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Thread ID: 1492 | Posts: 16 | Started: 2002-06-30
2002-06-30 03:09 | User Profile
The World-view of H.P. Lovecraft
by A. Trumbo
June 29, 2002
Author's note --
Lovecraft had a rather unbecoming tendency to judge other branches of the Indo-Aryan racial family from a very chauvinist, Imperial, pro-English perspective. Despite his derogatory remarks about Slavs and Celts, if he were alive today there could be little doubt that he would embrace the ideals of Pan-Aryanism. I would also like to state that the many oddly spelled words and incorrect grammar are Mr. Lovecraft's and not mine. 'When I was ten I set to work to delete every modern word from my vocabulary, and adopted an old Walkers Dictionary (1804) which was for some time my sole authority. All the Queen Ann authors combined to form my literary diet.'
-- H.P. Lovecraft.
Sept. 30, 1919:
No one else in filmland can duplicate his delineation of stark, hideous terror or fiendish malignancy. Hayakawa excels in tragical pathos, and would soar high if he were a white man. I would not at all be surprised if he had a dash of white blood somewhere. Both Walthall and Hayakawa are too good for films -- they ought to be known more widely.
...Orientals must be kept in their native East till the fall of the white race. Sooner or later a great Japanese war will take place, during which I think the virtual destruction of Japan will have to be effected in the interests of European safety. The more numerous Chinese are a menace of the still more distant future. They will probably be the exterminators of Caucasian civilisation, for their numbers are amazing. But that is all too far ahead for consideration today.
Jan. 23, 1920:
Eroticism belongs to a lower order of instincts, and is an animal rather than nobly human quality. For evolved man -- the apex of organic progress on the Earth -- what branch of reflection is more fitting than that which occupies only his higher and exclusively human faculties? The primal savage or ape merely looks about his native forest to find a mate; the exalted Aryan should lift his eyes to the worlds of space and consider his relation to infinity!!!!
Oct. 6, 1921:
............
At heart I despise the aesthete and prefer the warrior -- I am essentially a Teuton and barbarian; a Xanthochoric Nordic from the damp forests of Germany or Scandinavia, and kin to the giant chalk-white conquerors of the cursed, effeminate Celts. [The common blood shared by all Aryan peoples -- Baltic, Germanic, Slavic or Celtic -- was not understood by Mr.Lovecraft; thus his derogatory statements made towards the Slav and Celt.] I am a son of Odin and brother to Hengist and Horsa...Grr...Give me a drink of hot blood with Celtic foes skull as a beaker! Rule, Britannia...GOD SAVE THE KING!
May 18, 1922:
[Here Mr.Lovecraft comments on the filthy non-White slums of N.Y.]
...................
The illumination is unique and extensive, but neither superlatively impressive nor in any sense truly artistic. At the elevated station at 6th Ave. and 42nd St. I lost my fellow Anglo-Saxon, whose home is far to the north in the semi-African jungles of Harlem; [Negroes had already made a slum out of Harlem by 1922]
...Kleiner proceeded to lead us into the slums; with "Chinatown" as an ulterior objective. My gawdwhat a filthy dump! I thought Providence had slums, and antique Bostonium as well; but damn me if I ever saw anything like the sprawling sty-atmosphere of N.Y.s lower East Side. We walked -- at my suggestion -- in the middle of the street, for contact with the denizens, spilled out of their bulging brick kennels as if by a spawning beyond the capacity of the places, was not by any means to be sought. At times, though, we struck peculiarly deserted areasthese swine have instinctive swarming movements, no doubt, which no ordinary biologist can fathom. Gawd knows what they are -- ... -- a bastard mess of stewing mongrel flesh without intellect, repellent to the eye, nose, and imagination would to heaven a kindly gust of cyanogen could asphyxiate the whole gigantic abortion, end the misery, and clean out the place. [H.P.L. advocates ethnic cleansing as a legitimate means of ridding the world of human pollution. And, in a beautiful way at that.] The streets, even in the centre, are filthy with old papers and vegetable debris -- probably the street-cleaners dislike to soil their white uniforms by visiting such infernos.
