 This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Sandra Zera. The picture in the house by H.P. Lovecraft. Searchers after horror haunt strange, far places. For them are the catechums of Ptolemies and the coven Mosulia of the Nightmare countries. They climb to the moonlit towers of ruined Rhine castles and falter down the black cobweb steps beneath the scattered stones of forgotten cities in Asia. The haunted wood and the desolate mountain are the shrines and they linger around the sinister monoliths on uninhabited islands. But the true epicure in The Terrible, to whom a new thrill of an aterrable ghastliness is the chief vent and justification of existence, esteems most of all the ancient lonely farmhouses of Blackwood's New England. For there the dark elements of strength, solitude, grotesqueness and ignorance combine to form the perfection of the hideous. Most horrible of all sites are the little unpainted wooden houses, remote from traveled ways, usually squatted upon some damp grassy slope or leaning against some gigantic outcropping of rock. Two hundred years and more they have leaned or squatted there, while the vines have crawled and the trees have swelled and spread. They are almost hidden now in lowless luxuriances of green and guardian shrouds of shadow. But the small paint windows still stare shockingly, as if blinking through a little stopper, which words of madness by darling the memory of an aterrable things. In such houses have dwelt generations of strange people, who's like the world has never seen. Sized with a gloomy and fanatical belief which exiled them from their kind, their ancestors sought the wilderness for freedom. There the science of a conquering race indeed flourished free from the restrictions of their fellows, but covered in an appalling slavery to the dismal fantasms of their own minds. Diversed from the enlightenment of civilization, the strength of the spiritans turned into singular channels and in their isolation morbid self repression and struggle for life with relentless nature, there came to them dark furtive traits from the prehistoric deaths of their cold northern heritage. By necessity practical and by philosophies turn, these folks were not beautiful in their sins. Erring, as all mortals must, they were forced by their rigid code to seek concealment above all else, so that they came to use less and less taste in what they concealed. Only the silent, sleepy, staring houses in the backwoods can tell all that has lain hidden since the early days and they are not communicative, being loved to shake off the drowsiness which helps them forget. Sometimes one feels that it would be merciful to tear down these houses, for they must often dream. It was to a time battered edifice of this description that I was driven one afternoon in November 1896 by a rain of such chilling copiousness that any shelter was preferable to exposure. I had been travelling for some time amongst the people of the Miskathonic Valley in quest of certain genealogical data and from the remote, devious and problematical nature of my curse had deemed it convenient to employ a bicycle despite the lateness of the season. Now I found myself upon an apparently abandoned road which I had chosen as the shortest cut to Arkham overtaken by the storm at a point far from any town and confronted with no refuge, save the antique and repelled wooden building which blinked with blurred windows from between two huge leafless elms near the foot of a rocky hill. Distant though it is from the remnant of a road, this house nonetheless impressed me unfavorably the very moment I aspired it. Honest wholesome structures do not stare at travellers so slyly and hauntingly and in my genealogical researches I had encountered legends of a century before which biased me against places of this kind. Yet the force of the elements was such as to overcome my scruples and I did not hesitate to wheel my machine up the weedy rise to the closed door which seemed at once so suggestive and secretive. I had somehow taken it for granted that the house was abandoned, yet as I approached it I was not so sure for though the walks were indeed overgrown with weeds, they seemed to retain their nature a little too well to argue complete desertion. Therefore instead of trying the door I knocked, feeling as I did so at repetition I could scarcely explain. As I waited on the rough mossy rock which served as a doorstep, I glanced at the neighboring windows and the panes of the transom above me and noticed that although old rattling and almost opaque with dirt they were not broken. The building then must still be inhabited despite its isolation and general neglect. However my wrapping evoked no response so after repeating the summons I tried the rusty latch and found the door unfastened. Inside was a little vestibule with walls from which the plaster was falling and through the doorway came a faint but peculiarly hateful odor. I entered carrying my bicycle and closed the door behind me. A head rose a narrow staircase flanked by a small door probably leading to a cellar while to the left and right were closed doors leaning to rooms on the ground floor. Leaning my cycle against the wall I opened the door at the left and crossed into a small low-sealed tumbler but dimly lighted by its two dusty windows and furnished in the barest and most primitive possible way. It appeared to be a kind of sitting room for it had a table and several chairs and an immense fireplace above which ticked an antique clock on a mantle. Books and papers were very few and in the prevailing gloom I could not really discern the titles. What interested me was the uniform air of archaism as displayed in every visible detail. Most of the houses in this region I had found rich in relics of the past but here the antiquity was curiously complete. For in all the room I could not discover a single article of definitely post-revolutionary date. Had the furnishings been less humble the place would have been a collector's paradise. As I surveyed this quiet apartment I felt an increase in data version first excited by the bleak exterior of the house. Just what it was that I feared or loved I could by no means define but something in the whole atmosphere seemed redolent of an hallowed age of unpleasant crudeness and of secrets which should be forgotten. I felt disinclined to sit down and wondered about examining the various articles which I had noticed. The first object of my curiosity was a book of medium size lying upon the table and presenting such an antediluvial aspect that I marveled at beholding it outside a museum or library. It was bound in leather with metal fittings and was in an excellent state of preservation being altogether an unusual sort of volume to encounter in and about so lowly. When I opened it to the title page my wonder grew even greater for it proved to be nothing less rare than Pigafetes account of the Congo region written in Latin from the notes of the sailor Lopex and printed at Frankfurt in 1598. I had often heard of this work with its curious illustrations by the brothers de Bray hence for a moment forgot my uneasiness in my desire to turn the pages before me. The engravings were indeed interesting, drawn wholly from imagination and careless descriptions and represented negros with white skins and Caucasian features. Nor would I soon have closed the book had not an exceedingly trivial circumstance upset my tired nerves and revived my dissensation of this quiet. What annoyed me was merely the persistent way in which the volume tended to fall open of itself at plate 12 which represented in gruesome detail a batter's shop of the cannibal antiques. I experienced some shame at my susceptibility to so slight a thing but the drawing nevertheless disturbed me especially in connection with some adjacent passages descriptive on antiques gastronomy. I had turned to a neighboring shelf and was examining its mingle literary contents an 18th century bible pilgrims progress of like period illustrated with grotesque woodcuts and printed by the almanac maker Isaiac Thomas the rotting book of cotton mothers Magnalia Cristia americana and a few other books of evidently equal age when my attention was aroused by the unmistakable sound of walking in the room overhead. At first astonished and startled considering the lack of response to my recent knocking at the door I immediately afterward concluded that the walker had just awakened from a sound sleep and listened with less surprise as the footsteps sounded on the creaking stairs. The thread was heavy yet seemed to contain a curious quality of consciousness a quality which I disliked more because the thread was heavy. When I had entered the room I had shut the door behind me. Now after a moment of silence during which the walker may have been inspecting my bicycle in the hall I heard a fumbling at the latch and saw the paneled portal swing open again. In the doorway stood a person of such singular appearance that I should have exclaimed out but for the restraints of good breeding. Old, white-birded and wracked my host possessed a countenance and physique which inspired equal wonder and respect. His height could not have been less than six feet and despite a general error of agent poverty he was stout and powerful in proportion. His face, almost hidden by a long bird which grew high on the cheeks seemed abnormally ruddy and less wrinkled than one might expect while over a high forehead felt a shock of white hair little thinned by the ears. His blue eyes, dull white riffle bloodshot seemed inexplicably keen and burning but for his horrible unkemptness the man would have been as distinguished looking as he was impressive. This unkemptness however made him offensive despite his face and figure. Of what his clothing consisted I could hardly tell for it seems to me no more than a mass of tatters surmounting a pair of high heavy boots and his lack of cleanliness surpassed description. The appearance of this man and the instinctive fear he inspired prepared me for something like enmity so that I almost shuddered through surprise and a sense of uncanny incongruity when he motioned me to a chair and addressed me in a thin, weak voice full of fawning respect and ingratiating hospitality. His speech was very curious, an extreme form of Yankee dialect I had thought long extinct and I studied it closely as he sat down opposite me for conversation. Catching the rain, beer, he greeted. Glad he was nighty house and had the sense to come right in. I calculated I was in sleep, else I'd hear dear. I aimed as young as I asked to be and I needed a powerful sight on ups nowadays. Travelling for? I haint seen many folks long this route since they took off the Arkham stage. I replied that I was going to Arkham and apologized for my route entry into his domicile whereupon he continued. Glad to see you, young sir. New faces is scarce around here and I haint got much that cheer me up these days. Guess you hail from Basting, don't you? I never been there, but I can't tell a town man when I see him. We had one fur district schoolmaster in 84, but he quit sudden and no one never hear'd on him since. Here the old man lapsed into a kind of chuckle and by no explanation when I questioned him. He seems to be in an aboundingly good humor, yet to possess the accentresses which one might guess from his grooming. For some time he rumbled on with an almost feverish denialty when it struck me to ask him how he came by so rare a book as Picafetta's Ragnum Congo. The effect of this volume had not left me and I felt a certain hesitancy in speaking of it, but curiosity overmaster'd all the way fears which had steadily accumulated since my first glimpse of this house. To my relief the question did not seem an awkward one, for the old man answered freely and volubly. Oh, that a freaky book! Captain Ebenezer Holt traded me that in 68. Hamas was killed in the war. Something about the name of Ebenezer Holt cost me to look up sharply. I had encountered it in my genealogical work, but not in any records since the revolution. I wondered if my host could help me in the task at which I was laboring and resolved to ask him about it later on. He continued. Ebenezer was on sale in Merchantman for years and picked up a site of queer stuff in every port. He got this in London I guess. He asked her like to buy things at their shops. I was up to his house on the hill trading horses when I see this book. I relished their pictures so he gave it in on a swap. This is a queer book. Here, leave me get on my spectacles. The old man fumbled among his racks, producing a pair of dirty and amazingly antique glasses with small octagonal lenses and steel bells. Donning these, he reached for the