Quoted By:
On Lovecraft's worldview in his teens
>"By my thirteenth birthday I was thoroughly impressed with man's impermanence and insignificance, and by my seventeenth, about which time I did some particularly detailed writing on the subject, I had formed in all essential particulars my present pessimistic cosmic views. The futility of all existence began to impress and oppress me; and my references to human progress, formerly hopeful, began to decline in enthusiasm. [...] I looked on man as if from another planet. He was merely an interesting species presented for study and classification."
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On young Lovecraft's existential burden
>"Many times in my youth I was so exhausted by the sheer burden of consciousness & mental & physical activity that I had to drop out of school for a greater or lesser period & take a complete rest free from all responsibilities; [...] In those days I could hardly bear to see or speak to anyone, & liked to shut out the world by pulling down dark shades & using artificial light."
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On young Lovecraft attempting to educate a young Swedish boy
>"I came a cross a superficially bright Swedish boy in the Public Library - he worked in the "stack" where the books are kept - and invited him to the house to broaden his mentality (I was fifteen and he was about the same, though he was smaller and seemed younger). I thought I had uncovered a mute inglorious Milton [...] and despite maternal protest entertained him frequently in my library. I believed in equality then, and reproved him when he called my mother "Ma'am" - I said that a future scientist should not talk like a servant! But ere long he uncovered qualities which did not appeal to me, and I was forced to abandon him to his plebeian fate."
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