which characterises the born artist in shadows. It is in
Theopile Gautier that we first seem to find an authentic French sense
of the unreal world, and here there appears a spectral mastery which,
though not continuously used, is recognisable at once as something
alike genuine and profound. Short tales like _Atavar_, _The Foot of
the Mummy_, and _Clarimonde_ display glimpses of forbidden vistas that
allure, tantalise, and sometimes horrify; whilst the Egyptian visions
evoked in _One of Cleopatra's Nights_ are of the keenest and most
expressive potency. Gautier captured the inmost soul of aeon-weighted
Egypt, with its cryptic life and Cyclopean architecture, and uttered
once and for all the eternal horror of its nether world of catacombs,
where to the end of time millions of stiff, spiced corpses will stare
up in the blackness with glassy eyes, awaiting some awesome and
unrelatable summons. Gustave Flaubert ably continued the tradition
of Gautier in orgies of poetic phantasy like _The Temptation of St.
Anthony_, and but for a strong realistic bias might have been an
arch-weaver of tapestried terrors. Later on we see the stream divide,
producing strange poets and fantasists of the symbolist and decadent
schools whose dark interests really centre more in abnormalities
of human thought and instinct than in the actual supernatural, and
subtle story-tellers whose thrills are quite directly derived from
the night-black wells of cosmic unreality. Of the former class of
"artists in sin" the illustrious poet Baudelaire, influenced vastly
by Poe, is the supreme type; whilst the psychological novelist
Joris-Karl Huysmans, a true child of the eighteen nineties, is at once
the summation and finale. The latter and purely narrative class is
continued by Prosper Merimee, whose _Venus of Ille_ presents in terse
and convincing prose the same ancient statue-bride theme which Thomas
Moore cast in ballad form in _The Ring_.
The horror-tales of the powerful and cynical Guy de Maupassant, written
as his final madness gradually over-took him, presents individualities
of their own; being rather the morbid outpourings of a realistic
mind in a pathological state than the healthily imaginative product
of a vision naturally disposed toward phantasy and sensitive to the
normal illusions of the unseen. Nevertheless they are of the keenest
interest and poignancy; suggesting with marvelous force the imminence
of nameless terrors, and the relentless dogging of an ill-starred
individual by hideous and menacing representatives of the outer
blackness. Of these stories _The Horla_ is generally regarded as the
masterpiece. Relating the advent to France of an invisible being who
lives on water and milk, sways the minds of others, and seems to be the
vanguard of a horde of extra-terrestrial organisms arrived on earth
to subjugate and overwhelm mankind, this tense narrative is perhaps
without a peer in its particular department; notwithstanding its
indebtedness to a tale by the American Fitz-James O'Brien for details
in describing the actual presence of the unseen monster. Other potently
dark creations of de Maupassant are _Who Knows?_, _The Spectre, He_,
_The Diary of a Madman_, _The White Wolf_, _On the River_, and the
grisly verse entitled _Horror_.
(Continued Next Month)
* * * * *
THE FAVORITE WEIRD STORIES OF H. P. LOVECRAFT
(Courtesy of H. Koenig)
"The Willows" A. Blackwood, "The White Powder," "The White People,"
"The Black Seal" A. Machen, "The Fall of the House of Usher" E. A. Poe,
"The House of Sounds" M. P. Shiel, "The Yellow Sign" R. W. Chambers,
"Count Magnus" M. R. James, "The Death of Halpin Frayser" A. Bierce,
"The Moon Pool" (original novelette) A. Merritt.
The first nine titles were in Mr. Lovecraft's original list published
in "The Side Show." You will notice that he stipulates the original
novelette version of "The Moon Pool" as the tenth selection. This of
course eliminates the story as it was published in book form, including
the sequel.
* * * * *
WEIRD WHISPERINGS
by Schwartz and Weisinger
Rumor had it that for several years Farnsworth Wright, editor of _Weird
Tales_, was writing stories and poems under the pseudonym of Francis
Hard. When we asked for permission to "break" the story, Wright said
that "since the secret is already out that poems and stories published
under the name Francis Hard were in fact written by me, of course I
have no further objection to its being known. I have written nothing
new since I became editor of _Weird Tales_ in 1924, but I wrote stories
for _Weird Tales_ previous to that, when it was edited by Edwin Baird.
