00:00:06:00 - 00:00:09:19 Andrew Welcome to Voluminous the letters of H.P. Lovecraft. 00:00:09:22 - 00:00:16:06 Sean In addition to classic works of gothic horror fiction, HPL wrote thousands of fascinating letters. 00:00:16:11 - 00:00:21:00 Andrew And each episode of this podcast, we'll read and discuss one of them. I'm Andrew Leman. 00:00:21:00 - 00:00:25:02 Sean And I'm Sean Branney. Together, we run the H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society. 00:00:25:21 - 00:01:02:22 Andrew For today's letter, I chose one written on June 1st, 1921, to an Anne Tillery Renshaw. Sean Well, let's hear it. Andrew Okay. 598 Angel Street, Providence, Rhode Island. June one, 1921 Dear Mrs. Renshaw, I am answering letters promptly these last few days because I lack the will and energy to do anything heavier. The death of my mother on May 24 gave me an extreme nervous shock, and I find concentration and continuous endeavor quite impossible. 00:01:03:21 - 00:01:31:04 Andrew I am, of course, supremely unemotional and do not weep or indulge in any of the lugubrious demonstrations of the vulgar. While the psychological effect of so vast and unexpected a disaster is nonetheless considered, and I cannot sleep much or labor with any particular spirit or success, despite my mother's nervous illness and presence at a sanatorium for two years, the fatal malady was entirely different and unconnected. 00:01:31:15 - 00:01:56:19 Andrew A digestive trouble of sudden appearance which necessitated an operation no greater result was apprehended until the very day before death. But it then became evident that only a strong constitution could call its survival, never strong or vigorous, My mother was unable to recover. The result is the cause of wide and profound sorrow. Although to my mother, it was only relief from nervous suffering. 00:01:57:21 - 00:02:22:17 Andrew For two years, she had wished for little else. Just as I myself wish for oblivion. Like me, she was an agnostic with no belief in immortality and wished for death all the more because it meant peace and not an eternity of bore some consciousness. For my part, I do not think I shall wait for a natural death, since there is no longer any particular reason why I should exist. 00:02:23:11 - 00:02:45:19 Andrew During my mother's lifetime, I was aware that voluntary euthanasia on my part would cause her distress. But it is now possible for me to regulate the term of my existence with the assurance that my end would cause no one more than a passing annoyance. Of course, my aunts are infinitely considerate and solicitous, but the death of a nephew is seldom a momentous event. 00:02:46:16 - 00:03:09:03 Andrew Possibly I shall find enough interesting things to read and study to warrant my hanging on indefinitely. But I do not intend to endure boredom beyond a certain limit. It is better to be as one was in the eternity before he was born. My mother was, in all probability, the only person who thoroughly understood me, with the possible exception of Alfred Galpin. 00:03:09:21 - 00:03:35:09 Andrew She was a person of unusual charm and force of character, accomplished in literature and the fine arts. A French scholar, musician and painter in oils. I shall not again be likely to meet with a mind so thoroughly admirable. I am interested to observe your present reaction to can't in view of what your ultimate reaction will probably be for I am convinced that you will later discard theism. 00:03:35:23 - 00:03:57:21 Andrew Can't is one of the long line of jugglers with metaphysical abstractions whose tenuous sophistry is fairly hypnotize the student whose feet are not firmly on the ground. In other words, he carries thoughts into regions wherein there is no basis whatever forethought for thought is valuable and significant only when supplied with objects to classify and from which to deduce. 