I cannot even hint what it was like, for it was a compound of all that is unclean, uncanny, unwelcome, abnormal, and detestable. It was the ghoulish shade of decay, antiquity, and dissolution; the putrid, dripping eidolon of unwholesome revelation, the awful baring of that which the merciful earth should always hide. God knows it was not of this world - or no longer of this world - yet to my horror I saw in its eaten-away and bone-revealing outlines a leering, abhorrent travesty on the human shape; and in its mouldy, disintegrating apparel an unspeakable quality that chilled me even more."The putrid, dripping eidolon of unwholesome revelation" - now that's what I'm talkin' about, baby!
H.P. Lovecraft, The Outsider
- Sid
obviously he was being paid per word
ReplyDeleteAnd what nasty presence is being talked about, pray tell?
ReplyDeleteWell, to be fair, they were all being paid by the word, but I think that Lovecraft was also in it for the love of the game, as they say.
ReplyDeleteOh, and the nasty presence being described?
The Outsider is a brief little tale, only a handful of pages in length. The mysterious narrator has lived his entire life in complete isolation, and finally decides to test the limits of his solitary environment. He discovers an exit into a completely different world, and sets out to explore.
He finds a luxurious manor house and enters it, only to find the inhabitants in a state of screaming panic. Understandably curious as to the cause of this chaos,he searches the house, and suddenly finds himself confronted by a creature of absolute horror, as partially described in the paragraph quoted. He throws his arms up to defend himself, and accidentally touches the outthrust paw of the nauseating, rotting. inhuman thing in front of him.
And what does he feel in the moment of contact? The highly polished glass of a mirror...
- Sid