When I became editor one of my stories was already in type for the next
issue (A story called "The Great Panjandrum"). I thought it looked
rather phony for an editor to use his own stories in his magazine, even
though the story had been accepted by a previous editor; so I used the
pen name Francis Hard as the author of that story (Hard was my maternal
grandmother's name). Feeling that an editor is a bad judge of his own
stuff, I submitted some stories that I had written several years ago,
to Otis Adelbert Kline, whose literary judgement I value highly, and
used the two that he liked--one in _Oriental Stories_, and the other
in its successor, _The Magic Carpet_. Two other stories, which Kline
considered rotten, I quickly canned--may they rest in peace."
Frank Belknap Long, Jr., is now trying to invade the detective story
market.... Here's hoping he matches the stride set by his pal, Donald
Wandrei.... New York fans would do well to tune in on Alonzo Deen
Cole's weird broadcasts, "The Witch's Tale," over WOR, and to "Tales
of Terror," over WINS.... S. Gordon Gurwitt besides turning out weird
stories, also writes detective yarns, and bears an amazing resemblance
to Eddie Cantor.... Farnsworth Wright has never yet rejected a story
on the grounds that it was too juvenile.... A. Merritt claims he sits
down to write "only after I have exhausted myself of all possible
excuses".... Arthur Sarsfield Ward, when asked why he used the
pseudonym of Sax Rohmer for his writings, responded: "The reason why I
use the name Sax Rohmer is as much a mystery to me as it is to you."
Some Seabury Quinnformation: Seabury Quinn's next Jules de Grandin
story will be published in the January, 1935, issue of _Weird Tales_,
and is entitled "Hands of the Dead." It deals with post-mortem
hypnotism.... Quinn (known to _Weird Tales_ fans as the Old
Marster--_not_ "Master") is working on a series introducing a new
character, Thomas Eldridge Carter, a twenty-six year old investigator
for the Grand Central Life Assurance Company. The series will deal with
Carter's adventures in ferreting out the whys and wherefores of the
deaths and disappearances of persons heavily insured by the company.
Like all of Quinn's stories, these will have elements of weirdness, but
will not contain supernatural elements.
* * * * *
FUNGI FROM YUGGOTH
by H. P. Lovecraft
I. The Book
The place was dark and dusty and half-lost
In tangles of old alleys near the quays,
Reeking of strange things brought in from the seas,
And with queer curls of fog that west winds tossed.
Small lozenge panes, obscured by smoke and frost,
Just showed the books, in piles like twisted trees,
Rotting from floor to roof--congeries
Of crumbling elder lore at little cost.
I entered, charmed, and from a cobwebbed heap
Took up the nearest tome and thumbed it through,
Trembling at curious words that seemed to keep
Some secret, monstrous if one only knew,
Then, looking for some seller old in craft,
I could find nothing but a voice that laughed.
II. Pursuit
I held the book beneath my coat, at pains
To hide the thing from sight in such a place;
Hurrying through the ancient harbour lanes
With often-turning head and nervous pace.
Dull, furtive windows in old tottering brick
Peered at me oddly as I hastened by,
And thinking what they sheltered, I grew sick
For a redeeming glimpse of clean blue sky.
No one had seen me take the thing--but still
A blank laugh echoed in my whirling head,
And I could guess what nighted worlds of ill
Lurked in that volume I had coveted.
The way grew strange--the walls alike and madding--
And far behind me, unseen feet were padding.
(Note: These verses have never before been published.)
* * * * *
Beyond the Wall of Sleep
by H. P. Lovecraft
"_I have an exposition of sleep come upon me_"--Shakespeare
I have often wondered if the majority of mankind ever pause to reflect
upon the occasionally titanic significance of dreams, and of the
obscure world to which they belong. Whilst the greater number of
our nocturnal visions are perhaps no more than faint and fantastic
reflections of our waking experiences--Freud to the contrary with his
puerile symbolism--there are still a certain remainder whose immundane
and ethereal character permits of no ordinary interpetation, and whose
vaguely exciting and disquieting effect suggests possible minute
glimpses into a sphere of mental existence no less important than
physical life, yet separated from that life by an all but impassable
barrier. From my experience I cannot doubt but that man, when lost
to terrestrial consciousness, is indeed sojourning in another and
uncorporeal life of far different nature from the life we know; and
of which only the slightest and most indistinct memories linger after
waking. From those blurred and fragmentary memories we may infer
much, yet prove little. We may guess that in dreams life, matter, and
vitality, as the earth knows such things, are not necessarily constant;
and that time and space do not exist as our waking selves comprehend
them. Sometimes I believe that this less material life is our truer
life, and that our vain presence on the terraqueous globe is itself the
secondary or merely virtual phenomenon.
It was from a youthful reverie filled with speculations of this sort
that I arose one afternoon in the winter of 1900-01, when to the state
psychopathic institution in which I served as an interne was brought
the man whose case has ever since haunted me so unceasingly. His name,
as given on the records, was Joe Slater, or Slaader, and his appearance
was that of the typical denizen of the Catskill Mountain region; one of
those strange, repellent scions of a primitive Colonial peasant stock
whose isolation for nearly three centuries in the hilly fastnesses of
a little travelled countryside has caused them to sink to a kind of
barbaric degeneracy, rather than advance with their more fortunately
placed brethren of the thickly settled districts. Among these odd folk,
who correspond exactly to the decadent element of "white trash" in the
south, law and morals are non-existent; and their general mental status
is probably below that of any other section of the native American
people.
Joe Slater, who came to the institution in the vigilant custody of
four state policemen, and who was described as a highly dangerous
character, certainly presented no evidence of his perilous disposition
when I first beheld him. Though well above the middle stature, and of
somewhat brawny frame, he was given an absurd appearance of harmless
stupidity by the pale, sleepy blueness of his small watery eyes, the
scantiness of his neglected and never-shaven growth of yellow beard,
and the listless drooping of his heavy nether lip. His age was unknown,
since among his kind neither family records nor permanent family ties
exist; but from the baldness of his head in front, and from the decayed
condition of his teeth, the head surgeon wrote him down as a man of
about forty.
From the medical and court documents we learned all that could be
gathered of his case: This man, a vagabond, hunter, and trapper, had
always been strange in the eyes of his primitive associates. He had
habitually slept at night beyond the ordinary time, and upon waking
would often talk of unknown things in a manner so bizarre as to inspire
fear even in the hearts of an unimaginative populace. Not that his form
of language was at all unusual, for he never spoke save in the debased
patois of his environment; but the tone and tenor of his utterances
were of such mysterious wildness, that none might listen without
apprehension. He himself was generally as terrified and baffled as his
auditors, and within an hour after awakening would forget all that
he had said, or at least all that had caused him to say what he did;
relapsing into a bovine, half amiable normality like that of the other
hill-dwellers.
As Slater grew older, it appeared, his matutinal aberrations had
gradually increased in frequency and violence; till about a month
before his arrival at the institution had occurred the shocking
tragedy which caused his arrest by the authorities. One day near noon,
after a profound sleep begun in a whiskey debauch at about five of
the previous afternoon, the man had roused himself most suddenly;
with ululations so horrible and unearthly that they brought several
neighbours to his cabin--a filthy sty where he dwelt with a family as
indescribable as himself. Rushing out into the snow, he had flung his
arms aloft and commenced a series of leaps directly upward in the air;
the while shouting his determination to reach some "big, big cabin
with brightness in the roof and walls and floor and the loud queer
music far away." As two men of moderate size sought to restrain him,
he had struggled with maniacal force and fury, screaming of his desire
and need to find and kill a certain "thing that shines and shakes and
laughs". At length, after temporarily felling one of his detainers
with a sudden blow, he had flung himself upon the other in a daemonic
ecstasy of blood-thirstiness, shrieking fiendishly that he would
"jump high in the air and burn his way through anything that stopped
him." Family and neighbours had now fled in a panic, and when the
more courageous of them returned, Slater was gone, leaving behind an
unrecognisable pulp-like thing that had been a living man but an hour
before. None of mountaineers had dared to pursue him, and it is likely
that they would have welcomed his death from the cold; but when several
mornings later they heard his screams from a distant ravine they
realised that he had somehow managed to survive, and that his removal
in one way or another would be necessary. Then had followed an armed
searching party, whose purpose (whatever it may have been originally)
became that of a sheriff's posse after one of the seldom popular state
troopers had by accident observed, then questioned, and finally joined
the seekers.
On the third day Slater was found unconscious in the hollow of a tree,
and taken to the nearest gaol; where alienists from Albany examined him
as soon as his senses returned. To them he told a simple story. He had,
he said, gone to sleep one afternoon about sundown after drinking much
liquor. He had awakened to find himself standing bloody-handed in the
snow before his cabin, the mangled corpse of his neighbour Peter Slader
at his feet. Horrified, he had taken to the woods in a vague effort to
escape from the scene of what must have been his crime. Beyond these
things he seemed to know nothing, nor could the expert questioning
of his interrogators bring out a single additional fact. That night
Slater slept quietly, and the next morning he wakened with no singular
feature save a certain alteration of expression. Dr. Barnard, who had
been watching the patient, thought he noticed in the pale blue eyes
a certain gleam of peculiar quality; and in the flaccid lips an all
but imperceptible tightening, as if of intelligent determination. But
when questioned, Slater relapsed into the habitual vacancy of the
mountaineer, and only reiterated what he had said on the preceding day.
On the third morning occurred the first of the man's mental attacks.
After some show of uneasiness in sleep, he burst forth into a frenzy so
powerful that the combined efforts of four men were needed to bind him
in a strait-jacket. The alienists listened with keen attention to his
words, since their curiosity had been aroused to a high pitch by the
suggestive yet mostly conflicting and incoherent stories of his family
and neighbours. Slater raved for upward of fifteen minutes, babbling
in his backwoods dialect of green edifices of light, oceans of space,
strange music, and shadowy mountains and valleys. But most of all did
he dwell upon some mysterious blazing entity that shook and laughed and
mocked at him. This vast, vague personality seemed to have done him a
terrible wrong, and to kill it in triumphant revenge was his paramount
desire. In order to reach it, he said, he would soar through abysses
of emptiness, _burning_ every obstacle that stood in his way. Thus
ran his discourse, until with the greatest suddenness he ceased. The
fire of madness died from his eyes, and in dull wonder he looked at
his questioners and asked why he was bound. R. Barnard unbuckled the
leather harness and did not restore it till night, when he succeeded in
persuading Slater to don it of his own volition, for his own good. The
man had now admitted that he sometimes talked queerly, though he knew
not why.
Within a week two more attacks appeared, but from them the doctors
learned little. On the _source_ of Slater's visions they speculated at
length, for since he could neither read nor write, and had apparently
never heard a legend or fairy tale, his gorgeous imagery was quite
inexplicable. That it could not come from any known myth or romance
was made especially clear by the fact that the unfortunate lunatic
expressed himself only in his own simple manner. He raved of things he
did not understand and could not interpret; things which he claimed
to have experienced, but which he could not have learned through any
normal or connected narration. The alienists soon agreed that abnormal
dreams were the foundation of the trouble; dreams whose vividness
could for a time completely dominate the waking mind of this basically
inferior man. With due formality Slater was tried for murder, acquitted
on the ground of insanity, and committed to the institution wherein I
held so humble a post.
I have said that I am a constant speculator concerning dream life, and
from this you may judge of the eagerness with which I applied myself
to the study of the new patient as soon as I had fully ascertained
the facts of his case. He seemed to sense a certain friendliness in
me; born no doubt of the interest I could not conceal, and the gentle
manner in which I questioned him. Not that he ever recognised me during
his attacks, when I hung breathlessly upon his chaotic but cosmic
word-pictures; but he knew me in his quiet hours, when he would sit
by his barred window weaving baskets of straw and willow, and perhaps
pining for the mountain freedom he could never again enjoy. His family
never called to see him; probably it had found another temporary head,
after the manner of decadent mountain folk.
