Lovecraft Complete Works

Part One

Author's name: Lovecraft

Considering my present situation, I am fully aware that speaking of the circumstances which led to my confinement in this insane asylum would justifiably raise doubts about the veracity of my story. It is unfortunate that the overwhelming majority of mankind are beset by mental narrowness sufficient to evaluate with patience and astuteness those isolated phenomena which are seen and felt by a few of the psychically sensitive, and which in turn lie outside the range of their ordinary experience. Men of greater insight and discernment know that there are no clear distinctions between what is real and what is not; that all things appear before us as they do by virtue of the individual subtle bodily and mental media by which we are affected and perceived; In contrast, the prevailing superficial materialism regards the flashes of supernatural visions that pierce the veil of the ordinary nature of clear experience as a kind of madness. I, Gervase Dudley, have been a dreamer and visionary from my earliest childhood, rich beyond my means in material life, of a changeable temperament, inconsistent with the formal activities and social entertainments of my acquaintances. I have always roamed far beyond the sensible world; and my youth and adolescence were spent reading old and unknown books, wandering through the fields and woods adjacent to the land of my ancestors. I do not believe that what I read in these books or saw in these fields and woods was exactly the same as what the other boys read and saw there. However, I will not dwell on these matters, for to speak at length would only confirm the cruel calumnies leveled against my mental faculties, which sometimes reach my ears from the hidden voices of the servants around me. It is sufficient for me to relate the events without analyzing the reasons behind them.