Feb. 10, 1923:
Anent the Fascist problem -- assuredly we approach it from radically different directions. Galpinius and I have been discussing democracy a lot lately, and we agree that it is a false idol -- a mere catchword and an illusion of inferior classes, visionaries, and dying civilisations. Life has no ultimate values, and our proximate values can be little more than what we like to see or posses. "Right" and "Wrong" are primitive conceptions which cannot endure the test of cold science. Now Galpin and I maintain that, logically, man of taste should prefer such things as favour strong and advanced men at the expense of the herd. Of what use is it to please the herd? They are simply coarse animals -- for all that is admirable in man is the artificial product of special breeding. We advocate the preservation of conditions favourable to the growth of beautiful things -- imposing palaces, beautiful cities, elegant literature, resposeful art and music, and a physically select human type such as only luxury and a pure racial strain can produce. Thus we oppose democracy, if only because it would retard the development of a handsome Nordic breed. We realise that all conceptions of justice and ethics are mere prejudices and illusions -- there is no earthly reason why the masses should not be kept down for the benefit of the strong, since every man is for himself in the last analysis. We regard the rise of democratic ideas as a sign of cultural old age and decay, and deem it a compliment to such men as Mussolini when they are said to be "XVth century types. We are proud to be definitely reactionary, since only a bold repudiation of the word "liberal" pose and the progress illusion can we get the sort of authoritative social and political control which alone produces things which make life worth living. We admire the old German Empire, for it was a force so strong that it almost conquered all the combined forces of the rest of the world. Personally, my objection to Germany in the late war was that it formed a menace to our English Empire -- an empire so lamentably split in 1775-83, and so regrettably by effeminate ideas of liberty. My wish was that we English reunite into one irresistible power and establish an (sic) hegemony of the globe in true Roman fashion. Neither we nor Germany will ever be really strong till we have unified imperial control.
Our modern worship of empty ideals is ludicrous. What does the condition of the rabble matter? All we need do is to keep it as quiet as we can. What is more important, is to perpetuate those things of beauty which are of real value because involving actual sense-impressions rather than vapid theories. "Equality" is a joke -- but a great abbey or cathedral, covered with moss, is a poignant reality. If (it) is for us to safeguard and preserve the conditions which produce great abbeys, and palaces, and picturesque walled town, and vivid sky-lines of steeples and domes, and luxurious tapestries, and fascinating books, paintings and statuary, and colossal organs and noble music, and dramatic deeds on embattled fields -- these are all there is of life: taken (sic) them away and we have nothing which a man of taste or spirit would care to live for. Take them away and our poets have nothing to sing -- our dreamers have nothing to dream about. The blood of a million men is well shed in producing one glorious legend which thrills posterity and it is not at all important why it was shed. A coat of arms won in a crusade is worth a thousand slavering compliments bandied about amongst a rabble.
Reform? Pish! We do no want reform! What would the world be without its scarlet and purple evil! Drama is born of conflict and violence...god! Shall we ever be such women as to prefer the blond-bearded warrior? The one sound power in the world is the power of a hairy muscular right arm!
Yah! How I spit upon this rotton (sic) age with its feeble comforts and thwarted energies -- its Freuds and Wilsons, Augustines and Heliogabali, -- rabbles and perversions! What these swine with their scruples and problems, changes and rebellions, need, is a long draught of blood from a foeman's skull on the battlements of a mountain fortalice! We need fewer harps and viols, and more drums and brasses. The answer to jazz is the wild dance of the war-like conqueror! Don't complain of the youth's high-powered motor-car unless you can give him an horse and armour and sed him to conquer the domains of the neighborouing kings! Modern life my gawd! I dont wonder that literature is going to hell or chaos! What is there to write about now? Before we have literature we must have life -- bold, colourful, primitive, and picturesque. We must change a George V for a Richard Coeur de Lion -- a Platagenet!.
...................
May 3, 1923:
.................
Nothing must disturb my undiluted Englishry -- God Save The King! I am naturally a Nordic -- a chalk-white, bulky Teuton of the Scandinavian or North-German forests -- a Vikinga berserk killer -- a predatory rover of Hengist and Horsa -- a conqueror of Celts and mongrels and founders of Empires -- a son of the thunders and the arctic winds, and brother to the frosts and the auroras -- a drinker of foemen's blood from new picked skulls -- a friend of the mountain buzzards and feeder of seacoast vultures -- a blond beast of eternal snows and frozen oceans -- a prayer to Odin and Thor and Woden and Alfadur, the raucous shouter of Niffelheim -- a comrade of the wolves, and rider of nightmares -- aye -- I speak truly -- for was I not born with yellow hair and Blue eyes -- the latter not turning dark till I was nearly two, and the former lasting till I was over five? Ho, for the hunting and fishing in Valhalla! Who knows..? The Phillipses come from the borderlands of Wales, that mystic Machenian land. May there not be in them some trace of blood from some Roman prepraetor of Britannia Secunda, whose capital was Isca Silurum with its walls, its noble amphitheatre, its Etruscan-columned Temple of Diana, its Pons Saturni, its tessellated pavements, its inscriptions of the Septimii Severi, its Via Nympharum and Via Julia,...Io triumphe! S.P.Q.R.!!...Yes, Sonny, the Mediterranean world isn't so bad when when one goes back to Pelasgic times and takes the Graeco-Roman races! After all, I have dark hair and eyes now, no matter what I used to have; and it is quite as good to be a sanguinary Roman consul as a Norse pirate. Long live the Pantheon! Vivat M. Agrippa! By being a Roman, I can quite logically prove a good grandfather to such as my small boys Belnapius and Alfredus ...Latins all! But as a classical and ancient Latin, I enjoy cheese, which was a leading feature of the Graeco-Roman diet. Therein our souls are separated by the impassable gulf of the Dark Ages, O Francisco Borgia, Prince of Arsenic-Sharks and Stilletto hounds!
2002-06-30 03:18 | User Profile
June 29, 2002
The purpose of these writings is to provide a genuine look into the racial Weltanschauung of Howard Phillips Lovecraft (1890-1937). I have drawn my data from the five-volume set of "Selected Letters" books. The Selected Letters Of H.P.Lovecraft was published by Arkham House Publishers in 1965. The authors who compiled this great collection - August Derleth, and Donald Wandrei -- were friends and correspondents of Lovecraft's. The preface (Selected Letters Volume 1) states: "We have made no alteration or changes in the text reproduced. We present them as he (H.P.L) wrote them." Here I present the racial intellect of Mr. Lovecraft in his own words, written by his own hand.
Letter #9. Nov. 25, 1915 [ ] Enclose author's comments.
I can sympathize with Morton in many ways. I am not an orthodox disciple of religion, but I deem it dangerous to tamper with any system so manifestly beneficial to morality. Whatever may be the faults of the church, it has never yet been surpassed or nearly equalled as an agent for the promotion of virtue. And the same thing applies to our present social system. It has its defects, but is evidently a natural growth, and better fitted to preserve an approximate civilization than any Utopian scheme conjured up over night by some artificially thinking radical. As to races, I deem it most proper to recognise the divisions into which nature has grouped mankind. Science shows us the infinite superiority of the Teutonic Aryan over all others, and it therefore becomes us to see that his ascendancy shall remain undisputed. [H.P.L. clearly promotes Aryan preservation] Any racial mixture can but lower the result [anti-miscegenation sentiment]. The Teutonic race, whether in Scandinavia, other parts of the continent, England, or America, the cream of humanity, and its wanton and deliberate adulteration with baser material is even more repulsive to consider than the elaborately staged racial suicide now being conducted, wherein Germanic and Britannic Teutons are striving to annihilate each other instead of uniting against the Mongol-tainted Slav or menacing Oriental.
Sometimes I think of racial combinations as chemical reactions; for instance, I believe that certain stocks have greater assimilative powers than others. The Gallo-Basque stock with Latin [Roman] infusion, which constitutes the bulk of the French population, is much more receptive to alien blood than is our colder and more Teutonic stock. [The French are more Germanic than not]
Letter #10 Dec. 6, 1915
And the more I study the question, the more firmly am I convinced that the one supreme race is the Teuton. Observe the condition in the British Isles. The English are wholly Teutonic, and therefore dominant. The southern Scotch and eastern Irish are also of that blood-they certainly surpass their fellows to the north and west. The Welsh, who have no Teutonic blood, are of little account. Had it not been for the Teutonic infusion at the beginning of the Dark Ages, southern Europe would have been lost. Who were these early French kings and heroes that founded French civilization? Teutons, to a man! ... Who were the Normans? Teutons of the North. It is pitiful to me to hear apostles of equity pipe out that other races can equal this foremost of all - this successor to the Roman race in power and virility.