00:03:58:11 - 00:04:28:07 Andrew Neither current nor anyone else can possibly furnish absolute proofs of a deity or moral governor for later discoveries have fully removed the necessity for assuming a personality behind nature, whilst morals are no more than local expedients for harmonious living embodied into tradition. Schopenhauer explodes can't in vigorous fashion, saying quote, Kant's language is often indistinct, indefinite, inadequate, and sometimes obscure. 00:04:28:21 - 00:05:06:18 Andrew He who is himself clear to the bottom and knows with perfect distinctness what he thinks and wishes will never write indistinctly will never set up wavering and indefinite conceptions compose most difficult and complicated expressions from foreign languages to denote them and use these expressions constantly afterwards as can't took words in formula from earlier philosophy, especially scholasticism, which he combined with each other to suit his purposes as, for example, transcendental synthetic unity of appreciation, and in general unity of synthesis always used where union would be quite sufficient by itself. 00:05:07:14 - 00:05:45:02 Andrew Moreover, a man who is himself quite clear, will not be always saying a new what has once been explained as current does. For example, in the case of the understanding, the categories, experience and other leading conceptions and quote and Friedrich Nietzsche, the greatest philosopher of them all, said, among other things, the following quote, The spectacle of the Tartuffery of old Kant equally stiff and decent, with which he entices us into the dialectic byways that lead more correctly mislead to his, quote, categorical imperative, end quote, makes us fast, studious one smile. 00:05:45:12 - 00:06:22:21 Andrew We find no small amusement in spying out the subtle tricks of old moralists and ethical preachers, end quote. China said that Conte was a man designed by nature to sell coffee and sugar over the counter and pointed out that whilst he postulated a deity in his practical system, he exploded such a thing in his theoretical system. Tyner whimsically adds that Conte invented his proof of a deity to console his old manservant, Lampe, who was frightfully disconcerted by the truths of pure reason and no doubt looked to his kind master to be saved from the rude shocks of truth. 00:06:23:03 - 00:06:54:20 Andrew Altogether, Conte is one whose name might be quite readily commenced with a lower case see, his value in stimulating thought and advancing philosophy. He need not be questioned, but in matters of detail, he is simply an empty and exaggerated. Name one of those figures to receive accretions of blind adulation until they become mere magic words. Mystical abracadabra is of classical tradition, whose revered musings and dialectics would evaporate if examined without the deftness and blindness of irrational veneration. 00:06:55:12 - 00:07:21:24 Andrew As sequels to Conte. I sincerely trust that you will read Schopenhauer and Nietzsche in the order named following these with the most modern rational work, Modern Science and Materialism by Hugh Eliot's 1919 to emerge from the artificial fog of empty, resonant, mystical words without a single real idea behind them into the clear light of minds with actual conceptions is a tonic to the intellect. 00:07:22:23 - 00:07:48:20 Andrew Lest you fancy that, I am making an idle of nature, as others do, of can't, let me state clearly that I do not swallow him whole. His ethical system is a joke or a poet's dream, which amounts to the same thing. It is in his message and his account of the basic origin and actual relations of existing ideas and standards which make him the master figure of the modern age and founder of unvarnished sincerity and philosophic thought. 00:07:49:09 - 00:08:30:19 Andrew It is impossible to understand philosophy without nature, as Mencken says. Like him or not, you cannot escape him. Dr. Sigmund Freud of Vienna, whose system of psychoanalysis I have begun to investigate, will probably prove the end of idealistic thought. In details, I think he has his limitations, and I am inclined to accept the modifications of Adler, who, in placing the ego above the Eros, makes a scientific return to the position which Nietzsche assumed for wholly philosophical reasons, but to Freud is do the credit of discovering the basic principles of one dominating motives behind all psychological processes, establishing inductively what Nietzsche established deductively. 00:08:31:01 - 00:08:59:20 Andrew The selfish individual villains are mocked, which is the only driving force in the organic world. As I grew older, I lose much of the prejudice and shallow enthusiasm for empirical and accepted traditions which retarded my progress toward realism in earlier years. I have today not a single well-defined wish save to die or to learn facts. This position makes me eminently receptive for a new idea no longer meets with any conflict from old ideas. 00:09:00:06 - 00:09:29:19 Andrew I can change my theories as often as valid evidence is changed or as my judgment improves through exercise in the province of philosophical reflection. I am, I hope, now a complete machine without a disturbing and biasing volition. A machine for the reception and classification of ideas and the construction of theories. As such, I may say that the obsolete ness of religion and idealism is systems of enlightened thought is impressed upon me with redoubled force. 00:09:30:12 - 00:09:49:16 Andrew If anything is true, it is that these beliefs are soon to be finally extinct. Until some cataclysm shall wipe out civilization and inaugurate a new dark age of myth and ignorance. Believe me, your most obedient servant. H.P. Lovecraft. 00:09:50:12 - 00:09:53:01 Sean So, Andrew, what led you to pick this letter? 00:09:53:02 - 00:09:56:10 Andrew Well, this one is a real knee slapper, as you heard. 00:09:56:16 - 00:09:57:04 Sean Yes. 00:09:57:18 - 00:10:22:08 Andrew It was written one week after Lovecraft's mother passed away. She died, as I think we mentioned in a previous episode after a gallbladder operation that was not expected to be fatal. And, you know, his her death took Lovecraft. And I think everyone very much by surprise, even though she had been in a hospital, a Butler hospital. 00:10:22:08 - 00:10:28:00 Sean In which she was she was hospitalized for psychiatric reasons and then needed a gallbladder surgery and that. 00:10:28:11 - 00:10:37:20 Andrew So, yeah, this this came a little bit out of the blue. And clearly it was a blow as it would, whether it comes expectedly or not. Death of your mother is always a blow. 00:10:37:20 - 00:10:51:19 Sean Sure, sure. Well, maybe before we dive into it. I don't imagine that an artillery Renshaw is going to be a household name for most folks, so maybe we should cover who she is, and then we'll go through what what Howard had to say. 00:10:51:20 - 00:11:14:14 Andrew She was one of his many friends from the amateur press movement. She was a poet and she was also a teacher. She met him through the through the amateur press in the late 19 teens, early twenties. They were friends. She was like an officer in some of the organizations. She later formed her own school. They they correspondent for several, several years in the early twenties. 00:11:14:17 - 00:11:25:14 Andrew And then I think they sort of fell out of touch until the mid-thirty's when she surfaced again wanting to write this book called Well-bred Speech. And she turned to Lovecraft and said, Would you help write this book? 00:11:26:09 - 00:11:44:12 Sean Yeah, it's interesting that looking at her, her career as an educator, that public speaking was her thing. So and went on to found after leaving the university and founded the Renshaw School of Speech in Washington, D.C. to help would be orators learned to. 00:11:44:22 - 00:11:56:19 Andrew When she lived in what I think when she lived in Washington, Lovecraft visited and she actually drove him and Seacrest and people she served as like a tour guide for Lovecraft in his friends in Washington. 00:11:56:19 - 00:12:21:12 Sean D.C.. Yeah, they only met in person, actually two months after this letter. It was in the summer of 21 that they first met. They actually started their correspondence back in 1914. Yeah. In the early days of the amateur press kind of things. It was interesting after after they met do Lovecraft, who's often so self-deprecating about his own looks, described his range as stout and homely. 00:12:21:12 - 00:12:31:17 Sean Oh, dear. So there you go. But clearly, he wasn't letting that slow him down in terms of, you know, their relationship. But he was super cordial to her. 00:12:31:17 - 00:13:00:08 Andrew And he did write a bunch of stuff for her book, Well-bred Speech. But apparently at this time, it was in the it was like 1936 and his own health was failing and he was spending a lot of time with Barlowe and he wasn't able to turn that material around fast enough. So she had to go to press before she could actually incorporate all the stuff that he wrote for Well-bred Speech, which included sections on commonly mispronounced words apparently, and some other chapters for this book that he wrote, but were not ultimately included in it. 00:13:00:12 - 00:13:03:24 Sean Yeah, well, there you go. Yeah. So Howard's mother has passed away. 00:13:04:07 - 00:13:14:16 Andrew Howard's mother has passed away and one of the reasons I chose this letter was I was just so struck by how he describes his reaction. 00:13:14:16 - 00:13:43:05 Sean Yeah, it's a fascinating insight to the the type of thinking and, and, you know, emotion is such a problematic thing for Howard to deal with. And and certainly when confronted with an emotional event like the death of a parent, he's his way of processing it. I was struck by just how not like other people his response is. 00:13:43:06 - 00:14:05:12 Andrew Yes, that and also I was struck by how he would describe that in a letter to, you know, someone who he has not personally met, who is a pen pal, but to, you know, I, I do not weep or indulge in the lugubrious demonstrations of the vulgar is is in itself such a lugubrious demonstration. 00:14:05:12 - 00:14:05:21 Sean Lillie. 00:14:06:00 - 00:14:11:16 Andrew It is such a an affected. I am above the common. 00:14:11:16 - 00:14:28:08 Sean Herd, right. And the lady doth protest too much methinks. Oh, yeah. A need to show and demonstrate that I am not crying for my mother. But. But I will rattle off ten pages about about nature and count well and process my grief. 00:14:28:09 - 00:14:41:22 Andrew And then. But also, you know how now that she's dead, there's no reason why I should continue to live. Now I can commit suicide. I will not endure boredom beyond a certain limit. It's so. I don't know . 00:14:41:22 - 00:14:46:02 Sean I don't know what it is, but it's armpits and kind of it's immature. I think it. 00:14:46:02 - 00:14:46:20 Andrew Is immature. 00:14:46:20 - 00:14:59:08 Sean You know? And instead of just being able to as a grown person to say, I am sad, I have just cause to be sad and I am super, super sad. You know, he has to go through these somehow. 00:14:59:10 - 00:15:06:24 Andrew Does he feel like he's not allowed to be sad? Who does he think would be disappointed in him for being sad? 00:15:06:24 - 00:15:40:07 Sean I don't. I think it's himself. Maybe because he he so often has contempt for emotional life. And so you go through this really here. He goes through this really emotional event and is left feeling emotions. And I think he hates that. And so I think this letter is a whole response to an emotional event by going hyper intellectual about it and processing it in a purely conceptual way and not really owning the emotional life, which is abundantly clear that that he is really in a lot of personal pain. 00:15:40:07 - 00:15:41:11 Sean It's a it's a really. 00:15:41:11 - 00:15:43:24 Andrew So you think it's a coping mechanism of some kind? 00:15:44:00 - 00:15:44:23 Sean I do, yeah. 00:15:45:09 - 00:15:50:04 Andrew I don't know whether that makes it sadder or more irritating. 00:15:50:04 - 00:16:16:02 Sean Well, it's a little of both, because like, like you said, it's like, you know, a goth kid, you know, who who is who's going to pretend you're going to use this affectation to pretend that things are other than they are to process their own feelings. And it yeah, it's a little it's a little pathetic and it's a little sad, but it's also a real insight into who he is as as a person. 00:16:16:08 - 00:16:16:17 Sean Yeah. 00:16:17:04 - 00:16:37:20 Andrew And his, you know, his descriptions of her, You know, I will. I do not believe I will meet a fine or mine. She was a French scholar and a painter. And is is that another piece of showmanship for this person who he you know, is writing too, but hasn't met? Is he does this an honest reflection of his feelings for his mother? 00:16:38:01 - 00:16:38:05 Sean Right. 00:16:38:08 - 00:16:43:21 Andrew Or is this you know, I will not speak ill of the dead? Is that what what art really should we make of it? 00:16:43:21 - 00:17:06:24 Sean Yeah. My my read on it anyway. And I certainly can't pretend to know that it's correct. But it, it is also his thoughts about his mother being filtered through this lens of, you know, it's not. I loved her so much. She was so wonderful. It's I have never met a finer mind. It's this whole need to objectify and go. 00:17:06:24 - 00:17:27:24 Sean You know, it's the cognition is the highest form of mankind. And I will not wallow in my base, you know, lugubrious emotions, but instead will will place her on a pedestal based on the values which I personally espouse, which are these higher forms and the like seems. 00:17:27:24 - 00:17:40:07 Andrew Inherently I mean, that seems very sentimental to me. To sentimentalize his mother that way is itself a of a betrayal of the very intellectual, you know, that's claiming to, you know, represents. 00:17:40:17 - 00:17:41:01 Sean Really. 00:17:41:01 - 00:17:48:04 Andrew Your mother is just by sheer coincidence, your own mother is the finest mind, right? Really? Right. Because I don't believe it. 00:17:48:05 - 00:18:00:13 Sean No, This whole letter is just brimming with irony because it's again, I'm not going to indulge in emotions, but it's all driven through emotion. And then we can't not talk about Kant. 00:18:00:13 - 00:18:01:19 Andrew You had to do something. 00:18:01:19 - 00:18:19:20 Sean I've been working on that all week. So really, you know, it's really good. It was worth it. What a bizarre shift, though, from. Oh, yeah, from yeah. I've never met a mind so thoroughly admirable. I'm interested to observe your present reaction to that. And let's talk about that for quite a bit longer to talk about my mother. 00:18:19:20 - 00:18:39:22 Andrew Let's also talk about the fact that although this letter does appear in an abridged form in selected letters, the text I read was the unabridged version. So you'd like to think that that, you know, they just cut out the bridge between the first part and the second part, but they didn't. Lovecraft actually pivoted that hard and fast to Kant. 00:18:39:24 - 00:18:56:00 Sean Yeah, it's crazy. You know, we take no notes on the letters and I just wrote What a shift, you know. Yes, it is. You know, I hope that at least he stopped writing the letter and went and got a cup of coffee or something between those two paragraphs because otherwise it's Yeah, it's pretty crazy. It's pretty. 00:18:56:00 - 00:19:10:20 Andrew Crazy. And it does, as you say, go on for quite some time about German philosophers, which, you know, I'm though I'm perfectly happy to discuss it on it. It's also, you know, beyond the scope of this podcast to try to get to. 00:19:11:04 - 00:19:11:18 Sean To try to. 00:19:11:18 - 00:19:13:08 Andrew Get into all the I. 00:19:13:08 - 00:19:14:07 Sean Want to show up in our. 00:19:14:07 - 00:19:18:01 Andrew Lecture. Well, you'll have to go elsewhere because I'm not prepared to deliver one. 00:19:18:01 - 00:19:51:18 Sean Damnation. Where's my Wikipedia? Yeah, I'm right with you. And I think for most listeners and people who are interested in Lovecraft, we're probably not going to find his his rebuke of Kant all that interesting. I think really the point of the philosophical sections of the letter are really to look at how he rejects Kant and embraces Nietzsche a, as I think somebody whose philosophy embodies this, the intellectual ism and the I right, the. 00:19:51:18 - 00:19:56:13 Andrew Rising above Venus, the ubermensch kind of I'm better than. 00:19:57:03 - 00:20:21:24 Sean The herd. Sure I'm right. I'm I'm better than the herd. And, you know, I'm completely you know, the the the man who has achieved himself has abandoned these false notions of religion and these false notions of any sort of external meeting on mankind. And it is the the seizing of one's self that is the the noble thing. I think that's what he admires about. 00:20:21:24 - 00:20:22:03 Sean Yeah. 00:20:22:04 - 00:20:36:15 Andrew And he goes on closer to the end where he goes on, you know, he starts talking about Freud and you know, I've started to investigate this Freud and I think he's wrong and I think Adler is better and Adler's the one who's more Nietzsche in right In his approach to psychology. 00:20:36:17 - 00:20:44:12 Sean Yeah. So. And how ironic that that Lovecraft is bagging on Freud while Lovecraft's talking about his mother. Well, yeah. You know. 00:20:44:12 - 00:20:46:04 Andrew The rich, rich letter, Sean. Yeah. 00:20:46:13 - 00:21:01:20 Sean Well, and I think, you know, I think there's so much about Freud that would make Lovecraft really uncomfortable, so I think he would be so much better, happier glomming on to Adler, who's all about power, as you were saying, in June with nausea, I had. 00:21:01:20 - 00:21:13:17 Andrew To look up. ADLER So I'm going to presume that there might be someone in our audience who does not immediately know. Oh, yes. ADLER Of course. ADLER Was Alfred Adler who was he started out as a colleague of Freud's, and then they became. 00:21:14:02 - 00:21:16:14 Sean Yeah, bitter rivals, rivals. 00:21:16:16 - 00:21:18:07 Andrew And Adler developed in different. 00:21:18:15 - 00:21:25:18 Sean Different schools of thought. Different schools of psychology is just beginning to evolve as a discipline, where Freud responded to the first thing with the pleasure. 00:21:25:18 - 00:21:42:04 Andrew Principle, the will to pleasure. Adler was more into the will to power thing, and that's where Adler and Nietzsche sort of overlapped. And that's probably why Lovecraft thought Adler's take on psychology was better than Freud's. This Freud's was about feelings and Adler's about determination. 00:21:42:07 - 00:21:59:19 Sean Right? And, you know, Freud is driven by, you know, base desire. And that's the very existence of her come. And that the very existence of that is something I think that made Lovecraft very well. He's very dismissive of them and that's something for the hoi polloi or the, you know, the lowly sort to have those sort of impulses. 00:21:59:19 - 00:22:03:19 Sean But the evolved man has moved to, you know, higher levels of thought. And. Right. 00:22:03:20 - 00:22:05:13 Andrew That of course, likes to kid himself, that he. 00:22:05:13 - 00:22:10:08 Sean Has a right. Of course. Yeah. Yeah. But I'm not sure Lovecraft's going to admit that anytime soon. 00:22:10:08 - 00:22:12:15 Andrew No, I don't. Well, let's keep reading and we'll see. 00:22:13:07 - 00:22:36:08 Sean If he admits it. Well, one one of the one of the other just doozies of of a sentence that comes, you know, he moves through this long session in philosophy and then sort of comes back to circles, back around to himself. And I have today not a single well-defined wish, save to die or to learn facts like I well, well, wow, he's. 00:22:36:08 - 00:22:42:19 Andrew Going to we're going to read a letter in a couple of weeks or so that where he talks some more about his desire to learn facts and. 00:22:43:08 - 00:23:04:11 Sean Yeah, his you know, he he's so good at learning facts. You know, the the man's intellectual retentive ness is is really remarkable. And you see it manifested, I think, in some some interesting ways in his fiction, too. I that's one of the things that struck me about that sentence is, you know, the admiration he has for things like the the great race of. 00:23:04:11 - 00:23:34:19 Sean Yes. Who who travel all through time to go build an awesome library. Yeah. Accumulate all the facts, bring them all back here together, you know, And alien races he conceives are rarely, you know, power or destruction for their own sake. They are like him into they are intellectually acquisitive and want to learn the the history and the practices of all the races throughout all time and space. 