Ah okay, yea I was getting the feeling that was an actual term. It'd be like if you went back 100 years ago and said "My boy's an influencer with over twenty-thousand clicks on my latest site. I've gone green, I'm a vegan, and my mom's off the grid", nobody in 1919 would know what the heck! -- Even the way 'boy' is being said, that's more likely a guy talking about his buddy, not an actual kid.

Cool, that helps. The guy goes mad and winds up on morphine, got it.

I read The Tomb the other day. Which tells of a lad named Jervas who discovers a half-hidden entrance to a crypt near (or nearby) his family's property. The entrance is locked, and the lad becomes fascinated with what could be inside. Sure, I can relate. He's a child. Imagination takes over. I can remember being a kid, roaming the woods behind our street, hoping to find a wild child; a boy or a girl native American who lived in the woods and had been cast away from society. I would discover this child. Teach him or her English or whatever. We'd come inside "Look mom! Here's my new friend!" Can they stay over for the night?"

Jervas begins visiting the Tomb whenever he can, sitting outside its locked entryway for hours, sometimes until night befalls. Eventually his fascination becomes obsession. He begins going mad, apparently.

Two things stand out. Actually three.

1). I love how the protagonist, Jervas Dudley, jumps right into the story. No backstory, hardly any preamble at all. He's already a mess by the time he's writing his morbid account.

The backstory comes a paragraph & two later. Jervas reveals his family is wealthy. And that he's grown up reading 'ancient and little-known books.' Must be nice.

2). This story also uses actual full names, rather interesting. Nowadays there are all sorts of disclaimers in works of fiction: the people and places mentioned in this story are not to be associated with anyone or anything real, and are the results of the author's pure imagination, or whatever. Wonder if Lovecraft, or the magazine (or whatever publication) The Tomb was published in, would've had to make a similar disclaimer.

3). Lovecraft uses the word "whilst" instead of while. I've been assuming whilst is a British word ever since I first heard Callidus Thorn and ghastley and others who are from the U.K. use whilst in our forums. Never ever have I heard anyone, any of my elder relatives, my grandparents for instance, who were born just after WWI, use the word whilst. But Lovecraft uses whilst instead of while.

So my question is, during his lifetime, would people be saying whilst, which got phased out during the 1920s and later? Or is this word being used because this story is supposed to be set back in the 1800s when whilst was still commonly said?

Anyway, Jervas predictably goes mad after finally breaking into the tomb, and laying within an open casket. The story loses focus, not that it's expected focus should remain; this is a Lovecraft tale after all. But still, it's unclear (to me) what exactly happens next; Jervas suddenly claims he's no longer a youth after this moment, suddenly he's the age of 21.

Henceforward I haunted the tomb each night; seeing, hearing, and doing things I must never reveal.

I love that he keeps some info to himself. He "must never reveal". Dude's gone wack, perhaps he doesn't want others to suffer whatever he's going through. Or maybe he fears being locked in an asylum. Heh. Too late for that, buddy.

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 Hydes! Was not my coffin prepared for me? Had I not a right to rest till eternity amongst the descendants of Sir Geoffrey Hyde?

Seems he's been possessed. Living whatever Sir Hyde experienced.

Later Jervas gets rescued apparently by two locals. And then there it is: On the following day I was brought to this room with the barred windows... Good gosh, man!

You picked up "whilst" but not "betwixt"?

Men of broader intellect know that there is no sharp distinction betwixt the real and the unreal...

I've known quite a few modern day Americans who used to say "whilst". Perhaps it is more common in other parts of the USA? But admittedly, I've never heard anyone say "betwixt".

Ah, but we don't say 'betwixt' in America, or anything close! ---- Unless betwixt is supposed to be derived from between? I honestly don't know.

Okay, but you have heard a few Americans say 'whilst', okay. As stated, I never, ever have.

Lovecraft loved to use language and spelling that we, and even his American contemporaries might have considered “archaic”. He felt that New England culture had become too much influenced by modernity, and by what he considered to be inferior cultures as compared to the WASP culture that became dominant in New England during colonial times up to about the Civil War. He purposefully used this language to evoke that of those earlier times when things were, as he believed, “better”.

"Betwixt" is just an old form of "between".


It's not that uncommon, actually. There are whole lengthy discussions being held among professional writers regarding this word - whether one should always use "while" or always "whilst", some people feel very strongly about it. Personally, I don't think it matters that much. They mean the same thing.

And yeah - what Khajiit said!

As Khajiit noted, Lovecraft felt like he was born in the wrong time. He wanted to live in the Georgian Era (the 1700s, and definitely before those rascally Continentals rebelled against the good Kings George.) In his letters he often talks about preferring to have lived the life of a country squire of the time (i.e. a plantation owner, or at least landlord over sharecropper peasants/serfs).

Miss Wolf: (not sure if you're married, therefore Missus...) Were you in New England (Maine... New Hampshire.... Rhode Island, etc.) when you heard Americans say 'whilst'? Or which state /region were you in?

Mister Khajiit & Miss Florens: Yeah that's how I feel sometimes: culture too influenced by modernity! I'd go back to the '90s if I could. But then wait... no modern Elder Scrolls games. That'd be tough.

Lena Wolf keeps her name, whatever she does... You can also call her "Sister".

Region of "whilst": well, it's hard to say because most of those people I met through work, and they weren't living where they grew up. However, two regions do stand out: Boston, Massachusetts and Phoenix, Arizona closely followed by Austin, Texas... Weird, isn't it? I wonder if some people are simply trying to sound "smart".


I'd go back to 1930s or 1940s... but wait... I wasn't born yet! That'd be pretty hard to go back...

Okay, Sister Wolf it is. I absolutely love I can call you Sister Wolf.

Yeah, New England I had figured. Elder folks up there might still say "ayuh" instead of yeah or even "yes". So that's why I expected that region.

Probably I'll read another Lovecraft tale this weekend, I know y'all are dying for my opinions & insights! (kidding)

I’m interested. I remember when I first discovered Lovecraft, nobody I knew was reading his work, so I had no one to discuss it with.

Well you've come to the right place, Khajiit. I'm a Lovecraft neophyte. Eager to learn.

What are you thinking about reading next?

Next in my real-life book is The White Ship. I read it the other day, but didn't have many insights. A man spies a ship which comes by the waterway near where he lives, and one day gets invited onto the ship. From there on the story gets pretty trippy & dreamlike. But I didn't feel inspired to discuss too deeply.

If you'd like, sure, you can provide any insights you might have!

One thing. Stephen King's Duma Key has a ghost ship which the protagonist enters several times if I remember correct. I believe King drew some inspiration from The White Ship because the main guy (an artist) in Duma Key also experiences dreamlike, trippy stuff in King's story. King goes way beyond what Lovecraft was able to write, but only because it's a novel versus a short story.

There is a map of Lovecraft's Dreamlands that was released in one of the Call of Cthulhu RPG supplements. You can find pics of it online. Here is a link to a picture of the areas that I believe are involved in the White Ship. It makes it feel a little less random and like stuff just thrown against the wall, when you can see it laid out on a map like this.Click on the map to zoom into it.

Here is the full map of the Dreamlands Again, you probably need to click to zoom in to full size.

A map! Yes, that helps a lot. So it's not just random names being picked out for locations then, there is a landscape where this all takes place.

In celebration of HP's birthday, the HP Lovecraft Historical Society is giving away a free copy of their audiobook of The Shunned House. Get it here! It is probably only free today, so don't wait.

Ooo! Yersh. Their stuff is good.

I read The Terrible Old Man yesterday, and it's a quick story. Just two or three pages in my book.

The Old Man is rumored to be really old. He's got coins from two centuries ago in his supposed possession, and it's implied (sort of) that he was around when these coins were actually minted, or so goes the rumors. He lives in the town of Kingsport, a typical small New England burg with lots of gossip. There are a rumors about the Old Man's prowess it seems, and after three robbers are found dead (they were trying to steal from the man, who didn't keep his wealth in banks) seems these rumors could be true. In the end, their bodies are all slashed up and stomped upon by bootheels, and it's assumed the Old Man is responsible.

I love how the robbers showed up in their "motor-car". Two words, joined by a hyphen. They couldn't just say "car" because at the time there were streetcars, trolley cars, train cars; they had to be specific, I guess. Motor-cars were still a new thing back then, the way graphics cards and all these gadgets we have are also new, in the broad spectrum of technological history, at least. We have seen the entire initial history of personal computers, numerous screens, tablets, cell phones, all within our lifetimes, is what I mean. Cars were the same way.

Anyway, this story just seems sort of ... I dunno. Not really as fleshed out as some others?
Lovecraft never actually describes what happens between the Old Man and the three robbers; the final moments of the perpetrators is shrouded in mystery.

Just as the tale gets going, it's already over, and maybe it's because Old Man appeared in an amateur publication called Tryout according to someone at Wikipedia. "It is notable as the first story to make use of Lovecraft's imaginary New England setting, introducing the fictional town of Kingsport." Hmm, interesting. So this it where it all began, wow.

I'm speculating here, but does it not seem as though Tryout contacted Lovecraft at some point in 1920. "We've got a slot needs to be filled.... just over a thousand words." Lovecraft gets to work. But he's (I'm guessing) busy with other writings all the time. Old Man is not really one of his top projects. Almost seems like filler.

I started to read The Crawling Chaos today, but it's a longer story involving some vivid opium hallucinations. Really am sinking my eyes into it.

There's a game with the same name on the GOG. It's also very, very short, I've played through it once, though the word "through" is a bit exaggerated in this case, because just like in the book, you're done with it within a few minutes.

The Terrible Old Man is one of Lovecraft's early writings. So I don't think it was written on demand. But I don't know. I believe it feels less polished simply because those were his early days, and he was still working out his style. It is not until The Call of Cthulhu in 1926 that he really hits his stride. Though you might put that earlier in 1923 with The Rats in the Walls.

He did do some other bespoke work. For example, The Moon-Bog is a story he wrote for the St. Patrick's Day edition of an amateur press that he was part of. It is set in Ireland you see. I think his only story to do that. It is also not really one of the good ones. Not a bad one, just sort of mid for him.

English people still use the term "Motor-Car" today. Historian and podcaster James Holland uses the term in documentaries.

I feel like “The Terrible Old Man” and the guy in “The Picture in the House” are what Lovecraft aspired to be had he reached an old age, lol

Maybe he succeeded. Maybe he is just waiting for the stars to be right to rise once more.

In his house in Providence, dead Lovecraft waits dreaming.