By degrees I commenced to feel an overwhelming wonder at the mad and
fantastic conceptions of Joe Slater. The man himself was pitiably
inferior in mentality and language alike; but his glowing, titanic
visions, though described in a barbarous and disjointed jargon, were
assuredly things which only a superior or even exceptional brain could
conceive. How, I often asked myself, could the stolid imagination of a
Catskill degenerate conjure up sights whose very possession argued a
lurking spark of genius? How could any backwoods dullard have gained
so much as an idea of those glittering realms of supernal radiance
and space about which Slater ranted in his furious delirium? More and
more I inclined to the belief that in the pitiful personality who
cringed before me lay the disordered nucleus of something beyond my
comprehension; something infinitely beyond the comprehension of my more
experienced but less imaginative medical and scientific colleagues.
And yet I could extract nothing definite from the man. The sum of all
my investigation was, that in a kind of semi-corporeal dream life
Slater wandered or floated through resplendent and prodigious valleys,
meadows, gardens, cities, and palaces of light; in a region unbounded
and unknown to man. That there he was no peasant or degenerate, but
creature of importance and vivid life; moving proudly and dominantly,
and checked only by a certain deadly enemy, who seemed to be a being of
visible yet ethereal structure, and who did not appear to be of human
shape, since Slater never referred to it as a _man_, or as aught save a
_thing_. This _thing_ had done Slater some hideous but unnamed wrong,
which the maniac (if maniac he were) yearned to avenge. From the manner
in which Slater alluded to their dealings, I judged that he and the
luminous _thing_ had met on equal terms; that in his dream existence
the man was himself a luminous _thing_ of the same race as his enemy.
This impression was sustained by his frequent references to _flying
through space_ and _burning_ all that impeded his progress. Yet these
conceptions were formulated in rustic words wholly inadequate to convey
them, a circumstance which drove me to the conclusion that if a true
dream world indeed existed, oral language was not its medium for the
transmission of thought. Could it be that the dream soul inhabiting
this inferior body was desperately struggling to speak things which the
simple and halting tongue of dullness could not utter? Could it be that
I was face to face with intellectual emanations which would explain
the mystery if I could but learn to discover and read them? I did not
tell the older physicians of these things, for middle age is sceptical,
cynical, and disinclined to accept new ideas. Besides, the head of the
institution had but lately warned me in his paternal way that I was
overworking; that my mind needed a rest.
It had long been my belief that human thought consists basically of
atomic or molecular motion, convertible into ether waves of radiant
energy like heat, light, and electricity. This belief had early led me
to contemplate the possibility of telepathy or mental communication
by means of suitable apparatus, and I had in my college days prepared
a set of transmitting and receiving instruments somewhat similar to
the cumbrous devices employed in wireless telegraphy at that crude,
pre-radio period. These I had tested with a fellow-student; but
achieving no result, had soon packed them away with other scientific
odds and ends for possible future use. Now, in my intense desire to
probe into the dream life of Joe Slater, I sought these instruments
again; and spent several days in repairing them for action. When they
were complete once more I missed no opportunity for their trial. At
each outburst of Slater's violence, I would fit the transmitter to
his forehead and the receiver to my own; constantly making delicate
adjustments for various hypothetical wave-lengths of intellectual
energy. I had but little notion of how the thought-impressions would,
if successfully conveyed, arouse an intelligent response in my brain;
but I felt certain that I could detect and interpret them. Accordingly
I continued my experiments, though informing no one of their nature.
* * * * *
It was on the twenty-first of February, 1901, that the thing occurred.
As I look back across the years I realise how unreal it seems; and
sometimes half-wonder if old Dr. Fenton was not right when he charged
it all to my excited imagination. I recall that he listened with
great kindness and patience when I told him, but afterward gave me
a nerve-powder and arranged for the half-year's vacation on which I
departed the next week. That fateful night I was wildly agitated and
perturbed, for despite the excellent care he had received, Joe Slater
was unmistakably dying. Perhaps it was his mountain freedom that he
missed, or perhaps the turmoil in his brain had grown too acute for
his rather sluggish physique; but at all events the flame of vitality
flickered low in the decadent body. He was drowsy near the end, and as
darkness fell he dropped off into a troubled sleep. I did not strap
on the strait-jacket as was customary when he slept, since I saw that
he was too feeble to be dangerous, even if he woke in mental disorder
once more before passing away. But I did place upon his head and mine
the two ends of my cosmic "radio" hoping against hope for a first and
last message from the dream world in the brief time remaining. In the
cell with us was one nurse, a mediocre fellow who did not understand
the purpose of the apparatus, or think to inquire into my course. As
the hours wore on I saw his head droop awkwardly in sleep, but I did
not disturb him. I myself, lulled by the rhythmical breathing of the
healthy and the dying man, must have nodded a little later.
The sound of weird lyric melody was what aroused me. Chords,
vibrations, and harmonic ecstasies echoed passionately on every
hand; while on my ravished sight burst the stupendous spectacle of
ultimate beauty. Walls, columns, and architraves of living fire blazed
effulgently around the spot where I seemed to float in air; extending
upward to an infinitely high vaulted dome of indescribable splendour.
Blending with this display of palatial magnificence, or rather,
supplanting it at times in kaleidoscopic rotation, were glimpses of
wide plains and graceful valleys, high mountains and inviting grottoes;
covered with every lovely attribute of scenery which my delighted eye
could conceive of, yet formed wholly of some glowing, ethereal plastic
entity, which in consistency partook as much of spirit as of matter. As
I gazed, I perceived that my own brain held the key to these enchanting
metamorphoses; for each vista which appeared to me, was the one my
changing mind most wished to behold. Amidst this elysian realm I dwelt
not as a stranger, for each sight and sound was familiar to me; just as
it had been for uncounted aeons of eternity before, and would be for
like eternities to come.
Then the resplendent aura of my brother of light drew near and held
colloquy with me, soul to soul, with silent and perfect interchange
of thought. The hour was one of approaching triumph, for was not my
fellow-being escaping at last from a degrading periodic bondage;
escaping forever, and preparing to follow the accursed oppressor even
unto the uttermost fields of ether, that upon it might be wrought a
flaming cosmic vengeance which would shake the spheres? We floated
thus for a little time, when I perceived a slight blurring and
fading of the objects around us, as though some force were recalling
me to earth--where I least wished to go. The form near me seemed to
feel a change also, for it gradually brought its discourse towards a
conclusion, and itself prepared to quit the scene; fading from my sight
at a rate somewhat less rapid than that of the other objects. A few
more thoughts were exchanged, and I knew that the luminous one and I
were being recalled to bondage, though for my brother of light it would
be the last time. The sorry planet shell being well-nigh spent, in less
than an hour my fellow would be free to pursue the oppressor along the
Milky Way and past the hither stars to the very confines of infinity.
A well-defined shock separates my final impression of the fading
scene of light from my sudden and somewhat shamefaced awakening and
straightening up in my chair as I saw the dying figure on the couch
move hesitantly. Joe Slater was indeed awaking, though probably for the
last time. As I looked more closely, I saw that in the sallow cheeks
shone spots of colour which had never before been present. The lips,
too, seemed unusual; being tightly compressed, as if by the force of a
stronger character than had been Slater's. The whole face finally began
to grow tense, and the head turned restlessly with closed eyes. I did
not rouse the sleeping nurse, but readjusted the slightly disarranged
headbands of my telepathic "radio" intent to catch any parting message
the dreamer might have to deliver. All at once the head turned sharply
in my direction and the eyes fell open, causing me to stare in blank
amazement at what I beheld. The man who had been Joe Slater, the
Catskill decadent, was now gazing at me with a pair of luminous,
expanding eyes whose blue seemed subtly to have deepened. Neither mania
nor degeneracy was visible in that gaze, and I felt beyond a doubt that
I was viewing a face behind which lay an active mind of high order.
At this juncture my brain became aware of a steady external influence
operating upon it. I closed my eyes to concentrate my thoughts more
profoundly, and was rewarded by the positive knowledge that _my
long-sought mental message had come at last_. Each transmitted idea
formed rapidly in my mind, and though no actual language was employed,
my habitual association of conception and expression was so great that
I seemed to be receiving the message in ordinary English.
"_Joe Slater is dead_," came the soul-petrifying voice or agency from
beyond the wall of sleep. My opened eyes sought the couch of pain in
curious horror, but the blue eyes were still calmly gazing, and the
countenance was still intelligently animated. "He is better dead, for
he was unfit to bear the active intellect of cosmic entity. His gross
body could not undergo the needed adjustments between ethereal life
and planet life. He was too much of an animal, too little a man; yet
it is through his deficiency that you have come to discover me, for
the cosmic and planet souls rightly should never meet. He has been my
torment and diurnal prison for forty-two of your terrestrial years.
I am an entity like that which you yourself become in the freedom of
dreamless sleep, I am your brother of light, and have floated with
you in the effulgent valleys. It is not permitted me to tell your
waking earth-self of your real self, but we are all roamers of vast
spaces and travellers in many ages. Next year I may be dwelling in the
Egypt which you call ancient, or in the cruel empire of Tsan Chan
which is to come three thousand years hence. You and I have drifted to
the worlds that reel about the red Arcturus, and dwelt in the bodies
of the insect-philosophers that crawl proudly over the fourth moon
of Jupiter. How little does the earth-self know life and its extent!
How little, indeed, ought it to know for its own tranquillity! Of
the oppressor I cannot speak. You on earth have unwittingly felt its
distant presence--you who without knowing idly gave the blinking beacon
the name of _Algol, the Daemon-Star_. It is to meet and conquer the
oppressor that I have vainly striven for aeons, held back by bodily
encumbrances. Tonight I go as a Nemesis bearing just and blazingly
cataclysmic vengeance. _Watch me in the sky close by the Daemon-Star._
I cannot speak longer, for the body of Joe Slater grows cold and
rigid, and the coarse brains are ceasing to vibrate as I wish. You
have been my friend in the cosmos; you have been my only friend
on this planet--the only soul to sense and seek for me within the
repellent form which lies on this couch. We shall meet again--perhaps
in the shining mists of Orion's Sword, perhaps on a bleak plateau in
prehistoric Asia. Perhaps in unremembered dreams tonight; perhaps in
some other form an aeon hence, when the solar system shall have been
swept away."
At this point the thought-waves abruptly ceased, and the pale eyes of
the dreamer--or can I say dead man?--commenced to glaze fishily. In
a half-stupor I crossed over to the couch and felt of his wrist, but
found it cold, stiff, and pulseless. The sallow cheeks paled again,
and the thick lips fell open, disclosing the repulsively rotten fangs
of the degenerate Joe Slater. I shivered, pulled a blanket over the
hideous face, and awakened the nurse. Then I left the cell and went
silently to my room. I had an instant and unaccountable craving for a
sleep whose dreams I should not remember.
The climax? What plain tale of science can boast of such a rhetorical
effect? I have merely set down certain things appealing to me as facts,
allowing you to construe them as you will. As I have already admitted,
my superior, old Dr. Fenton, denies the reality of everything I have
related. He vows that I was broken down with nervous strain, and badly
in need of the long vacation on full pay which he so generously gave
me. He assures me on his professional honour that Joe Slater was but
a low-grade paranoic, whose fantastic notions must have come from the
crude hereditary folk-tales which circulate in even the most decadent
of communities. All this he tells me--yet I cannot forget what I saw
in the sky on the night after Slater died. Lest you think me a biased
witness, another pen must add this final testimony, which may perhaps
supply the climax you expect. I will quote the following account of the
star _Nova Persei_ verbatim from the pages of that eminent astronomical
authority, Prof. Garrett P. Serviss:
"On February 22, 1901, a marvelous new star was discovered by Dr.
Anderson of Edinburgh, _not very far from Algol_. No star had been
visible at that point before. Within 24 hours the stranger had
become so bright that it outshone Capella. In a week or two it had
visibly faded, and in the course of a few months it was hardly
discernible with the naked eye."
* * * * *
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* * * * *
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* * * * *
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THE GARDEN IN THE DESERT by Clyde Young, and 15 other stories, 35
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A. MERRITT'S New Fantasyarn, "The Drone," Donald Wandrei's short
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*** End of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "The Fantasy Fan, Volume 2, Number 2, October 1934 - The Fan's Own Magazine" ***
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