00:23:34:19 - 00:23:34:23 Sean Yeah. 00:23:34:23 - 00:23:38:17 Andrew And yet the society and culture was very intellectual and. 00:23:38:22 - 00:23:53:08 Sean As was the culture of the people in the mound, the culture of the elder things. You know a lot of his alien I guess we don't Migo culture, we don't really learn too much, but they go around collecting brains in jars and keep them in a big brain jar. Librarian Right on yoga, I think. 00:23:53:09 - 00:24:00:05 Andrew Yeah. He thinks of himself as a machine for the reception and classification of ideas and the construction of theories. Yeah. 00:24:00:19 - 00:24:01:04 Sean Yeah. 00:24:01:04 - 00:24:07:21 Andrew Well, yeah. For for his greatest ambition is to strip all humanity from himself and just become an idea machine and to. 00:24:07:23 - 00:24:12:00 Sean Become a hard drive. Yeah. You know, I store in sort information, it's. 00:24:12:00 - 00:24:17:01 Andrew And maybe that's, you know, the grief talking or maybe that's how he felt all the time. 00:24:17:04 - 00:24:29:10 Sean Yeah, well, maybe to differing degrees because clearly, you know the grief is at work here and I think he does resent this rush of emotions, you know, that comes from his mother. But there are certainly other places in his writing. 00:24:29:10 - 00:24:34:21 Andrew Oh, absolutely. This clearly sort that has occurred to him before and will continue to occur to him. Yeah. 00:24:35:09 - 00:25:00:15 Sean Yeah. One last tidbit at the very end of this letter, which struck me as just an interesting turn of phrase, and I wonder if it came back around to him. Yeah, this is written in 1921 and of course in 1926 he'll be writing this thing called the Call of Cthulhu and where here he describes some cataclysms shall wipe out civilization and inaugurate a new dark age of myth and ignorance. 00:25:00:15 - 00:25:05:16 Andrew Sure, sure does sound like an A for echo of a famous story that is to come. 00:25:05:16 - 00:25:26:11 Sean Yeah. And I just wonder if that's a thought. He had perhaps already had an articulate in both places, or if at a conscious level or an unconscious level, this sort of notion of of plunging into a new dark age of myth and ignorance. Yeah. Because it's boy that's very close to the language of Call of Cthulhu. Yeah. 00:25:28:01 - 00:25:38:19 Andrew Yeah. No it's, it's a it's a sad letter in many ways just objectively from the news. It relates to what it says about how Lovecraft dealt with stuff. 00:25:38:22 - 00:25:45:03 Sean Yeah. Yeah. Have you seen any other letters where he talks about his grief or his mom stuff? 00:25:45:03 - 00:25:48:00 Andrew Not so far. I mean, I haven't been looking for them specifically. 00:25:48:00 - 00:26:02:08 Sean Right. It is a weird thing because of course, the letters are generally published by. By who? They're too not in the order they were actually written, because I'm sure if we dug through to find every letter he wrote that week, it would I bet he would touch on the topic and in other places I bet he would. 00:26:02:08 - 00:26:07:18 Andrew And it might be worth looking at them. I don't know if it's worth continuing to read them into microphones, but. 00:26:08:00 - 00:26:18:18 Sean Oh yeah. No, no, I'm just yeah, I'm just kind of positing as out of curiosity whether like, I wonder how how representative what he had to say to, to miss Mrs.. 00:26:19:00 - 00:26:19:14 Andrew Mrs. Mrs.. 00:26:19:16 - 00:26:26:01 Sean Renshaw was relative to what he might have said to, you know, to do with or how somebody. 00:26:26:04 - 00:26:35:17 Andrew You know, Mrs. Renshaw was a friend and so forth, but not his closest. It would be interesting to find out that, you know what, what, what did he say to Alfred? Yeah, I was. 00:26:35:21 - 00:26:38:08 Sean Just outside Galpin to write. I wish that I would. 