Letter #15 June 4, 1916
The Providence Journal has virtually declared war on Germany, and has well-nigh exhausted Roget's Thesaurus in looking for adjectives wherewith to denounce th' embattled Goth; but the editor scarce dares breathe a word against the slippery sons of Saint Patrick who violate American neutrality just as flagrantly as any German ever did, and who have been consistently doing so for many century. These migrated Micks have not scrupled to use the United States so far as they can as a weapon against their lawful King and Empire, and the "Sinn Fein", revolt is not the only one financed largely with American-gathered capital.
Letter #29 Dec. 23, 1917
As the general situation, it seems very encouraging just now. It may take a second war to adjust things properly. I tremble to think of the possibilities of the Russian collapse which may open resources of a vast country to the enemy. If the predicted Western drive of the Huns succeeds, the war is virtually lost. There is something the matter with the morale of the more polished nations - they need a little more brutality of the old Teutonic sort. No army can win without a certain savage lust of combat, and this spirit is being undermined with the current cant about democracy, idealism, and all that sort of rot. The issues should be made clearer - the first fight is not in the interests of a coming millenium of social reform; it is for the hearth and home-for existing institutions against a perilous invasion of an unnatural culture. Racial factors are also united against us. For all our Roman civilization, the enemy has a preponderance of superior blood. If all the Allied nations were as thoroughly Teutonic as Prussia, the end would be nearer and happier. Nothing can withstand the might of the Teuton -- he is the logical successor of the Roman in power. Teutonic blood snatched Britain from the Celt and made England the greatest force in all civilization. Teutonic blood conquered the Western wilderness and gave America an instant place amongst the great nations of the globe. But this blood has become so extensively and tragically diluted, that the non-German Teutons may well look with concern to their future. The grotesque fallacy of the "Great American Melting Pot" may yet be brought home to the people in one of the most tear-stained pages of their history. Germany herself has set a truer valuation on the importance of unmixed blood, but may yet come to grief through the absorption of Slavic elements. The course of Germany during the last half-century has been one of curiously mixed merit. Certain scientific and philosophical developments have been marvellous, yet they have been conjoined to a brutality and narrowness of vision which threaten the development of civilization. The pan-Teutonic ideal, attainable only by a complete and amicable co-operation between Anglo-Saxon and Germanic races, has been fallaciously subordinated to a petty pan-Germanic ideal which is bringing about the virtual suicide of the Teutonic race, and driving the Anglo-Saxons and Germans into equally unnatural alliances with alien races. The Saxon has his Hindoos and Moors, and the German his Turks. Progress is at a standstill, and everything human is lost in a mad scramble for a material victory. Even a recurrence of the Dark Ages is not possible - a recurrence which will leave the Teutonic race so depleted numerically that the world's future is seriously threatened. Wilhelm, Wilhelm! What has thou wrought?
2002-07-21 05:42 | User Profile
The Street by H.P. Lovecraft
One short story by H.P. Lovecraft that I love is "The Street." The story starts in early America, before 1776, The street is built with grand houses. Time goes by, the street see it's boys go off to and many not come back. The street loves America. Them strange people speaking in odd tongues move on to the street the air gets dirty, the grand homes cut up into small flats. The streret is full of Eastern "European" Immigrant Bolsheviks who hate every thing the street loved. The people who now live on street hate America and working to destroy America. In a last act the buildings of the street all cave in at once one night killing all Bolshevik who lived in them. Bolshevik who hated every thing the street loved.
The Book other great short stories of the same type.
The Transition of H. P. Lovecraft: The Road to Madness [url=http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0345384229/qid=1027230614/sr=1-17/ref=sr_1_17/102-6829891-5766549]http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/034...6829891-5766549[/url]
Table of contents [url=http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/stores/detail/-/books/0345384229/reader/6/ref=lib_rd_TC01/102-6829891-5766549#reader-link]http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/store...549#reader-link[/url]
Note the mad ranting of a "Liberal"/Marxist. :P I love this Book!!!
