Pics: Lovecraft's main plot is repeated thruout his stories, but it can still generate some hilarious outcomes...
HPL: 1915 Output.
Intro: F.C. Clark was Howard's paternal uncle & husband of Lillian D. Phillips, Lovecraft's maternal aunt.
Clark was a career doctor - for over 40 years!¹
After Whipple V.B. Phillips (HPL's maternal grandfather) death, it was Clark who most influenced Howard...
Until he died on 4/1915.
Title: "An Elegy² on Franklin Chase Clark."
Text:
Can learned Clark in truth have ceased to be, As Reason's bitter voice has coldly said?³
Can vibrant intellect, of earth so free, Like peasant clay⁴ be lost among the dead?
But yesterday the luster of his mind⁵ Had force to pale⁶ obscurity away:
In its stern glare, the folly of mankind Shrunk, like shadows at the noon of day.
A changing world of strife about him seethed;⁷ Ideas lessening & the pure disdained;
But in his soul untainted wisdom breathed;⁸ And lingering around him while his form remained.
A fleeting fame or momentary praise, How little wished he & how nobly scorned.
How often were Learning's deeper, richer ways, Sought out by him & by his hand adorned.⁹
While empty multitudes in frenzy crave The glittering gold or honors of a lord,
In quiet, he his best endeavor gave, Content to serve; unthinking of reward.
Let lesser men display the laurelled brow, And beg for homage to the world beneath.
In silence lies a greater master now, Even though his laurel be his funeral wreath.
Say not that in the void beyond Death's door The mighty & the lowly are the same;
Can boorish dust, in life but little more, Equality with mental essence claim?¹⁰
His voice is stilled; his body run its course; But have those waves of intellect decayed?
Can subtle energy, eternal force, As mortal flesh within the tomb be laid?
Have not these waves, sent forth by matchless mind, An endless path in boundless space to run?
To flow unseen; alive, yet undefined, But never, like the body, to be done?
Who can declare that such unbodied thought, Sent forth by sages of an earlier time,¹¹
Thru other, living bodies has not wrought The good of every age & every clime?¹²
So tell me not that he no more remains, Whose silent form no responsive gives:
His body sleeps, relieved of earthly pains, But he, the guiding soul, immortal lives!¹³
Footnotes:
1. It's amazing to me that Lovecraft was surrounded by hard working men & he never got a job himself!
His father was a traveling salesman, his grandad had several flourishing businesses going & Clark was a doctor for 40+ years.
Not a lazy bone among them!!
I guess it goes to show you how strong a mother's influence can be...
2. An elegy is a serious poetic reflection on someone who's dead.
They are classed along with nostalgic songs & melancholic lyrics focusing on mortality.
3. Sadly, Howard already knew the true answer on mortality.
At 13, he had a real gun - as an eager member of the "Providence Detective Agency."
HPL had inherited grandad Whipple's gun collection back in 1904.
But, by 1905, he was trading or selling his guns & rifles away.
Lovecraft retained a flintlock - as a wall ornament.
So, what happened?
Howard, "The lore of hunting allured me & the feel of a rifle was (a) balm to my soul.
But, after killing a squirrel, I formed a dislike for killing (living) things which could not fight back."
So, the creator of cosmic horror turned to shooting at targets...
4. And HPL's elitism shows up.
One can take this as both, a side branch of his racism & his refusal to let go of his childhood as a rich snob.
Also, Lovecraft's obsession with archaic England wasn't limited to just its literature.
He often wished to live in that bygone era - when rich writers & thinkers dominated their society.
5. Here, "luster" refers to the inner "brightness" of Clark's mind - his high intelligence.
6. "Pale" can also mean "to fade" or "weaken."
Strangely enough, pale comes from the Latin word palus, "a wooden stake used to support a fence."
Not Lovecraftian at all...
7. As good a description of life as can be found.
8. Basically, Clark's thoughts are here equated - not just with "wisdom" - but with the Christian God's creation of the heavens!
"And God said, "Let there be light" - & there was light..."
9. Clark not only learned his craft as a doctor but, he added to the growing knowledge about it.
10. Here, Howard's elitism rises again.
Not only does HPL describe regular folk as "boorish dust", he tries to elevate Doctor Clark into Lovecraft's 'level' of intellectual elites.
11. Does anybody else get shivery vibes of "The Shadow Over Time" from this?!!
12. Mental transfer or only inspiration?
It could go either way...
13. Howard stopped believing in God & the Bible when he was 5 years old!
He was a complete atheist & came to consider religion as a danger to social & political progress!!
Instead, HPL became a believer in mechanistic materialism, where the cosmos is indifferent to all human life.
End.