00:26:38:08 - 00:26:51:21 Andrew He have described the death of his mother to a closer, more intimate friend. I, I haven't looked now, Although I can't help but think if you. If he really felt the way he says he feels, he just wouldn't say anything at all. You know, it's weird, right? 00:26:51:22 - 00:27:00:09 Sean No, I gets back to that. That lady doth protest too much because I think, yeah, if he was going to just process it purely intellectually. 00:27:00:09 - 00:27:01:05 Andrew He would just do that. 00:27:01:06 - 00:27:04:20 Sean You don't need Mrs. Renshaw, You don't need to articulate your. 00:27:04:23 - 00:27:05:22 Andrew I was just friends. 00:27:05:22 - 00:27:08:07 Sean Say how we both are saddened, but I'm not going to admit I'm. 00:27:08:07 - 00:27:11:03 Andrew Sad. I was just listening to you reading in the walls of Eric's. 00:27:11:04 - 00:27:11:21 Sean I'm sorry. 00:27:11:21 - 00:27:14:21 Andrew And I was thinking, you know, it's one of those stories where it's ridiculous. 00:27:15:09 - 00:27:16:20 Sean I'm writing out all the time. 00:27:16:20 - 00:27:25:10 Andrew Really? Sounds like that's. That's not the way it would happen. You would. You would have these experiences, but you wouldn't go write them all down. It's like he must have died while writing. 00:27:25:12 - 00:27:28:08 Sean Exactly. Pencil Yeah, it is. Yeah. 00:27:28:15 - 00:27:32:14 Andrew If you actually felt this way, you wouldn't write it down. 00:27:32:14 - 00:27:44:03 Sean Yeah. No. And that's the diary of Alonzo type. And in the walls of Eric's where? But at least, at least there we can blame it on a literary convention. And here this is his personal life, and he's still writing at all. 00:27:44:10 - 00:27:47:22 Andrew So it's like he views his personal life as a literary convention. 00:27:47:22 - 00:27:49:11 Sean In some ways, it's kind of it's. 00:27:49:11 - 00:27:51:12 Andrew Yeah, it's. It's weird. 00:27:51:21 - 00:27:53:00 Sean Yeah. That's our boy. 00:27:53:01 - 00:27:55:21 Andrew Yeah, that's our boy. You feel sorry for him and. 00:27:55:23 - 00:28:14:13 Sean Yeah, kind of into two ways because you feel sorry for his loss. And I feel sorry for his inability to process is loss because he really does seem emotionally stunted. Yeah. Or just doesn't have the right tools with which to cope. Well, yeah. And that's, you know, that's just unfortunate. And of course, you know, lots of people don't. 00:28:14:13 - 00:28:27:15 Sean And yeah, everybody's got their own tool set and gets by the best they can And you know, he's somebody else would be turning to hard drinker you know there are lots of ways that somebody would certainly could other coping mechanisms be more science writing? There could be revenge or. 00:28:27:15 - 00:28:36:17 Andrew Self-Destructive ways or just destructive ways in general? That's true. This is as far as coping mechanisms go. This one is pretty elegant, I guess. 00:28:36:24 - 00:28:45:15 Sean Yeah. Yeah. It's notable for its verbosity. Yeah. All right. All right. Well, maybe we should wrap this one up. Anything else that. 00:28:45:15 - 00:28:47:24 Andrew Well, unless you want that Schopenhauer lecture. 00:28:47:24 - 00:28:49:23 Sean Oh, bring it on. 00:28:49:23 - 00:29:04:11 Andrew I did take notes. Hegel was a jerk. Our thanks today to Hippocampus Press for their book Letters to Elizabeth Toldridge and Hilary Renshaw, edited by David E Schultz and S.T. Joshi. 00:29:04:11 - 00:29:07:05 Sean You can learn more about them or pick up your own copy at HippocampusPress.com 00:29:07:05 - 00:29:10:18 Andrew I'm your obedient servant, Andrew Leman. 00:29:10:23 - 00:29:13:06 Sean And I am cordially and respectfully yours Sean Branney 00:29:13:11 - 00:29:18:04 Andrew You've been listening to Voluminous the letters of H.P. Lovecraft. 00:29:18:06 - 00:29:21:15 Sean If you've enjoyed the show, we'd appreciate it if you take a moment to post a review. 00:29:21:15 - 00:29:25:16 Andrew Or even better, tell a friend or two, maybe by letter about voluminous. 00:29:25:16 - 00:29:57:03 Sean Brought to you by the H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society. Come check out all we have to offer at HPLHS.org