"Ruined By Over-tones of Racism & Bigotry, April 5, 2000 Reviewer: NO CRY WOMAN from USA I was really enjoying this collection before I came to the story "The Street". I had to stop and re-read the story several times because I didn't want to believe what I was reading. Someone please correct me if I'm wrong, but this seems to be a horror story about what happens when a "swarthy" (psuedo Jewish) element takes over a neighborhood, sneakily encouraging "besotted beasts" (psuedo African-Americans) to go on burning, slaying, and destroying the land of "our fathers" (psuedo caucasians)...
I used to love H.P. I understand the fact that just because he writes about monsters doesn't necessarily mean he believes in monsters. But, I can't help getting the impression that he was definitely a racist. He seems to be irresponsibly exploiting some very prejudiced fears. Somebody tell me I'm getting this story wrong. Otherwise, I won't ever be able to read another H.P. story."
Well she did get the point of the story. :)
2002-07-21 06:14 | User Profile
Samuel Francis is an H.P. Lovecraft Fan.
Also see this site.
H.P. Lovecraft Archive: [url=http://www.hplovecraft.com/]http://www.hplovecraft.com/[/url]
2002-07-21 06:21 | User Profile
I can't help getting the impression that he was definitely a racist. He seems to be irresponsibly exploiting some very prejudiced fears. Somebody tell me I'm getting this story wrong. Otherwise, I won't ever be able to read another H.P. story.
Someone should tell her that "racists" like [url=http://www.noontidepress.com/catalog/0280.html]William Shockley[/url] invented the transistors in her computer, so she should never type another online review again.
2002-07-21 07:29 | User Profile
PaleoconAvatar:
You are very Right!
Well I did say marxist rantings. There was nothing "psuedo" about the story nothing was hidden at all in it, it was about the killing of America. She must not have gotten it, because she did not want to. And this was written in 1920, how clearly he could see the way things are in America.
I was really enjoying this collection before I came to the story "The Street". I had to stop and re-read the story several times because I didn't want to believe what I was reading. Someone please correct me if I'm wrong, but this seems to be a horror story about what happens when a "swarthy" (psuedo Jewish) element takes over a neighborhood, sneakily encouraging "besotted beasts" (psuedo African-Americans) to go on burning, slaying, and destroying the land of "our fathers" (psuedo caucasians)...
The Transition of H. P. Lovecraft: The Road to Madness is a great book and very un-PC too!
2002-07-21 07:33 | User Profile
Yeah, it's unclear how she uses "pseudo;" she may be trying to say that Lovecraft uses proxies for these groups rather than by naming them outright, or the term could reflect the common liberal belief that "races do not exist"
2002-07-21 07:38 | User Profile
PaleoconAvatar:
My point was that in the story, "The Street"; Lovecraft does not use proxies for these groups he names them outright. I loved the ending in which the buildings of the street all cave in at once one night killing all Bolshevik who lived in them.
2002-07-21 17:15 | User Profile
Maybe we could tell NO CRY WOMAN that Benjamin Franklin was a racist, George Washington owned slaves and Thomas Jefferson was a firm segregationist. Possibly it will blanche all the patriotic color from her cheeks and force her to leave these sin-tainted shores for all time.
BTW, I've read all HPLs fiction, even a bunch of the fluff that August Derleth wrote in HPLs name. It was a sad day for me when I realized I'd read the last story. One of my fav's is The Rats in the Walls (you can read it [url=http://www.gizmology.net/lovecraft/works/rats.htm]HERE[/url], though if you like it, try to buy it legitimately in one of his collections to keep it in publication). The main character has an old cat named Nigger-Man. HA! I thought it a good name, but my wife frowns on naming any of our pets Nigger-Man (or -Woman).
