A Dreamer & A Visionary; H.P. Lovecraft in His Time

We do not know a great deal about what Lovecraft actually did in the more than six weeks he spent with Barlow. Barlow had by this time himself become perhaps his closest, and certainly one of his most voluminous and intimate, correspondents, far more so than Derleth or Wandrei or Howard; in the sudden absence of letters to Barlow we are left to reconstruct the particulars of the visit from a variety of other documents, including Barlow’s journal of the period and his later memoir, ‘The Wind that Is in the Grass’ (1944). In that memoir he gives an impressionistic account of the visit: ‘We rowed on the lake, and played with the cats, or walked on the highway with these cats as the unbelievable sun went down among pines and cypresses … Above all, we talked, chiefly of the fantastic tales which he wrote and which I was trying to write. At breakfast he told us his dreams.’¹¹

Antiquity was not in very great supply in this region of Florida, but Lovecraft and Barlow did manage to get to a Spanish sugar-mill at De Leon Springs constructed before 1763, and other sites at nearby New Smyrna, including a Franciscan mission built in 1696. In early June Lovecraft was taken to Silver Springs, about forty-five miles northwest of De Land. He desperately hoped to get to Havana, but simply did not have the cash.

Of course, the Barlows fed and housed him at their expense, and were so abundantly hospitable that they continually vetoed any suggestion that he move on. No doubt Barlow’s parents perceived that their son and Lovecraft, in spite of the almost thirty-year difference in their ages, had become fast friends. Perhaps Barlow had a lonely existence, with his much older brother Wayne (born in 1908) in the army and not around to aid in his maturation. Barlow, of course, kept himself busy with all manner of literary, artistic, and publishing projects. One of these involved W. Paul Cook’s edition of The Shunned House

, the sheets of which had been knocking about from pillar to post in the wake of Cook’s nervous and financial breakdown. Although Barlow obtained about 265 of the sheets, he was at that time caught up in such a whirlwind of activities that he ultimately did little distribution of them, beyond binding about eight copies in 1934–35, one in natural leather for Lovecraft.

One literary project actually did materialize—the spoof known as ‘The Battle that Ended the Century’. Barlow was clearly the originator of this squib, as typescripts prepared by him survive, one with extensive revisions in pen by Lovecraft. The idea was to make joking mention of as many of the authors’ mutual colleagues as possible in the course of the document, which purported to report the heavyweight fight between Two-Gun Bob, the Terror of the Plains (Robert E. Howard) and Knockout Bernie, the Wild Wolf of West Shokan (Bernard Austin Dwyer). More than thirty individuals are mentioned. Barlow had initially cited them by their actual names, but Lovecraft felt that this was not very interesting, so he devised parodic or punning names for them: instead of Frank Belknap Long, one reads of Frank Chimesleep Short. All this is good if harmless fun, but what is more amusing is conspiratorial tones in which Lovecraft speaks of the matter in letters to Barlow. Note his comment when he hears of Frank Long receiving the mimeographed item:

Note the signature—Chimesleep Short—which indicates that our spoof has gone out & that he at least thinks I’ve seen the thing. Remember that if you didn’t know anything about it, you’d consider it merely a whimsical trick of his own—& that if you’d merely seen the circular, you wouldn’t think it worth commenting on. I’m ignoring the matter in my reply.¹²

Lovecraft pushed on to St Augustine on 21 June, remaining there till the 28th. He then spent two days in Charleston, one in Richmond, one in Fredericksburg, two in Washington (where he looked up Elizabeth Toldridge), and one in Philadelphia. When he reached New York he found that the Longs were about to leave for the beach resorts of Asbury Park and Ocean Grove, in New Jersey, and he tagged along for the weekend. He finally returned home on 10 July, nearly three months after he had set out.

But all this proved merely the preliminary for a trip of relatively short distance but powerful imaginative stimulus. The island of Nantucket lay only 90 miles from Lovecraft’s doorstep (six hours by combined bus and ferry), but he never visited it until the very end of August 1934. What a world of antiquity he stumbled upon: Whole networks of cobblestoned streets with nothing but colonial houses on either side—narrow, garden-bordered lanes—ancient belfries—picturesque waterfront—everything that the antiquarian could ask! … I’ve explored old houses, the 1746 windmill, the Hist. Soc. Museum, the whaling museum, etc.—and am doing every inch of the quaint streets and alleys on foot.¹³