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

The state of Lovecraft’s own health during this entire period is somewhat of a mystery, since we have only his own testimony on the matter. He obviously had no physical ailments: his R.I.N.G. examination, however cursory, was clear on that score. To Arthur Harris, Lovecraft makes the remarkable assertion in 1915: ‘I can remain out of bed but three or four hours each day, and those three or four hours are generally burdened with an array of amateur work far beyond my capabilities.’²⁵ His letters to John Dunn and Alfred Galpin of the period 1915–18 are full of references to his pseudo-invalidism. Clearly, Lovecraft’s ailments were largely psychological—perhaps fostered, as I have noted before, by his mother’s and his aunts’ oversolicitousness; whenever he became engrossed in some intellectual subject, his ‘ill health’ would be sloughed off and he would pursue studies as vigorously as anyone. It is perhaps not too early to bring in the testimony of a relatively impartial witness, George Julian Houtain, who met Lovecraft in Boston in 1920:

Lovecraft honestly believes he is not strong—that he has an inherited nervousness and fatigue wished upon him. One would never suspect in his massive form and well constructed body that there could be any ailment. To look at him one would think seriously before ‘squaring off.’ o ph

Many of us are Lovecrafts, in the peculiar sense, that we have lots of things wished upon us—and are ignorant how to throw them off. We react always to the suggestion—shall I call it curse?—placed upon us. It was never intended in the great scheme of things that such a magnificent physique should succumb to any mental dictation that commanded it to be subject to nervous ills and fatigue—nor that that wonderful mentality should weakly and childishly listen to that—WHICH ISN’T.²⁶ Lovecraft responded to this in a letter to Frank Belknap Long:

If Houtain knew how constant are my struggles against the devastating headaches, dizzy spells, and spells of poor concentrating power which hedge me in on all sides, and how feverishly I try to utilise every available moment for work, he would be less confident in classifying my ills as imaginary. I do not arbitrarily pronounce myself an invalid because of a nervous heredity. The condition itself is only too apparent—the hereditary part is only one explanatory factor.²⁷

Lovecraft’s account must be given its due, but in the event it appears that Houtain was more on the mark, and eventually Lovecraft realized it:

Lovecraft did not express surprise at my pronouncements. In fact he was receptive to them. I came to the conclusion that he was willing to overcome this and would but he isn’t allowed to do so, because others in his immediate household won’t permit him to forget this hereditary nervousness. As it is Lovecraft is a mental and physical giant, not because of, but in spite of these conditions. I venture the prediction that were he to lose all thoughts of this handed down idea, get out in the world, and rub elbows with the maddening crowd, that he would stand out as a National figure in Belles-Lettres; that his name would top the list in the annals of the literature of the day and I will go so far as to say it would become a house-hold name throughout the breadth and length of this land.

Even now that final pronouncement is a bit of an exaggeration, but it is more accurate than Houtain—or Lovecraft—could ever have imagined. How Lovecraft finally emerged—intellectually, creatively, and personally—from the claustrophobic influence of 598 Angell Street to become the writer, thinker, and human being we know will be the subject of the subsequent chapters of this book.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Cynical Materialist (1919–21)

The immediate effects of Susie’s absence from the household at 598 Angell Street were mixed: at times Lovecraft seemed incapable of doing anything because of ‘nerve strain’; at other times he found himself possessed of unwonted energy: ‘I wrote an entire March critical report [i.e., the ‘Department of Public Criticism’ for March 1919] one evening recently, & I am this morning able to write letters after having been up all night’.¹ In a sense, this turn of events—especially in light of Lovecraft’s repeated assurances, which he himself no doubt received from Susie’s doctors, that she was in no physical danger—may have been a relief, for it definitively moved Susie out of the picture as far as Lovecraft’s daily life was concerned.

What exactly was the matter with Susie is now difficult to say, since her Butler Hospital records were among those destroyed in a fire several decades ago. Winfield Townley Scott, however, consulted them when they were still in existence, and he paraphrases them as follows: