Re: What of it?
Posted by:
wilum pugmire (IP Logged)
Date: 11 August, 2012 09:56PM
Helen V. Sully visited E'ch-Pi-El in 1933; she was the daughter of Genevieve K. Sully, a married woman with whom Clark Ashton Smith conducted a romantic affair. One evening, during Helen's visit, Lovecraft took her on a walking tour of his favorite Providence sites, which included the sequestered churchyard of St. John's Episcopal Church. Let's let Helen tell the tale:
"It was dark, and he began to tell me strange, weird stories in a sepulchral tone and, despite the fact that I am a very matter-of-fact person, something about his manner, the darkness, and a sort of eerie light that seemed to hover over the graveyard got me so wrought up that I began to run out of the cemetery with him close at my heels, with the one thought that I must get up to the street before he, or whatever it was, grabbed me. I reached a street lamp, trembling, panting, and almost in tears, and he had the strangest look on his face, almost of triumph. Nothing was said."
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I don't wish to go into detail concerning Tom's illness, not really having the details nor wishing to discuss them if I did. Let us just say that he suffers from an emotional/mental ailment that keeps him from writing, much to his personal vexation. My dealings with him on a personal level have been extremely pleasant, and I find him a fine fellow indeed. He is, for me, the most important weird writer since Lovecraft; and, unlike Lovecraft, his work is free of "clunkers," is almost perfect in every way.
"I'm a little girl."
--H. P. Lovecraft, Esq.