I'm a secret fan of the racist word. I've a $400 gold-leaf copy of Mein Kampf and just ordered an autographed copy of a limited edition Illustrated version of the Turner Diaries. Bookshelves line my office walls and are packed in unPC and nonPC works. I find being so surrounded works a bit like lead on kryptonite, keeping out the harmful rays of leftist dogma. :wacko:
2002-07-28 08:18 | User Profile
AntiYuppie:
Yes I did know about Sonya Greene, from what I have read his feeling on such subject were set before he knew miss Greene. I think it was being around them in NY that set his mind. I think he still liked her. I have not read alot of H.P. Lovecraft. But have read some of his works and articles about him and his works. Samuel Francis is an H.P. Lovecraft Fan.
I'm curious as to whether Lovecraft ever studied Spengler's Decline of the West? Yes he did read it.
Well I went and poked around, it looks like he did read it. You can read what he said about in it a Letter to August Derleth in Selected Letters: Volume 2. Sadly not online.
*ISBN: 0870540297 Selected Letters: Volume 2 (1925-1929) [Out Of Print]
Contents ...
120 266. [H.P. Lovecraft to]August Derleth / March 26, 1927 On Oswald Spengler's The Decline of the West; on the necessity of birth control.
...
url: [url=http://lovecraft.virtualave.net/SL2.html]http://lovecraft.virtualave.net/SL2.html[/url] *
Also of note these titles.
Articles by Lovecraft:
* Revolutionary Mythology (1916)
* The Symphonic Ideal (1916)
* Editors Note to McGavacks ?Genesis of the Revolutionary War? (1917)
* A Remarkable Document (1917)
* At the Root (1918)
* Merlinus Redivivus (1918)
* Anglo Saxondom (1918)
* Americanism (1919)
* The League (1919)
* Bolshevism (1919)
* Idealism and Materialism ? A Reflection (1919)
* Life for Humanity?s Sake (1920)
* In Defence of Dagon (1921)
* Nietzscheism and Realism (1922)
* East and West Harvard Conservatism (1922)
* The Materialist Today (1926)
* Some Causes of Self-Immolation (1931)
* Some Repetitions on the Times (1933)
* Heritage or Modernism: Common Sense in Art Forms (1935)
* Objections to Orthodox Communism (1936)
Google Search Lovecraft/Spengler:
[url=http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=H.+P.+Lovecraft+Spengler+%22Decline+of+the+West%22&btnG=Google+Search]http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=UTF-...G=Google+Search[/url]
See also OD thread:
The Street by H. P. Lovecraft [url=http://forum.originaldissent.com/index.php?act=ST&f=11&t=2271&s=777f87809d0745149fe9e3b8fc135f1d]http://forum.originaldissent.com/index.php...fe9e3b8fc135f1d[/url]
outside links:
The Works of Howard Phillips Lovecraft: [url=http://www.gizmology.net/lovecraft/works/]http://www.gizmology.net/lovecraft/works/[/url]
Visit Arkham Online at arkhamhouse.com [url=http://www.arkhamhouse.com/]http://www.arkhamhouse.com/[/url]
2003-05-07 05:19 | User Profile
:gun: :gun: :jest: :gun: :gun:
2003-05-07 06:19 | User Profile
That "Gizmology" site is the shizznit - every word HPL committed to paper, all online to read or download.
Re NO CRY WOMAN. Funny stuff. Even the most rabid rebbe knows, when they see things like a 1923 copyright, they're gonna get black characters sayings things like "marse" and "gwine"....no problem. Times were different then, etc, etc.
But how they howl in horror when they spy some scrap of syntax that might be some sort of metaphoric code for "Jew"! Before you know it, the dead author has been disinterred, tried and found guilty of the most heinous crime of all: not writing and thinking, at all times, as if they'd been born in 1975!
2005-02-17 19:42 | User Profile
:nerd:
2005-02-17 19:50 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Faust]Samuel Francis is an H.P. Lovecraft Fan.[/QUOTE]
How could any literate man not be?
I read virtually the entire collected works of Lovecraft's fiction before my 13th birthday (which was in 1983). I have since re-read each story between 5-12 times, I'd estimate. I'm not a sycophant who worships the man or some such; he's just that good. And almost no one else is.
2005-02-18 04:27 | User Profile
If you bring these ancient threads out of storage...ancient OD members may turn up as well.
Cheers!
2005-02-18 05:39 | User Profile
Aye, Trueman... :thumbsup: