The Complete Fiction of H. P. Lovecraft. H. P. Lovecraft
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the merest pretence; and although he failed in no test, it could be seen that the old application had all vanished.He had other concernments now; and when not in his new laboratory with a score of obsolete alchemical books, could be found either poring over old burial records down town or glued to his volumes of occult lore in his study, where the startlingly—one almost fancied increasingly—similar features of Joseph Curwen stared blandly at him from the great overmantel on the north wall.
Late in March Ward added to his archive-searching a ghoulish series of rambles about the various ancient cemeteries of the city.The cause appeared later, when it was learned from City Hall clerks that he had probably found an important clue.His quest had suddenly shifted from the grave of Joseph Curwen to that of one Naphthali Field; and this shift was explained when, upon going over the files that he had been over, the investigators actually found a fragmentary record of Curwen’s burial which had escaped the general obliteration, and which stated that the curious leaden coffin had been interred “10 ft.S.and 5 ft.W.of Naphthali Field’s grave in ye—”.The lack of a specified burying-ground in the surviving entry greatly complicated the search, and Naphthali Field’s grave seemed as elusive as that of Curwen; but here no systematic effacement had existed, and one might reasonably be expected to stumble on the stone itself even if its record had perished.Hence the rambles—from which St.John’s (the former King’s) Churchyard and the ancient Congregational burying-ground in the midst of Swan Point Cemetery were excluded, since other statistics had shewn that the only Naphthali Field (obiit 1729) whose grave could have been meant had been a Baptist.
4.
It was toward May when Dr.Willett, at the request of the senior Ward, and fortified with all the Curwen data which the family had gleaned from Charles in his non-secretive days, talked with the young man.The interview was of little value or conclusiveness, for Willett felt at every moment that Charles was thoroughly master of himself and in touch with matters of real importance; but it at least forced the secretive youth to offer some rational explanation of his recent demeanour.Of a pallid, impassive type not easily shewing embarrassment, Ward seemed quite ready to discuss his pursuits, though not to reveal their object.He stated that the papers of his ancestor had contained some remarkable secrets of early scientific knowledge, for the most part in cipher, of an apparent scope comparable only to the discoveries of Friar Bacon and perhaps surpassing even those.They were, however, meaningless except when correlated with a body of learning now wholly obsolete; so that their immediate presentation to a world equipped only with modern science would rob them of all impressiveness and dramatic significance.To take their vivid place in the history of human thought they must first be correlated by one familiar with the background out of which they evolved, and to this task of correlation Ward was now devoting himself.He was seeking to acquire as fast as possible those neglected arts of old which a true interpreter of the Curwen data must possess, and hoped in time to make a full announcement and presentation of the utmost interest to mankind and to the world of thought.Not even Einstein, he declared, could more profoundly revolutionise the current conception of things.
As to his graveyard search, whose object he freely admitted, but the details of whose progress he did not relate, he said he had reason to think that Joseph Curwen’s mutilated headstone bore certain mystic symbols—carved from directions in his will and ignorantly spared by those who had effaced the name—which were absolutely essential to the final solution of his cryptic system.Curwen, he believed, had wished to guard his secret with care; and had consequently distributed the data in an exceedingly curious fashion.When Dr.Willett asked to see the mystic documents, Ward displayed much reluctance and tried to put him off with such things as photostatic copies of the Hutchinson cipher and Orne formulae and diagrams; but finally shewed him the exteriors of some of the real Curwen finds—the “Journall and Notes”, the cipher (title in cipher also), and the formula-filled message “To Him Who Shal Come After”—and let him glance inside such as were in obscure characters.
He also opened the diary at a page carefully selected for its innocuousness and gave Willett a glimpse of Curwen’s connected handwriting in English.The doctor noted very closely the crabbed and complicated letters, and the general aura of the seventeenth century which clung round both penmanship and style despite the writer’s survival into the eighteenth century, and became quickly certain that the document was genuine.The text itself was relatively trivial, and Willett recalled only a fragment:
“Wedn.16 Octr.1754.My Sloope the Wakeful this Day putt in from London with XX newe Men pick’d up in ye Indies, Spaniards from Martineco and 2 Dutch Men from Surinam.Ye Dutch Men are like to Desert from have’g hearde Somewhat ill of these Ventures, but I will see to ye Inducing of them to Staye.ffor Mr.Knight Dexter of ye Boy and Book 120 Pieces Camblets, 100 Pieces Assrtd.Cambleteens, 20 Pieces blue Duffles, 100 Pieces Shalloons, 50 Pieces Calamancoes, 300 Pieces each, Shendsoy and Humhums.ffor Mr.Green at ye Elephant 50 Gallon Cyttles, 20 Warm’g Pannes, 15 Bake Cyttles, 10 pr.Smoke’g Tonges.ffor Mr.Perrigo 1 Sett of Awles, ffor Mr.Nightingale 50 Reames prime Foolscap.Say’d ye SABAOTH thrice last Nighte but None appear’d.I must heare more from Mr.H.in Transylvania, tho’ it is Harde reach’g him and exceeding strange he can not give me the Use of what he hath so well us’d these hundred yeares.Simon hath not Writ these V.Weekes, but I expecte soon hear’g from him.”
When upon reaching this point Dr.Willett turned the leaf he was quickly checked by Ward, who almost snatched the book from his grasp.All that the doctor had a chance to see on the newly opened page was a brief pair of sentences; but these, strangely enough, lingered tenaciously in his memory.They ran: “Ye Verse from Liber-Damnatus be’g spoke V Roodmasses and IV Hallows-Eves, I am Hopeful ye Thing is breed’g Outside ye Spheres.It will drawe One who is to Come, if I can make sure he shal bee, and he shall think on Past thinges and look back thro’ all ye yeares, against ye which I must have ready ye Saltes or That to make ’em with.”
Willett saw no more, but somehow this small glimpse gave a new and vague terror to the painted features of Joseph Curwen which stared blandly down from the overmantel.Ever after that he entertained the odd fancy—which his medical skill of course assured him was only a fancy—that the eyes of the portrait had a sort of wish, if not an actual tendency, to follow young Charles Ward as he moved about the room.He stopped before leaving to study the picture closely, marvelling at its resemblance to Charles and memorising every minute detail of the cryptical, colourless face, even down to a slight scar or pit in the smooth brow above the right eye.Cosmo Alexander, he decided, was a painter worthy of the Scotland that produced Raeburn, and a teacher worthy of his illustrious pupil Gilbert Stuart.
Assured by the doctor that Charles’s mental health was in no danger, but that on the other hand he was engaged in researches which might prove of real importance, the Wards were more lenient than they might otherwise have been when during the following June the youth made positive his refusal to attend college.He had, he declared, studies of much more vital importance to pursue; and intimated a wish to go abroad the following year in order to avail himself of certain sources of data not existing in America.The senior Ward, while denying this latter wish as absurd for a boy of only eighteen, acquiesced regarding the university; so that after a none too brilliant graduation from the Moses Brown School there ensued for Charles a three-year period of intensive occult study and graveyard searching.He became recognised as an eccentric, and dropped even more completely from the sight of his family’s friends than he had been before; keeping close to his work and only occasionally making trips to other cities to consult obscure records.Once he went south to talk with a strange old mulatto who dwelt in a swamp and about whom a newspaper had printed a curious article.Again he sought a small village in the Adirondacks whence reports of certain odd ceremonial practices had come.But still his parents forbade him the trip to the Old World which he desired.
Coming of age in April, 1923, and having previously inherited a small competence from his maternal grandfather, Ward determined at last to take the European trip hitherto denied him.Of his proposed itinerary he would say nothing save that the needs of his studies would carry him to many places, but he promised to write his parents fully and faithfully.When they saw he could not be dissuaded, they ceased all opposition and helped as best they could; so that in June the young man sailed for Liverpool with the farewell blessings of his father and mother,