Part 22 (2/2)
November 1st, 1927.
Dear HPL,
I am a.s.sured by the postmistress that the parcel of my work has had ample time to reach you. I hope that the contents have not rendered you so speechless that you are unable to pen a response. Pray do not attempt to comment on the pieces until you feel capable of encompa.s.sing their essence. However, I should be grateful if you would confirm that they have safely arrived.
Yours, CTN.
1, Toad Place,
Berkeley,
Gloucesters.h.i.+re,
Great Britain.
January 1st, 1928.
Lovecraft,
Am I meant to fancy that the parcel of my work faded into nothingness like a dream? You forget that my dreams do not fade. They are more than common reveries, for they have grasped the stuff of creation. The accounts which I set down may be lost to me, but their truths are buried in my brain. I shall follow wherever they may lead, even unto the unspeakable truth which is the core of all existence.
I was amused by your lengthy description of your Halloween dream of ancient Romans. I fear that, like so many of your narrators, you are shackled to the past, and unable to release your spirit into the universe. I read your amazing amazing story of the alien colour, but I failed to be story of the alien colour, but I failed to be amazed amazed except by its unlikeness. except by its unlikeness.9 How can there be a colour besides those I have seen? The idea is nothing but a feeble dream, and your use of my name in the tale is no compliment to me. When I read the sentence ”The Dutchman's breeches became a thing of sinister menace,” Iwonder if the story is a joke which you sought to play on your ignorant audience. How can there be a colour besides those I have seen? The idea is nothing but a feeble dream, and your use of my name in the tale is no compliment to me. When I read the sentence ”The Dutchman's breeches became a thing of sinister menace,” Iwonder if the story is a joke which you sought to play on your ignorant audience.Nevertheless, it has some worth, for it convinces me that you are by no means the ideal agent for my work. I ignored your presumption in suggesting changes to my reports as if they were mere fiction, but I am troubled by the possibility that you may regard your work as in any way superior to mine. Is it conceivable that you altered the pieces which you submitted on my behalf? I suspect you of hindering them for fear that your fiction might be unfavourably compared to them, and in order that it might reach the editors ahead of them. I am sure that you excluded my work from your essay out of jealousy. I wonder if you may have resented my achievement ever since I gave you my honest appraisal of your Houdini hotchpotch. For these reasons and others which need not concern you, I hereby withdraw my work from your representation. Please return all of it immediately on receipt of this letter.
Sincerely,
Cameron Thaddeus Nash.
1, Toad Place,
Berkeley,
Gloucesters.h.i.+re,
Great Britain.
March 3rd, 1928.
Loathecraft,
Where is my work? I have still not had it back.
C. T. Nash.
1, Toad Place,
Berkeley,
Gloucesters.h.i.+re,
Great Britain.
May 1st, 1928.
Lovecramped,
So a second parcel has vanished into the void! How capricious the colonial post must be, or so you would have me believe. I am not to think that you are fearful of my seeing any alterations that you made to my work. Nor should I suspect you of destroying evidence that you have stolen elements of my work in a vain attempt to improve your own. You say that I should have kept copies, but you may rest a.s.sured that the essence is not lost. It remains embedded in my brain, where I feel it stirring like an eager foetus as it reaches for the farthest dream.
I wonder if its undeveloped relative may have made its lair in your brain as you read my work. Perhaps it is consuming your dreams instead of helping send them forth, since your mind falls so short of the cosmos. Your limits are painfully clear from your tale of the regurgitated island. Could you imagine nothing more alien than a giant with the head of an octopus? You might at least have painted it your non-existent colour. Giants were old when the Greeks were young, and your dreams are just as stale. No doubt your acolytes-Augur Dulldeath and Clerk Ashen Sniff and Dullard Wantdie and Stank Kidnap Pong and the rest of your motley entourage10-will counterfeit some admiration of the tale.
I a.s.sume they have been deluded into valuing your patronage, and are so afraid of losing it that they dare offer you nocriticism. I would demonstrate to you how your tale should have been written if it included any matter worthy of my attention. In any case, all my energy is necessary to dealing with my dreams. I doubt that I shall write them down in future. I am unaware of anyone who deserves to learn of them. Let mankind experience them for itself when it has sufficiently evolved to do so.
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