volume on the table and turned the pages lovingly. Ebenezer could read a little of this, this Latin, but I can't. I had two or three school masters read me a bit and passing clock, him they said, got drowned in the pond. Can you make anything out of it? I told him that I could and translated for his benefit a paragraph near the beginning. If I heard, he was not scholar enough to correct me, for he seemed childishly pleased at my English version. His proximity was becoming rather obnoxious, yet I saw no way to escape without offending him. I was amused at the childish fondness of this ignorant old man for the pictures in a book he could not read and wondered how much better he could read the few books in English which adorned the room. This revelation of simplicity removed much of the ill-defined apprehension I had felt and I smiled as my host rumbled on. Queer how pictures can set a body thinking. Take this one here near the front. Hey, you ever see trees like that with big leaves are flopping over and down? And them men, them can't be niggers. They do bit all. Kinderlakenjens, I guess, even if they be in Africa. Some of these here creatures looks like monkeys or half monkeys and half men, but I never heard on nothing like this one. Here he pointed to a fable squitter of the artist which one might describe as a sort of dragon with the head of an alligator. But now I'll show you the best one over here, in the middle. The old man's speech grew a triple thicker and his eyes assumed a brighter glow, but his fumbling hands, though seemingly clumsier than before, were entirely adequate to their mission. The book fell open, almost of its own accord, and I see from frequent consultation at this place to the repellent's twelfth plate showing a bachelor's shop amongst the antique carnibals. My sense of restlessness returned, though I did not exhibit it. The especially bizarre thing was that the artist had made his Africans look like white men. The limbs and quarters hanging about the walls of the shop were ghastly, while the butcher with his axe was hideously incongruous. But my host seemed to relish the view as much as I disliked it. What do you think of this? I never seen they like hereabouts, eh? When I see this, I tell Ephold that's something to steer ye up and make ye a blood tickle. When I read the scripture about slaying like the medianets were slew, I kinder think things, but I ain't got no picture of it. Here a body can see all they is to see. I suppose to sinful, but ain't we all born and living in sin? That fellow being chopped up gives me a tickle every time I look at him. I hate I keep looking at him, see where the butcher cut off his feet, toss his head on that bench with one arm side of it and other arms on the other side or the mid-block. As the man mumbled on in his shocking ecstasy, the expression on his hairy, spectacled face became indescribable, but his voice sank rather than mounted. My own sensations can scarcely be recorded. All the terror I had dimly felt before rushed upon me actively and vividly, and I knew that I loved the ancient and abhorrent creatures so near me with an infinite intensity. His madness, or at least his partial perversion, seemed beyond dispute. He was almost whispering now, with a huskiness more terrible than a scream, and I trembled as I listened. As I say, this queer how pictures such a thinking. Do you know, young sir, I'm right sat on this one here. After I got the book off the app, I asked her to look at it a lot, especially when I'd heard passing clock run on Sundays in his big week. Almost I'd tried something funny. Here, young sir, don't get scared. All I'd done was to look at the picture before I killed the ship for market. Killing ship was kinder, more fun, after looking at it. The tone of the old man now sank very low, sometimes becoming so faint that his words were hardly audible. I listened to the rain and to the rattling of the blurred, small paint windows, the rumbling of approaching thunder, quite unusual for the season. Once a terrific flash and peel shook the frail house to its foundations, but the whisperer seemed not to notice it. Killing ship was kinder, more fun, but, you know, it weren't quite satisfying. Queer how a craving gets a hold on you. As you love the almighty young man, don't tell nobody, but I swear to her gout, I began to make me hungry for a victuals, I couldn't rise nor by. Here, sit still, what's a meaning here? I didn't do nothing, only I wondered how it would be if I did. They say meat makes blood and flesh and gives ye new life, so I wondered if it wouldn't make a man live longer and longer if it was more the same. But the whisperer never continued. The interruption was not produced by my fright, nor by the rapidly increasing storm, amidst whose fury I was presently to open my eyes on a smoky solitude of blackened ruins. It was produced by a very simple, though somewhat unusual, happening. The open book lay flat between us, with the picture starring repulsively upward. As the old man whispered the words more the same, a tiny, splattering impact was heard and something showed on the yellowed paper of the upturned volume. I thought of the rain and of a leaky roof, but rain is not red. On the butcher's shop of the unsick cannibals, a small red spattering glistened picturesquely, lending vividness to the horror of the engraving. The old man saw it and stopped whispering even before my expression of horror made it necessary. Saw it and glanced quickly towards the floor of the room he had left an hour before. I followed his glance and beheld just above us on the loose plaster of the ancient sinning a large, irregular spot of wet crimson, which seemed to spread even as I viewed it. I did not shriek or move, but merrily shut my eyes. A moment later came the titanic thunderbolt of thunderbolts, blasting that accursed house of unalterable secrets and bringing the oblivion, which alone saved my mind. End of the picture in the house. According by James Pontolullo Into the north window of my chamber glows the pole star with uncanny light. All through the long hellish hours of blackness it shines there, and in the autumn of the year, when the winds from the north curse and whine, and the red-leaved trees of the swamp mutter things to one another in the small hours of the morning under the horned waning moon, I sit by the easement and watch that star. Down from the heights reels the glittering Cassiopeia as the hours wear on, while Charles's wane lumbers up from behind the vapor-soaked swamp trees that sway in the night wind. Just before dawn, Arcturus winks rudely from above the cemetery on the low hillock, and Coma Baranissis shimmers weirdly afar off in the mysterious east. But still the pole star leers down from the same place in the black vault, winking hideously like an insane, watching eye which strives to convey some strange message, yet recalls nothing save that it once had a message to convey. Sometimes, when it is cloudy, I can sleep. Well do I remember the night of the great Aurora when over the swamp played the shocking horuscations of the Daemon Light. After the beams came clouds, and then I slept. And it was under a horned waning moon that I saw the city for the first time. Still and somnolent did it lie, on a strange plateau in a hollow betwixt strange peaks, of ghastly marble where its walls and its towers, its columns, domes, and pavements. In the marble streets were marble pillars, parts of which were carbon into the images of grave-bearded men. The air was warm and stirred not, and overhead scarce ten degrees from the zenith glowed that watching pole star. Long did I gaze on the city, but the day came not. When the red Aldebaran, which blinked low in the sky but never set, had crawled a quarter of the way around the horizon, I saw light and motion in the houses and the streets. Forms strangely robed, but at once noble and familiar walked abroad, and under the horned waning moon men talked wisdom in a tongue which I understood, though it was unlike any language I had ever known. And when the red Aldebaran had crawled more than half way around the horizon, there were again darkness and silence. When I awaked, I was not as I had been. Upon my memory was graven the vision of the city, and within my soul had arisen another and vaguer recollection of whose nature I was not then certain. Thereafter, on the cloudy nights when I could sleep, I saw the city often, sometimes under that horned waning moon, and sometimes under the hot yellow rays of a sun which did not set, but which wheeled low around the horizon. And on the clear nights the pole star leered as never before. Gradually I came to wonder what might be my place in that city on the strange plateau, betwixt strange peaks. At first content to view the scene as an all-observant, uncorporeal presence, I now desired to define my relation to it and to speak my mind amongst the grave men who conversed each day in the public squares. I said to myself, this is no dream, for by what means can I prove the greater reality of that other life in the house of stone and brick south of the sinister swamp and the cemetery on the low hillock where the pole star peers into my north window each night. One night, as I listened to the discourse in the large square containing many statues, I felt a change, and perceived that I had at last a bodily form. Nor was I a stranger in the streets of Olatheway, which lies on the plateau of Sarkis, betwixt the peaks Notan and Kadifonek. It was my friend, Alos, who spoke, and his speech was one that pleased my soul, for it was the speech of a true man and patriot. That night had the news come of Dikos' fall and of the advance of the Inutos, squat, hellish, yellow fiends who five years ago appeared out of the unknown west to ravage the confines of our kingdom and finally to besiege our towns. Having taken the fortified places at the foot of the mountains, the way now lay open to the plateau, and lest every citizen could resist with the strength of ten men, for the squat creatures were mighty in the arts of war and knew not the scruples of honor which held back our tall, grey-eyed men of Lomar from ruthless conquest. Alos, my friend, was commander of all the forces of the plateau, and in him lay the last hope of our country. On this occasion he spoke of the perils to be faced and exhorted the men of Olatheway, of the Lomarians, to sustain the traditions of their ancestors, who when forced to move southward from Zabna before the advance of the Great Ice Sheet, even as our descendants must someday flee from the land of Lomar, valiantly and victoriously swept aside the hairy, long-armed cannibal gnup-case that stood in their way. To me, Alos denied a warrior's part, for I was feeble and given to strange faintings when subjected to stress and hardships, but my eyes were the keenest in the city, despite the long hours I gave each day to the study of the Nacotic Manuscripts and the wisdom of the Zabnarian Fathers. So my friend, desiring not to doom me to inaction, rewarded me with that duty which was second to nothing in importance. To the Watchtower of Thapnin he sent me, there to serve as the eyes of our army. Should the Inutos attempt to gain the Citadel by the narrow pass behind the peak Noton and thereby surprise the garrison, I was to give the signal of fire which would warn the waiting soldiers and save the town from immediate disaster. Alone I mounted the tower, for every man of stout body was needed in the passes below. My brain was sore dazed with excitement and fatigue, for I had not slept in many days, yet my purpose was firm, for I loved my native land of Lomar and the marble city of Olathaway that lies betwixt the peaks of Noton and Katifonek. But as I stood in the tower's topmost chamber, I beheld the horned, waning moon, red and sinister, quivering through the vapours that hovered over the distant valley of Banoff. And through an opening in the roof glittered the pale, pole star, fluttering as if alive and leering like a fiend and tempter. Me thought its spirit whispered evil counsel, soothing me to traitorous somnolence with a damnable, rhythmical promise which it repeated over and over. Slumber, watcher, till the spheres six and twenty thousand years have revolved, and I return to the spot where now I burn. Other stars anon shall rise to the axis of the skies, stars that soothe and stars that bless with a sweet forgetfulness. Only when my round is o'er shall the past disturb thy door. Veinly did I struggle with my drowsiness, seeking to connect these strange words with some lore of the skies which I had learned from the necotic manuscripts. My head, heavy and reeling, drooped to my breast, and when next I looked up, it was in a dream, with a pole star grinning at me through a window from over the horrible swaying trees in a dream swamp, and I am still dreaming. In my shame and despair I sometimes scream frantically, begging the dream creatures around me to waken me ere the Anuto steal up the past behind the peak noton and take the citadel by surprise, but these creatures are daemons for they laugh at me and tell me I am not dreaming. They mock me whilst I sleep and whilst the squat yellow foam may be creeping silently upon us, I have failed in my duty to the marble city of Alathaway. I have proven false to alos my friend and commander, but still these shadows of my dream deride me. They say there is no land of Lomar, save in my nocturnal imaginings. Then in those realms where the pole star shines high and red aldebaran crawls low around the horizon there has been not save ice and snow for thousands of years and never a man save squat yellow creatures blighted by the cold whom they call Eskimo. And as I writhe in my guilty agony frantic to save the city whose peril every moment grows and vainly striving to shake off this unnatural dream of a house of stone and brick south of a sinister swamp and on a cemetery on a low hillock the pole star even and monstrous lures down from the black vault winking hideously like an insane watching eye which strives to convey some strange message. He recalls nothing save that at once had a message to convey. This is the end of Polaris by H.P. Lovecraft. The privilege of reminiscence, however rambling or tiresome, is one generally allowed to the very aged. Indeed, it is frequently by means of such recollections that the obscure occurrences of history and the lesser anecdotes of the great are transmitted to posterity. Though many of my readers have at times observed and remarked a sort of antique flow in my style of writing it hath pleased me to pass amongst the members of this generation as a young man giving out the fiction that I was born in 1890 in America. I am now, however, resolved to unburden myself of a secret which I have hitherto kept through dread of incredulity and to impart to the public a true knowledge of my long years in order to gratify their taste for authentic information of an age with whose famous personages I was on familiar terms. Be it then known that I was born on the family estate in Devonshire of the 10th day of August 1690 or in the New Gregorian style of reckoning the 20th of August being therefore now in my 228th year. Coming early to London I saw as a child many of the celebrated men of King William's reign including the lamented Mr. Dryden who sat much at the tables of Will's coffee house. With Mr. Addison and Dr. Swift I later became very well acquainted and was an even more familiar friend to Mr. Pope whom I knew and respected till the day of his death. But since it is of my more recent associate, the late Dr. Johnson that I am at this time desired to write I will pass over my youth for the present. I had first knowledge of a doctor in May of the year 1738 though I did not at that time meet him. Mr. Pope had just completed his epilogue to his satires the piece beginning not twice a twelve month you appear in print and had arranged for its publication. The very day it appeared there was also published a satire in imitation of juvenile entitled London by the then unknown Johnson and this so struck the town that many gentlemen of taste declared it was the work of a greater poet than Mr. Pope. Notwithstanding what some detractors have said of Mr. Pope's petty jealousy he gave the verses of his new rival no small praise and having learnt through Mr. Richardson who the poet was told me that Mr. Johnson would soon be deterred. I had no personal acquaintance with the doctor till 1763 when I was presented to him at the Mider Tavern by Mr. James Boswell a young scotchman of excellent family and great learning but small wit whose metrical effusions I had sometimes revised. Dr. Johnson as I beheld him was a full, Percy man very ill-dressed and of slovenly aspect. I recall him to have worn a bushy bob wig untied and without powder and much too small for his head. His clothes were of rusty brown much wrinkled and with more than one button missing. His face, too full to be handsome was likewise marred by the effects of some scrofulous disorder and his head was continually rolling about in a sort of convulsive way of this infirmity indeed I had known before having heard of it from Mr. Pope who took the trouble to make particular inquiries. Being nearly 73, full 19 years older than Dr. Johnson I say doctor though his degree came not till two years afterwards but naturally expected him to have some regard for my age and was therefore not in that fear of him which others confessed. On my asking him what he thought of my favorable notice of his dictionary in the Londoner my periodical paper he said Sir, I possess no recollection of having perused your paper and have not a great interest in the opinions of the less thoughtful part of mankind. Being more than a little peaked at the incivility of one whose celebrity made me solicitous of his approvation I ventured to retaliate in kind and told him that I was surprised that a man of sense should judge the thoughtfulness of one whose productions he admitted never having read. Why, sir, replied Johnson, I do not require to become familiar with a man's writings in order to estimate the superficiality of his attainments when he plainly skews it by his eagerness to mention his own productions in the first question he puts to me. Having thus become friends we converse on many matters. When to agree with him I said I was distrustful of the authenticity of Ocean's poems Mr. Johnson said that, sir, does not do your understanding particular credit. For what all the town is sensible of is no great discovery for a grub-street critic to make. You might as well say you have a strong suspicion that Milton wrote Paradise Lost. I thereafter saw Johnson very frequently, most often at meetings of the Literary Club, which was founded the next year by the doctor, together with Mr. Burke, the parliamentary orator, Mr. Bochlerk, a gentleman of fashion, Mr. Langton, a pious man and captain of militia, Sir Jay Reynolds, the widely known painter, Dr. Goldsmith, the prose and poetic writer, Dr. Nugent, father-in-law to Mr. Burke, Sir John Hawkins, Mr. Anthony Charmier, and myself. We assembled generally at seven o'clock of an evening, once a week at the Turkshead in Gerard Street, Soho, till that tavern was sold and made into a private dwelling. After which event we moved our gatherings successively to Princes in Sackville Street, couriers in Dover Street, and parcels and the Thatchthouse in St. James Street. In these meetings we preserved a remarkable degree of amity and tranquility, which contrasts very favourably with some of the dissensions and disruptions I observe in the Literary and Amateur Press Associations of today. This tranquility was the more remarkable because we had amongst us gentlemen of very opposed opinions. Dr. Johnson and I, as well as many others, were high Tories, whilst Mr. Burke was a wig and against the American war, many of his speeches on that subject having been widely published. The least congenial member was one of the founders, Sir John Hawkins, who have since written many misrepresentations of our society. Sir John, an eccentric fellow, once declined to pay his part of the reckoning for supper because it was his custom at home to eat no supper. Later he insulted Mr. Burke in so intolerable a manner that we all took pains to show our disapproval, after which incident he came no more to our meetings. However, he never openly fell out with the Doctor and was the executor of his will, though Mr. Boswell and others have reason to question the genuineness of his attachment. Other and later members of the club were Mr. David Garrick, the actor and early friend of Dr. Johnson, Mr. Thomas and Joseph Wharton, Dr. Adam Smith, Dr. Percy, author of The Reliquis, Mr. Edward Gibbon, the historian, Dr. Bernie, the musician, Mr. Malone, the critic, and Mr. Boswell. Mr. Garrick obtained admittance only with difficulty for the Doctor, notwithstanding his great friendship, was forever affecting to decry the stage and all things connected with it. Johnson indeed had a most singular habit of speaking for Davey when others were against him and of arguing against him when others were for him. I have no doubt that he sincerely loved Mr. Garrick, for he never alluded to him as he did to Foot, who was a very coarse fellow despite his comic genius. Mr. Gibbon was none too well liked, for he had an odious, sneering way which offended even those of us who most admired his historical productions. Mr. Goldsmith, a little man, very vain of his dress and very deficient in brilliancy of conversation, was my particular favorite since I was equally unable to shine in the discourse. He was vastly jealous of Dr. Johnson, though nonetheless liking and respecting him. I remember that once a forerunner, a German, I think, was in our company, and that whilst Goldsmith was speaking, he observed the doctor preparing to utter something. Unconsciously looking upon Goldsmith as a mere encumbrance when compared to the greater man, the forerunner bluntly interrupted him and incurred his lasting hostility by crying, HUSH! Dr. Johnson is going to speak! In this luminous company I was tolerated more because of my years than for my wit or learning, being no match at all for the rest. My friendship for the celebrated Mr. Voltaire was ever a cause of annoyance to the doctor, who was deeply orthodox and who used to say of the French philosopher, Mr. Boswell, a little teasing fellow whom I'd known for some time previously, used to make sport of my awkward manners and old-fashioned wig and clothes. Once coming in a little the worse for wine, to which he was addicted, he endeavored to lampoon me by means of an impromptu inverse, writ on the surface of the table, but lacking the aid he usually had in his composition he made a bad grammatical blunder. I told him he should not try to poscunar the source of his poesy. At another time, Bozzie, as we used to call him, complained of my harshness toward new writers in the articles I prepared for the monthly review. He said I pushed every aspirant off the slopes of Parnassus. Sir, I replied, you are mistaken. They who lose their hold do so from their own want of strength, but desiring to conceal their weakness they attribute the absence of success to the first critic that mentions them. I am glad to recall that Dr. Johnson upheld me in this matter. Dr. Johnson was second to no man in the pains he took to revise the bad verses of others. Indeed, Tiz said that in the book of poor blind old Mrs. Williams there are scarce two lines which are not the doctors. At one time Johnson recited to me some lines by a servant to the Duke of Leeds which had so amused him that he had got them by heart. There on the Duke's wedding they much resemble in quality the work of other and more recent poetic dances that I cannot forbear copying them. When the Duke of Leeds shall marry it be to a fine young lady of high quality how happy will that gentlewoman be in his grace of Leeds good company. I asked the doctor if he had ever tried making sense of this piece and upon his saying he had not, I amused myself with the following amendment of it. When gallant Leeds auspiciously shall wed the virtuous fair of ancient lineage-bread how must the maid rejoice with conscious pride to win so great an husband to her side. On showing this to Dr. Johnson he said, Sir, you have straightened out the feet but you have put neither wit nor poetry into the lines. It would afford me gratification to tell more of my experiences with Dr. Johnson and his circle of wits but I am an old man and easily fatigued. I seem to ramble along without much logic or continuity when I endeavor to recall the past and I fear I light upon but few incidents which others have not before discussed. Should my present recollections meet with favor I might later set down some further anecdotes of old times of which I am the only survivor. I recall many things of Sam Johnson and his club having kept up my membership in the latter long after the doctor's death at which I sincerely mourned. I remember how John Burgoyne Esquire, the general whose dramatic and poetical works were printed after his death, was blackballed by three votes, probably because of his unfortunate defeat in the American war at Saratoga. Poor John. His son fared better, I think, and was made a baronet, but I am very tired. I am old, very old, and it's time for my afternoon nap. End of A Reminiscence of Dr. Samuel Johnson, recorded by Cameron Hulket. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibreVox.org Recording by Joseph Canna. The Statement of Randolph Carter by H.P. Lovecraft Again I say, I do not know what has become of Harley Warren, though I think, almost hope, that he is in peaceful oblivion if there be anywhere so blessed a thing. It is true that I have for five years been his closest friend and a partial sharer of his terrible researches into the unknown. I will not deny, though my memory is uncertain and indistinct, that this witness of yours may have seen us together, as he says, on the Gainesville Pike, walking toward Big Cypress Swamp at half past eleven on that awful night. That we bore electric lanterns, spades and a curious coil of wire with attached instruments I will even affirm for these things all played apart in the single hideous scene which remains buried in my shaken recollection. But of what fouled and of the reason I was found alone in days on the edge of the swamp the next morning, I must insist that I know nothing save what I was told over and over again. You say to me that there is nothing in the swamp or nearer at which I could form the setting of that awful episode. I reply that I knew nothing beyond what I saw, vision or nightmare it may have been, vision or nightmare I fervently hope it was. Yet it is all that my mind retains of what took place in those shocking hours after we left the sight of men and why Harley Warn did not return he or his shade or some nameless thing I cannot describe alone can tell. As I have said before the weird studies of Harley Warn were well known to me and to some extent shared by me of his vast collection of strange rare books on forbidden subjects I have read all that are written in the languages of which I am master. But these are few as compared with those languages I can understand. Most I believe are in Arabic and the fiend inspired book which brought on the end, the book which he carried it in his pocket out of this world was written in characters whose like I never saw elsewhere. Warn would never tell me just what was in the book. As to the natures of our studies, must I say again that I no longer retain full comprehension? It seems to me rather merciful that I do not. For they were terrible studies which I pursued more through reluctant fascination than through actual inclination. Warn always dominated me and sometimes I feared him. I remember how I shuttered at his facial expressions on the night before the awful happenings when he talked so incessantly of his theory why certain corpses never decay but rest firm in fact in their tomb for a thousand years. But I do not fear him now for I suspect that he has known horrors beyond my ken. Now I fear for him. Once more I say that I have no clear idea of our object on that night. Certainly it had much to do with something in the book which Warn carried with him. That ancient book in undecipherable characters which had come to him from India a month before. But I swear I do not know what it was we expected to find. Your witness says he saw us at half past eleven on the Gainesville Pike headed for Big Cypress Swamp. This is probably true but I have no distinct memory of it. The picture seared into my soul as one scene only and the hour must have been long after midnight for a waning crescent moon was high in the vaporous heavens. The place was an ancient cemetery so ancient that I trembled at the manifold signs of immemorial years. It was in a deep, damp hollow overgrown with ranked grass, moss, and curious creeping weeds and filled with a vague stench which my idol of fancy associated absurdedly with riding stone. On every hand were the signs of neglect and decrepitude and I seemed haunted by the notion that Warn and I were the first living creatures to invade a lethal silence of centuries. Over the valley's rim a waning crescent moon peered through the noisome vapors that seemed to emanate from unheard of catacombs and by its feeble wavering beams I could distinguish a repellent array of antique slabs, urns, cenotaphs and mausoleum facades, all crumbling moss grown in moisture stained and partly concealed by the gross luxuriance of the unhealthy vegetation. My first vivid impression of my own presence in this terrible necropolis concerns the act of pausing with Warn before a certain half obliterated supple cur and of throwing down some burdens which we seem to have been carrying. I now observe that I had with me an electric lantern in two spades whilst my companion was supplied with a similar lantern and a portable telephone outfit. No word was uttered for the spot and the tasks seemed known to us and without delay we seized our spades and commenced to clear away the grass, weeds, and drifted earth from the flat archaic mortuary. After uncovering the entire scene which consisted of three immense granite slabs we stepped back some distance to survey the carnal scene and Warn appeared to make some mental calculations. Then he returned to the supple cur and using his spade as a lever sought to pry up the slab lying nearest to the stony ruin which may have been a monument in its day. He did not succeed in motion to me to come to his assistance. Finally our combined strength loosened the stone which we raised and tipped to one side. The removal of the slab revealed a black aperture from which rushed in a fluence of myasimal gases so nauseous that we started back in horror. After an interval however we approached the pit again and found the exhalations less unbearable. Our lanterns disclosed a top of a flight of stone steps dripping with some detestable icor of the inner earth bordered by moist walls encrusted with nighter and now for the first time my memory records verbal discourse worn addressing me at length in his mellow tenor voice a voice singularly unperturbed by our awesome surroundings. I'm sorry to have to ask you to stay on the surface, he said. But it'd be a crime to let anyone with your frail nerves go down there. You can't imagine even from what you've read and what I've told you the things I shall have to see and do. It's fiendish work Carter and I doubt if any man with ironclad sensibilities could ever see it through and come up alive and sane. I don't wish to offend you and heaven knows I'd be glad enough to have you with me but the responsibility is in a certain sense mine and I couldn't drag a bundle of nerves like you down to probable death or madness. I tell you, you can't imagine what the thing is really like but I promise to keep you informed over the telephone of every move. You see, I have enough wire here to reach the center of the earth and back. I can still hear in memory those coolly spoken words and I can still remember my remonstrances. I seemed desperately anxious to accompany my friend into those sepulchral depths yet he proved inflexibly obdurate and one time he threatened to abandon the expedition if I remained insistent a threat which proved effective since he alone held the key to the thing. All this I can remember though I no longer know what manner of thing we sought. After he had obtained my reluctant acquiescence in his design, Warren picked up the reel of wire and adjusted the instruments. At his nod, I took one of the ladder and seated myself upon an aged discolored gravestone close by the newly uncovered aperture. Then he shook my hand, shouldered the coil of wire and disappeared within that indescribable ossuary. For a minute I kept the sight of the glow of his lantern and heard the rustle of the wire as he laid it down after him but the glow soon disappeared abruptly as if a turn in the stone staircase had been encountered and the sound died away almost as quickly. I was alone yet bound to the unknown depths by those magic strands whose insulated surface lay green of that waning crescent moon. I constantly consulted my watch by the light of my electric lantern and listened with feverish anxiety at the receiver of the telephone but for more than a quarter of an hour heard nothing. Then a faint clicking came from the instrument and I called down to my friend with a tense voice. Apprehensive as I was, I was nevertheless unprepared for the words which came up from the uncanny vault in accents more alarmed and quivering than any I had heard before from Harley Warren. He who was so calmly left me a little while previously now called from below on a shaky whisper more portentous than the loudest shriek. God if you could see what I am seeing I could not answer speechless I could only wait then came the frenzy tones again Carter it's terrible monstrous unbelievable this time my voice did not even fail me and I poured into the transmitter a flood of excited questions terrified I continued to repeat what is it what is it once more came the voice of my friend still hoarse with fear and now apparently tinged with despair I can't tell you Carter it's too utterly beyond thought I dare not tell you no man could know it and live great God I never dreamed of this stillness again safe from my now incoherent torrent of shuddering inquiry then the voice of Warren in a pitch of wilder consternation Carter for the love of God put back the slab and get out of this if you can quick leave everything else and make for the outside it's your only chance do as I say and don't ask me to explain I heard it was able only to repeat my frantic questions around me were the tombs and the darkness and the shadows below me some peril beyond the radius of the human imagination but my friend was in greater danger than I and through my fear I felt a vague resentment that he should deem me capable of deserting him under such circumstances more clicking and after a pause a piteous cry from Warren beat it for God's sakes put back the slab and beat it Carter something in the boy's slang of my evidently stricken companion unleashed my faculties I formed and shouted a resolution warn brace yourself on coming down but at this offer the tone of my auditor changed to a scream of utter despair don't you can't understand it's too late in my own fault put back the slab and run there's nothing else you already want to do now the tone changed again this time acquiring a softer quality as of hopeless resignation yet it remained tense through anxiety for me quick before it's too late I tried not to heed him tried to break through the paralysis which held me and to fulfill my vow to rush down to his aid but his next whisper found me and still held inert in the chain of stark horror Carter hurry it's no use you must go better one than two the slab a pause more clicking than the faint voice of Warren nearly over now don't make it harder cover up those damn steps and run for your life you're losing time so long Carter won't see you again here Warren's whispers swelled into a cry a cry that gradually rose to a shriek fraught with all the whores of the ages curse these hellish things legions my god beat it beat it beat it after that was silence I know not how many interminable eons I said stupefied whispering muttering calling screaming into that telephone over and over again through those eons I whispered and muttered called shouted and screamed Warren Warren answer me are you there and then there came to me the crowning horror of all the unbelievable unthinkable almost unmentionable thing I have said that eons seemed to elapse after Warren shrieked forth his last despairing warning and that only my own cries now broke the hideous silence but after a while there was a further clicking in the receiver and I strained my ears to listen again I called down Warren are you there and an answer heard the thing which had brought this cloud over my mind I do not try gentlemen to account for that thing that voice nor can I venture to describe it in detail since the first words took away my consciousness and created a mental blank which reaches the time of my awakening in the hospital shall I say that the voice was deep hollow gelatinous remote unearthly inhuman disembodied what shall I say it was the end of my experience and is the end of my story I heard it and knew no more heard it as I said petrified in an unknown cemetery in the hollow amidst the crumbling stones in the falling tombs the ranked vegetation in my asthma vapors heard it well up from the innermost steps of that damnable open sepulcher as I watched amorphous necrophages shadows dance beneath an incursive waning moon and this is what it said you fool Warren is dead End of the statement of Randolph Carter Recording by Joseph Canna, Chicago, Illinois This is a LibriVox recording All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Recording by Sarah Jennings The Street by H.P. Lovecraft There be those who say that things and places have souls and there be those who say they have not I dare not say myself but I will tell of the street men of strength and honour fashioned that street good valiant men of our blood who had come from the blessed aisles across the sea at first it was by a path trodden by bearers of water from the woodland spring to the cluster of houses by the beach then as more men came to the growing cluster of houses and looked about for places to dwell they built cabins along the north side men of stout oaken logs with masonry on the side toward the forest for many Indians lurked there with fire arrows and in a few years more men built cabins on the south side of the street up and down the street walked grave men in conical hats who most of the time carried muskets or fouling pieces and there were also their bonneted wives and sober children in the evening these men with their wives and children would sit about gigantic hearths and read and speak very simple were the things of which they read and spoke yet things which gave them courage and goodness and helped them by day to subdue the forests until the fields and the children would listen and learn of the laws and deeds of old and of that dear England which they had never seen or could not remember there was war and thereafter no more Indians troubled the street the men busy with labour waxed prosperous and as happy as they knew how to be and the children grew up comfortable and more families came from the motherland to dwell on the street and the children's children and the newcomer's children grew up the town was now a city and one by one the cabins gave place to houses simple beautiful houses of brick and wood with stone steps and iron railings and fan lights over the doors no flimsy creations were these houses for they were made to serve many a generation within there were carbon mantles and graceful stairs and sensible pleasing furniture China and silver brought from the motherland so the street drank in the dreams of a young people and rejoiced as its dwellers became more graceful and happy where once had been only strength and honour taste and learning now abode as well books and painting and music came to the houses and the young men went to the university which rose above the plain to the north in the place of conical hats and small swords of lace and snowy periwigs there were cobblestones over which clattered many a blooded horse and rumbled many a gilded coach and bricks sidewalks with horse blocks and hitching posts there were in that street many trees elms and oaks and maples of dignity so that in the summer the scene was all soft verger and twittering birdsong and behind the houses were walled rose gardens with hedged paths and sundials where at evening the moon and stars would shine bewitchingly while fragment blossoms glistened with dew so the street dreamed on past wars calamities and change once most of the young men went away and some never came back that was when they furled the old flag and put up a new banner of stripes and stars but though men talked of great changes the street felt them not for its folk were still the same speaking of the old familiar things and the old familiar accounts and the trees still sheltered singing birds and at evening the moon and stars looked down upon dewy blossoms in the walled rose gardens at the time there were no more swords three-cornered hats or periwigs in the street how strange seemed the inhabitants with their walking sticks tall beavers and cropped heads new sounds came from the distance first the strange puffings and shrieks from the river a mile away and then many years later strange puffings and shrieks and rumblings from other directions the air was not quite so pure as before but the spirit of the place had not changed the blood and soul of their ancestors had fashioned the street nor did the spirit change when they tore open the earth to lay down strange pipes or when they set up tall posts bearing weird wires there was so much ancient lore in that street that the past could not easily be forgotten then came the days of evil when many who had known the street of old were more and many knew it who had not known it before and went away for their accents were coarse and strident and their mien and faces unpleasing their thoughts too fought with the wise just spirit of the street so that the street pined silently as its houses fell into decay and its trees died one by one and its rose gardens grew rank with weeds and waste but it felt a stir of pride one day when again marched forth young men some of whom never came back these young men were clad in blue with the years worse fortune came to the street its trees were all gone now and its rose gardens were displaced by the backs of cheap ugly new buildings on parallel streets yet the houses remained despite the ravages of the years and the storms and worms for they had been made to serve many a generation new kinds of faces appeared in the street swarthy sinister faces with furtive eyes and odd features whose owners spoke in unfamiliar words and placed signs in known and unknown characters upon most of the musty houses push carts crowded the gutters a sordid undefinable stench settled over the place and the ancient spirit slept great excitement once came to the street war and revolution were raging across the seas a dynasty had collapsed and its degenerate subjects were flocking with dubious intent to the western land many of these took lodgings in the battered houses that had once known the songs of birds and the scent of roses then the western land itself awoke and joined the motherland in her titanic struggle for civilization over the cities once more floated the old flag companioned by the new flag and by a plainer yet glorious tricolor but not many flags floated over the street for therein brooded only fear and hatred and ignorance again young men went forth but not quite as did the young men of those other days something was lacking and the sons of those young men of other days but did indeed go forth in all of drab with the true spirit of their ancestors went from distant places and knew not the street and its ancient spirit over the seas there was a great victory and in triumph most of the young men returned those who had lacked something lacked it no longer yet did fear and hatred and ignorance still brood over the street for many had stayed behind and the strangers had come from distant places to the ancient houses and the young men who had returned dwelt there no longer swore they in sinister were most of the strangers yet among them one might find a few faces like those who fashioned the street and molded its spirit like and yet unlike for there was in the eyes of all a weird unhealthy glitter as of greed ambition, vindictiveness or misguided zeal unrest and treason were abroad amongst an evil few who plotted to strike the western land its death blow that they might mount to power over its ruins even as assassins had mounted in that unhappy frozen land from whence most of them had come and the heart of that plotting was in the street whose crumbling houses teamed with alien markers of discord and echoed with the plans and speeches of those who yearned for the appointed day of blood, flame and crime of the various odd assemblages in the street the law said much but could prove little with great diligence did men of hidden badges linger and listen about such places as Petrovich's Bakery the swallowed Rifkin School of Modern Economics the Circle Social Club and the Liberty Cafe there congregated sinister men in great numbers yet always was their speech guarded or in a foreign tongue and still the old houses stood with their forgotten lore of nobler departed centuries of sturdy colonial tenants and dewy rose gardens in the moonlight sometimes a lone poet or traveller would come to view them and would try to picture them in their vanished glory yet of such travellers and poets there were not many the rumour now spread widely that these houses contained the leaders of a vast band of terrorists who on a designated day were to launch an orgy of slaughter for the extermination of America and of all the fine old traditions which the street had loved handbills and papers flooded about filthy gutters handbills and papers printed in many tongues and in many characters yet all bearing messages of crime and rebellion in these writings the people were urged to tear down the laws and virtues that our fathers had exalted to stamp out the soul of the old America the soul that was bequeathed through a thousand and a half years of Anglo-Saxon freedom justice and moderation it was said that the Swart men who dwelt in the street and congregated in its rotting edifices were the brains of a hideous revolution that at their word of command many millions of brainless besotted beasts would stretch forth their noisome talons from the slums of a thousand cities burning, slaying and destroying till the land of our fathers should be no more all this was said and repeated and many looked forward and dread to the fourth day of July about which the strange writings hinted much yet could nothing be found to place the guilt none could tell just whose arrest might cut off the damnable applauding at its source many times came bands of blue-coated police to search the shaky houses though at last they ceased to come for they too had grown tired of law and order and had abandoned all the city to its fate then men in all of drab came bearing muskets till it seemed as if in its sad sleep the street must have had some haunting dreams of those other days when musket-bearing men in conical hats walked along it from the woodland spring to the cluster of houses by the beach yet could no act be performed to check the impending claticlism for the Swartz sinister men were old and cunning so the street slept uneasily on till one night they're gathered in Petrovich's Bakery and the Rifkin School of Modern Economics and the Circle Social Club and Liberty Cafe and in other places as well vast hordes of men whose eyes were big with horrible triumph and expectation over hidden wires, strange messages travelled and much was said of still stranger messages yet to travel but most of this was not guessed till afterward when the western land was safe from the peril the men in all of drab could not tell what was happening or what they ought to do for the Swartz sinister men were skilled in subtlety and concealment and yet the men in all of drab will always remember that night and will speak of the street as they tell it to their grandchildren for many of them were sent there toward morning on a mission unlike that which they had expected it was known that this nest of anarchy was old and that the houses were tottering from the ravages of the years and the storms and the worms yet was the happening of that summer night a surprise because of its very queer uniformity it was indeed an exceedingly singular happening though after all a simple one for without warning in one of the small hours beyond midnight all the ravages of the years and the storms and the worms came to a tremendous climax and after the crash there was nothing left standing in the street save two ancient chimneys and part of a stout brick wall nor did anything that had been alive come alive from the ruins a poet and traveller who came with the mighty crowd that sought the scene tell odd stories the poet says that all through the hours before dawn he beheld sordid ruins indistinctly in the glare of the arc lights that they're loomed above the wreckage and other picture wherein he could describe moonlight and fair houses and elms and oaks and maples of dignity and the traveller declares that instead of the place's wanted stench they're lingered a delicate fragrance as of roses in full bloom but are not the dreams of poets and the tales of travellers notoriously false there be those who say that things and places have souls and there be those who say they have not I dare not say myself but I have told you of the street end of the street this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org recording by Keith Warrell The Terrible Old Man by HP Lovecraft it was the design of Angelo Rieke and Joe Chesnick and Manuel Silva to call on the terrible old man this old man dwells all alone in the very ancient house on Walters Street near the sea and is reputed to be both exceedingly rich and exceedingly feeble this is a situation very attractive to men of the profession of misers Chesnick and Silva that profession was nothing less dignified than robbery the inhabitants of Kingsport say and think many things about the terrible old man would generally keep him safe from the attention of gentlemen like Mr. Rieke and his colleagues despite the almost certain fact that he hides a fortune of indefinite magnitude somewhere about his musty and venerable abode he is in truth a very strange person believed to have been a captain of East India Clipperships in his day so old that no one can remember when he was young and so taciturn that few knew his real name among the gnarled trees in the front yard of his aged and neglected place he maintains a strange collection of large stones oddly grouped and painted so that they resemble the idols in some obscure eastern temple this collection frightens away most of the small boys who love to taunt the terrible old man about his long white hair and beard or to break the small pained windows of his dwelling with wicked missiles but there are other things which frightened the older and more curious folks who sometimes steal up to the house to peer through the dusty pains these folks say that on a table in a bare room on the ground floor are many peculiar bottles in each a small piece of lead suspended pendulum wise from a string and they say that the terrible old man talks to these bottles addressing them by such names as Scarface Long Tom, Spanish Joe, Peters, and Mate Ellis and that whenever he speaks to the bottle the little lead pendulum within makes certain definite vibrations as if an answer those who have watched the tall, lean, terrible old man in these peculiar conversations do not watch him again but Angelo Ricci and Joe Chanuk and Manuel Silva were not of the Kingsport blood they were of that new and heterogeneous alien stock which lies outside the charmed circle of New England life and traditions and they saw the terrible old man merely tottering almost helpless grey beard who could not walk without the aid of his knotted cane and whose thin weak hands show pitifully they were really quite sorry in their way for the lonely unpopular old fellow whom everybody shunned and at whom all the dog barked singularly but business is business and who a robber whose soul is in the profession there is a lure and a challenge about a very old and very feeble man who has no account at the bank and pays for his few necessities at the village store with Spanish gold and silver minted two centuries ago Mezers, Ricci, Chanuk, and Silva selected the night of April 11th for their call Mr. Ricci and Mr. Silva were to interview the old gentlemen whilst Mr. Chanuk waited for them and their presumable metallic burden with a covered motor car in Ship Street by the gate in the tall rear wall of their host's grounds desire to avoid deedless explanations in the case of unexpected police intrusions prompted these plans for a quiet and unustenious departure as prearranged these three adventurers started out separately in order to prevent any evil minded suspicions afterward Mezner, Ricci, and Silva met in Water Street by the old man's front gate and although they did not like the way the moon shone down upon the painted stones of budding branches of the gnarled trees they had more important things to think about than mere idle superstition they feared it might be unpleasant work making the terrible old man loquacious concerning his hoarded gold and silver for H.C. captains are notably stubborn and perverse still he was very old and very feeble and there were two visitors Mezers, Ricci, and Silva were experienced in the art of making unwilling persons voluble and the screams of a weak and exceptionally venerable man can be easily muffled so they moved up to the one lighted window and heard the terrible old man talking childishly to his bottles with pendulums then they donned masks and knocked politely at the weather-stained Okan door waiting seemed very long to Mr. Chaneck as he fidgeted restlessly in the covered motor car by the terrible old man's back gate in Ship Street he was more than ordinarily tender-hearted and he did not like the hideous screams he had heard in the ancient house just after the hour appointed for the deed had he not told his colleagues to be as gentle as possible with the pathetic old sea captain very nervously he watched that narrow Okan gate in the high and ivory clad stone wall frequently he consulted his watch and wondered at the delay had the old man died before revealing where his treasure was hidden and had a thorough search become necessary Mr. Chaneck did not like to wait so long in the dark in such a place then he sensed a soft tread or tapping on the walk inside the gate heard a gentle fumbling at the rusty latch and saw the narrow heavy door swing inward and in the pallid glow of the single dim street lamp he strained his eyes to see what his colleagues had brought out of that sinister house which loomed so close behind but when he looked he did not see what he had expected for his colleagues were not there at all but only the terrible old man leaning quietly on his knotted cane and smiling hideously Mr. Chaneck had never before noticed the color of the man's eyes now he saw that they were yellow little things make considerable excitement in our little towns which is the reason that Kingsport people talked all that spring and summer about the three unidentifiable bodies horribly slashed as with many cutlisses and horribly mangled as by the tread of many cruel boot heels which the tide washed in and some people even spoke of things as trivial as the deserted motor car found in Ship Street or certain especially inhuman cries probably of a stray animal or migratory bird heard in the night by the wakeful citizens but in this idle village gossip the terrible old man took no interest at all he was by nature reserved and when one is aged and feeble one's reserve is duly strong besides so ancient to see captain must have witnessed scores of things much more stirring in the far off days of his unremembered youth end of The Terrible Old Man by H.P. Lovecraft Recording by Keith Worrell Please visit my website at www.nakedpenguins.org This is a LibriVox recording All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Recording by James Pontolillo The Tomb by H.P. Lovecraft Serebus Utsaltum Placidis in Morty Kwiaskam And in a peaceful grave my corpse repose Virgil In relating the circumstances which have led to my confinement within this refuge for the Demented I am aware that my present position will create a natural doubt of the authenticity of my narrative It is an unfortunate fact that the bulk of humanity is too limited in its mental vision to weigh with patience and intelligence those isolated phenomena seen and felt only by a psychologically sensitive few which lie outside its common experience Men of broader intellect know that there is no sharp distinction betwixt the real and the unreal that all things appear as they do only by virtue of the delicate individual physical and mental media through which we are made conscious of them But the prosaic materialism of the majority condemns as madness the flashes of supersight which penetrate the common veil of obvious empiricism My name is Jervis Dudley and from earliest childhood I have been a dreamer and a visionary Wealthy beyond the necessity of a commercial life and temperamentally unfitted for the formal studies and social recreations of my acquaintances I have dwelt ever in realms apart from the visible world spending my youth and adolescence in ancient and little known books and enroaming the fields and groves of the region near my ancestral home I do not think that what I read in those books or saw in those fields and groves was exactly what other boys read and saw there but of this I must say little since detailed speech would but confirm those cruel slanders upon my intellect which I sometimes overhear from the whispers of the stealthy attendants around me It is sufficient for me to relate events without analyzing causes I have said that I dwelt apart from the visible world but I have not said that I dwelt alone This no human creature may do for lacking the fellowship of the living he inevitably draws upon the companionship of things that are not or are no longer living Close by my home there lies a singular wooded hollow in whose twilight deeps I spent much of my time reading, thinking, and dreaming Down its moss-covered slopes my first steps of infancy were taken and around its grotesquely gnarled oak trees my first fancies of boyhood were woven Well did I come to know the presiding dryads of those trees and often have I watched their wild dances in the struggling beams of waning moon but of these things I must not now speak I will tell only of the lone tomb in the darkest of the hillside thickets the deserted tomb of the hides an old and exalted family whose last direct descendant had been laid within its black recesses many decades before my birth The vault to which I refer is an ancient granite weathered and discolored by the mists and dampness of generations Excavated back into the hillside the structure is visible only at the entrance The door, a ponderous and forbidding slab of stone hangs upon rusted iron hinges and is fastened ajar in a queerly sinister way by means of heavy iron chains and padlocks according to a gruesome fashion of half a century ago The abode of the race whose scions are enured had once crowned the declivity which holds the tomb but had long since fallen victim to the flames which sprang up from a disastrous stroke of lightning Of the midnight storm which destroyed this gloomy mansion the older inhabitants of the region sometimes speak in hushed and uneasy voices alluding to what they call divine wrath in a manner that in later years vaguely increased the always strong fascination which I felt for the forest, dark and sepulcher One man only had perished in the fire When the last of the hides was buried in this place of shade and stillness the sad, earnful of ashes had come from a distant land to which the family had repaired when the mansion burned down No one remains to lay flowers before the granite portal and few care to brave the depressing shadows which seemed to linger strangely about the water-worn stones I shall never forget the afternoon when I first stumbled upon the half-hidden house of the dead It was in mid-summer when the alchemy of nature transmutes the silvan landscape to one vivid and almost homogeneous mass of green when the senses are well-nigh intoxicated with the surging seas of moist verger and the subtly indefinable odors of the soil and the vegetation In such surroundings the mind loses its perspective time and space become trivial and unreal and echoes of a forgotten prehistoric past beat insistently upon the enthralled consciousness All day I had been wandering through the mystic groves of the hollow thinking thoughts I need not discuss and conversing with things I need not name In years a child of ten I had seen and heard many wonders unknown to the throng and was oddly aged in certain respects When, upon forcing my way between two savage clumps of briars I suddenly encountered the entrance of the vault I had no knowledge of what I had discovered the dark blocks of granite the door so curiously ajar and the funerial carvings above the arch aroused in me no associations of mournful or terrible character Of graves and tombs I knew and imagined much but had on account of my peculiar temperament been kept from all personal contact with churchyards and cemeteries The strange stone house on the woodland slope was to me only a source of interest and speculation and its cold damp interior into which I vainly peered through the aperture so tantalizingly left contained for me no hint of death or decay but in that instant of curiosity was born the madly unreasoning desire which has brought me to this hell of confinement spurred on by a voice which must have come from the hideous soul of the forest I resolved to enter the beckoning gloom in spite of the ponderous chains which barred my passage In the waning light of day I alternately rattled the rusty impediments with a view to throwing wide the stone door an essay to squeeze my slight form through the space already provided but neither plan met with success At first curious I was not frantic and when in the thickening twilight I returned to my home I had sworn to the hundred gods of the grove that at any cost I would someday force an entrance to the black chilly depths that seemed calling out to me The physician with the iron grey beard who comes each day to my room once told a visitor his decision marked the beginnings of a pitiful monomania but I will leave final judgment to my readers when they shall have learnt all The months following my discovery were spent in futile attempts to force the complicated padlock of the slightly opened vault and in carefully guarded inquiries regarding the nature and history of the structure With the traditionally receptive ears of the small boy I learned much The habitual secretiveness caused me to tell no one of my information or my resolve It is perhaps worth mentioning that I was not at all surprised or terrified on learning of the nature of the vault My rather original ideas regarding life and death had caused me to associate the cold clay with the breathing body in a vague fashion and I felt that the great sinister family of the burned down mansion was in some way represented within the stone space I sought to explore Mumbled tales of the weird rites and godless revels of bygone years in the ancient hall gave to me a new and potent interest in the tomb before whose door I would sit for hours at a time each day Once I thrust a candle within the nearly closed entrance but could see nothing save a flight of damp stone steps leading downward The odor of the place repelled yet bewitched me I felt I had known it before in a past remote beyond all recollection beyond even my tenancy of the body I now possess The year after I first beheld the tomb I stumbled upon a worm-eaten translation of Plutarch's Lives in the book-filled attic of my home Reading the life of Theseus I was much impressed by that passage telling of the great stone beneath which the boyish hero was to find his tokens of destiny whenever he should become old enough to lift its enormous weight This legend had the effect of dispelling my keenest impatience to enter the vault, for it made me feel that the time was not yet ripe Later, I told myself, I should grow to a strength and ingenuity which might enable me to unfasten the heavily chained door with ease but until then I would do better by conforming to what seemed the will of fate Accordingly, my watches by the dank portal became less persistent and much of my time was spent in other though equally strange pursuits I would sometimes rise very quietly in the night, stealing out to walk in those churchyards and places of burial from which I had been kept by my parents What I did there, I may not say for I am not now sure of the reality of certain things but I know that on the day after such a nocturnal ramble I would often astonish those about me with my knowledge of topics almost forgotten for many centuries It was after a night like this that I shocked the community with a queer conceit about the burial of the rich and celebrated Squire Brewster, a maker of local history who was interred in 1711 and whose slate headstone, bearing a graven skull and crossbones was slowly crumbling to powder In a moment of childish imagination, I vowed not only that the undertaker Goodman Simpson had stolen the silver-buckled shoes, silken hose and satin small clothes of the deceased before burial but that the Squire himself, not fully inanimate had turned twice in his mound-covered coffin on the day of interment But the idea of entering the tomb never left my thoughts being indeed stimulated by the unexpected genealogical discovery that my own maternal ancestry possessed at least a slight link with the supposedly extinct family of the hides Last of my paternal race, I was likewise the last of this older and more mysterious line I began to feel that the tomb was mine and to look forward with hot eagerness to the time when I might pass within that stone door and down those slimy stone steps in the dark I now formed the habit of listening very intently at the slightly open portal choosing my favorite hours of midnight stillness for the odd vigil By the time I came of age, I had made a small clearing in the thicket before the mold-stained facade of the hillside allowing the surrounding vegetation to encircle and overhang the space like the walls and roof of a silvan bower This bower was my temple the fastened door my shrine and here I would lie outstretched on the mossy ground thinking strange thoughts and dreaming of strange dreams The night of the first revelation was a sultry one I must have fallen asleep from fatigue for it was with a distinct sense of awakening that I heard the voices Of those tones and accents I hesitate to speak of their quality I will not speak but I may say that they presented certain uncanny differences in vocabulary, pronunciation, and mode of utterance Every shade of New England dialect from the uncouth syllables of the Puritan colonists to the precise rhetoric of fifty years ago seemed represented in that shadowy colloquy though it was only later that I noticed the fact At the time, indeed, my attention was distracted from this matter by another phenomenon a phenomenon so fleeting that I could not take oath upon its reality I barely fancied that as I awoke a light had been hurriedly extinguished within the sunken sepulcher I do not think I was either astounded or panic-stricken but I know that I was greatly and permanently changed that night Upon returning home I went with much directness to a rotting chest in the attic wherein I found the key which next day unlocked with ease the barrier I had so long stormed in vain It was in the soft glow of late afternoon that I first entered the vault on the abandoned slope A spell was upon me and my heart leapt with an exultation I can but ill describe As I closed the door behind me and descended the dripping steps by the light of my lone candle I seemed to know the way and though the candle sputtered with the stifling reek of the place I felt singularly at home in the musty charnel house air Looking about me, I beheld many marble slabs bearing coffins or the remains of coffins Some of these were sealed and intact but others had nearly vanished leaving the silver handles and plates isolated amidst certain curious heaps of whitish dust Upon one plate I read the name of Sir Jeffrey Hyde who had come from Sussex in 1640 and died here a few years later In a conspicuous alcove was one fairly well preserved and untenanted casket adorned with a single name which brought to me both a smile and a shudder An odd impulse caused me to climb upon the broad slab extinguish my candle and lie down within the vacant box In the gray light of dawn I staggered from the vault and locked the chain of the door behind me I was no longer a young man though but twenty-one winters had chilled my bodily frame Early rising villagers who observed my homeward progress looked at me strangely and marveled at the signs of rivaled revelry which they saw in one whose life was known to be sober and solitary I did not appear before my parents till after a long and refreshing sleep Henceforward I haunted the tomb each night seeing, hearing and doing things I must never reveal My speech, always susceptible to environmental influences was the first thing to succumb to the change and my suddenly acquired archaism of diction was soon remarked upon Later a queer boldness and recklessness came into my demeanor till I unconsciously grew to possess the bearing of a man of the world despite my lifelong seclusion My formally silent tongue waxed voluble with the easy grace of a Chesterfield or the godless cynicism of a Rochester I displayed a peculiar erudition utterly unlike the fantastic monkish lore over which I had poured in youth and covered the fly leaves of my books with facile impromptu epigrams which brought up suggestions of gay, prior, and the sprightliest of Augustine wits and rhymesters One morning at breakfast I came close to disaster by declaiming impalpably liquorish accents in a fusion of 18th century Bacchanalian mirth a bit of Georgian playfulness never recorded in a book which ran something like this Come hither my lads with your tankards of ale and drink to the present beef or it shall fail Pile each on your platter a mountain of beef for tis eating and drinking that brings us relief So fill up your glass so life will soon pass When you're dead you'll ne'er drink to your king or your lass Unacrian had a red nose so they say but what's a red nose if you're happy and gay God split me I'd rather be red whilst I'm here than white as a lily and dead half a year So betty my miss, come give me a kiss in hell there's no innkeeper's daughter like this Young Harry propped up just as straight as he's able will soon lose his wig and slip under the table So fill up your goblets and pass them around better under the table than under the ground So revel and chaff as he thirstily quaff Under six feet of dirt tis less easy to laugh The fiends strike me blue I'm scarce able to walk and dam me if I can stand upright or talk Here land a bid betty to summon a chair I'll try home for a while for my wife is not there So lend me a hand I'm not able to stand I'm gay whilst I linger on top of the land About this time I conceived my present fear of fire and thunderstorms Previously indifferent to such things I had now an unspeakable horror of them and would retire to the innermost recesses of the house whenever the heavens threatened an electrical display A favorite haunt of mine during the day was the ruined cellar of the mansion that had burned down and in fancy I would picture the structure of the inn in its prime. On one occasion I startled a villager by leading him confidently to a shallow sub-cellar of whose existence I seemed to know in spite of the fact that it had been unseen and forgotten for many generations. At last came that which I had long feared. My parents, alarmed at the altered manner and appearance of their only son, commenced to exert over my movements a kindly espionage which threatened to result in disaster. I had told no one of my visits to the tomb, having guarded my secret purpose with religious zeal since childhood, but now I was forced to exercise a care in threading the mazes of the woodland hollow that I might throw off a possible pursuer. My key to the vault I kept suspended from a cord about my neck, its presence known only to me. I never carried out of the sepulcher any of the things I came upon whilst within its walls. One morning as I emerged from the damp tomb and fastened the chain of the portal with none too steady hand, I beheld in an adjacent thicket the dreaded face of a watcher. Surely the end was near, for my bower was discovered and the objective of my nocturnal journeys revealed. The man did not accost me so I hastened home in an effort to overhear what he might report to my care-worn father. Were my sojourns beyond the chain door about to be proclaimed to the world? Imagine my delighted astonishment on hearing the spy inform my parent in cautious whisper that I had spent the night in the bower outside the tomb. My sleep-filmed eyes fixed upon the crevice where the padlocked portal stood ajar. By what miracle had the watcher been thus diluted? I was now convinced that a supernatural agency protected me. Made bold by this heaven-sent circumstance I began to resume perfect openness in going to the vault, confident that no one could witness my entrance. For a week I tasted to the full the joys of that charnel conviviality which I must not describe. When the thing happened and I was born away to this accursed abode of sorrow and monotony. I should not have ventured out that night where the taint of thunder was in the clouds and hellish phosphorescence rose from the rank swamp at the bottom of the hollow. The call of the dead, too, was different. Instead of the hillside tomb, it was the charred cellar on the crest of the slope whose presiding daemon beckoned to me with unseen fingers. As I emerged from an intervening grove upon the plain before the ruin, I beheld in the misty moonlight a thing I had always vaguely expected. The mansion, gone for a century, once more reared its stately height to the raptured vision. Every window ablaze with the splendor of many candles. Up the long drive rolled the coaches of the Boston gentry, whilst on foot came a numerous assemblage of powdered exquisite from the neighboring mansions. With this throng I mingled, though I knew I belonged with the hosts rather than the guests. Inside the hall were music, laughter, and wine on every hand. Several faces I recognized, though I should have known them better than shriveled or eaten away by death and decomposition. Amid a wild and reckless throng I was the wildest and most abandoned. Gay blasphemy poured in torrents from my lips, and in my shocking sallies I heeded no law of God, man, or nature. Suddenly, a peel of thunder, resonant even above the din of the swinish revelry, claved the very roof and laid a hush of fear upon the boisterous company. Red tongues of flame and searing gusts of heat engulfed the house, and the roisterers struck with terror at the descent of a calamity which seemed to transcend the bounds of unguided nature, fled shrieking into the night. I alone remained riveted to my seat by a groveling fear which I had never felt before. And then a second horror took possession of my soul. Burnt alive to ashes, my body dispersed by the four winds, I might never lie in the tomb of the hides. Was not my coffin prepared for me? Had I not a right to rest till eternity among the descendants of Sir Geoffrey Hyde? I, I would claim my heritage of death, even though my soul goes seeking through the ages for another corporeal tenement to represent it on that vacant slab in the alcove of the vault. Jervis Hyde should never share the sad fate of Palinurus. As the phantom of the burning house faded, I found myself screaming and struggling madly in the arms of two men, and was the spy who had followed me to the tomb. Rain was pouring down in torrents, and upon the southern horizon were flashes of the lightning that had so lately passed over our heads. My father, his face lined with sorrow, stood by as I shouted my demands to be laid within the tomb, frequently admonishing my captors to treat me as gently as they could. A blackened circle on the floor of the ruined cellar told of a violent stroke from the heavens, and from this spot a group of curious villagers with lanterns were prying a small box of antique workmanship which the thunderbolt had brought to light. Ceasing my futile and now objectless writhing, I watched the spectators as they viewed the treasure trove, and was permitted to share in their discoveries. The box, whose fastenings were broken by the stroke which had unearthed it, contained many papers and objects of value, but I had eyes for one thing alone. It was the porcelain miniature of a young man in a smartly curled bag wig and bore the initials J.H. The face was such that as I gazed, I might well have been studying my mirror. On the following day I was brought to this room with the barred windows, but I had been kept informed of certain things through an aged and simple-minded servitor for whom I bore a fondness in infancy and who, like me, loves the churchyard. What I have dared relate of my experiences within the vault has brought me only pitying smiles. My father, who visits me frequently, declares that at no time did I pass the chained portal and swears that the rusted padlock had not been touched for fifty years when he examined it. He even says that all the village knew of my journeys to the tomb, and that I was often watched as I slept in the bower outside the grim façade, my half-open eyes fixed on the crevice that leads to the interior. Since these assertions I have no tangible proof to offer, since my key to the padlock was lost in the struggle on that night of horrors. The strange things of the past which I learned during those nocturnal meetings with the dead he dismisses as the fruits of my lifelong and omnivorous browsing amongst the ancient volumes of the family library. Had it not been for my old servant Hyrum, I should have by this time been quite convinced of my madness. Hyrum, loyal to the last, has held faith in me, and has done that which impels me to make public at least a part of my story. A week ago he burst open the lock which changed the door of the tomb perpetually ajar, and descended with a lantern into the murky depths. On a slab in an alcove he found an old but empty coffin whose tarnished plate bears the single word, Jervis. In that coffin, and in that vault, they have promised me I shall be buried. This is the end of The Tomb by H.P. Lovecraft. Editorial Endnote. The Latin quote at the beginning of this story was from Virgil's The Aeneid. Book 6, line 371. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Michael Sample. Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, 2008. The Tree by H.P. Lovecraft. On a verdant slope of Mount Mainalis in Arcadia, there stands an olive grove about the ruins of Avila. Close by is a tomb, once beautiful with the sublimus sculptures, but now fallen into as great decay as the house. At one end of that tomb, its curious roots, replacing the time-stained blocks of Panhelic marble, grows an unnaturally large olive tree of oddly repellent shape, so like to some grotesque man or death-distorted body of a man, that the country folk fear to pass it at night when the moon shines faintly through the crooked boughs. Mount Mainalis is a chosen haunt of dreaded pan, whose queer companions are many, and simple swains believe that the tree must have some hideous kinship to these weird peniche. But an old beekeeper who lives in the neighbouring cottage told me a different story. Many years ago, when the hillside villa was new and resplendent, there dwelt within it the two sculptors, Calos and Museides. From Lydia to Neapolis, the beauty of their work was praised, and none dared say that one excelled the other in skill. The Hermes of Calos stood in a marble shrine in Corinth, and the palace of Museides surmounted a pillar in Athens near the Parthenon. All men paid homage to Calos and Museides, and marveled that no shadow of artistic jealousy cooled the warmth of their brotherly friendship. But though Calos and Museides dwelt in unbroken harmony, their natures were not alike. While Museides, reveled by night amidst the urban gaites of Tegea, Calos would remain at home, stealing away from the sight of his slaves into the cool recesses of the olive grove. There he would meditate upon the visions that filled his mind, and there devised the forms of beauty which later became immortal in breathing marble. Idolfolk indeed said that Calos conversed with the spirits of the grove, and that his statues were but images of the fawns and dryads he met there, for he patterned his work after no living model. So famous were Calos and Museides that none wondered when the tyrant of Syracuse sent them deputies to speak of the costly statue of Teich, which he had planned for his city. Of great size and cunning workmanship must the statue be, for it was to form a wonder of nations and a goal of travellers. Exalted beyond thought would be he whose work should gain acceptance, and for this honour Calos and Museides were invited to compete. Their brotherly love was well known, and the crafty tyrant surmised that each, instead of concealing his work from the other, would offer aid and advice, this charity producing two images of unheard of beauty, the lovelier of which would eclipse even the dreams of poets. With joy the sculptors hailed the tyrant's offer, so that in the days that followed their slaves heard the ceaseless blows of chisels. Not from each other did Calos and Museides conceal their work, but the sight was for them alone. Saving theirs, no eyes beheld the two divine figures released by skilful blows from the rough blocks that had imprisoned them since the world began. At night, as of yore, Museides sought the banquet halls of Tegyia whilst Calos wandered alone in the olive grove, but as time passed men observed a want of gaiety in the once sparkling Museides. It was strange, they said amongst themselves, that depression should thus seize one with so great a chance to win art's loftiest rewards. Many months passed yet in the sour face of Museides came nothing of the sharp expectancy which the situation should arouse. Then one day Museides spoke of the illness of Calos, after which none marveled again at his sadness, since the sculptor's attachment was known to be deep and sacred. Subsequently many went to visit Calos and indeed noticed the pallor of his face, but there was about him a happy serenity which made his glance more magical in the glance of Museides who was clearly distracted with anxiety and who pushed aside all the slaves in his eagerness to feed and wait upon his friend with his own hands. Hidden behind heavy curtains stood the two unfinished figures of Tegy, little touched of late by the sick man and his faithful attendant. As Calos grew inexplicably weaker and weaker despite the ministrations of puzzled physicians and of his assiduous friend, he desired to be carried often to the grove which he so loved. There he would ask to be left alone, as if wishing to speak with unseen things. Museides ever granted his requests, though his eyes filled with visible tears at the thought that Calos should care more for the fawns and the dryads than for him. At last the end drew near and Calos discoursed of things beyond this life. Museides, weeping, promised him a sepulcher more lovely than the tomb of Mausolus, but Calos bade him speak no more of marble glories. Only one wish now haunted the mind of the dying man. That twigs from certain olive trees in the grove be buried by his resting place close to his head and one night sitting alone in the darkness of the olive grove, Calos died. Beautiful beyond words was the marble sepulcher which stricken Museides carved for his beloved friend. None but Calos himself could have fashioned such ba reliefs wherein were displayed all the splendors of Elysium. Nor did Museides fail to bury close to Calos' head the olive twigs from the grove. As the first violence of Museides' grief gave place to resignation, he laboured with diligence upon his figure of Taiki. All honour was now his since the tyrant of Syracuse would have the work of none save him or Calos. His task proved event for his emotion and he toiled more steadily each day, shunning the gayities he had once relished. Meanwhile his evenings were spent beside the tomb of his friend where a young olive tree had sprung up near the sleeper's head. So swift was the growth of this tree and so strange was its form that all who beheld it exclaimed in surprise and Museides seemed at once fascinated and repelled. Three years after the death of Calos Museides dispatched a messenger to the tyrant and it was whispered in the agor of Tegea that the mighty statue was finished. By this time the tree by the tomb had attained amazing proportions exceeding all other trees of its kind and sending out a singularly heavy branch above the apartment in which Museides laboured. As many visitors came to view the prodigious tree as to admire the art of the sculptor so that Museides was seldom alone. But he did not mind his multitude of guests. Indeed he seemed to dread being alone now that his absorbing work was done. The bleak mountain wind sighing through the olive grove and the tomb tree had an uncanny way of forming vaguely articulate sounds. The sky was dark on the evening that the tyrant's emissaries came to Tegea. It was definitely known that they had come to bear away the great image of Tyche and bring eternal honour to Museides so their reception by the proxenoid was of great warmth. As the night wore on a violent storm of wind broke over the crest of Manelis and the men from far Syracuse were glad that they rested snugly in the town. They talked of their illustrious tyrant and of the splendour of his capital and exalted in the glory of the statue which Museides had wrought for them. And then the men of Tegea spoke of the goodness of Museides and of his heavy grief for his friend and how not even the coming laurels of art could console him in the absence of Calos who might have worn those laurels instead. Of the tree which grew by the tomb near the head of Calos they also spoke. The wind shrieked more horribly and both the Syracusians and the Arcadians prayed to Aelos. In the sunshine of the morning the proxenoid led the tyrant's messengers up the slope to the abode of the sculptor but the night wind had done strange things. Slaves' cries ascended from a scene of desolation and no more amidst the olive grove rose the gleaming colonnades of the vast hall wherein Museides had dreamed and toiled. Lone and shaken mourned the humble courts in the lower walls for upon the sumptuous greater peristyle had fallen squarely the heavy overhanging bow of the strange new tree, reducing the stately poem and marble with odd completeness to a mound of unsightly ruins. Strangers and Tegeans stood aghast looking from the wreckage to the great sinister tree whose aspect was so weirdly human and whose roots reached so queerly into the sculptured sepulcher of Calos and their fear and dismay increased when they searched the fallen apartment for of the gentle Museides and of the marvelously fashioned image of Tyche no trace could be discovered. Amidst such dupendous ruin only chaos dwelt and the representatives of two cities left disappointed. Syracusions that they had no statue home to bear and Tegeans that they had no artist to crown. However the Syracusions obtained after a while a very splendid statue in Athens and the Tegeans consoled themselves by erecting in the Agora a marble temple commemorating the gifts, virtues and brotherly piety of Museides. But the olive grove still stands as does the tree growing out of the tomb of Calos and the old beekeeper told me that sometimes the boughs whisper to one another in the night wind saying over and over again Oida! Oida! I know! I know! End of The Tree