Nyarlathotep: Paragraph 2: Part 3

"To a season of political and social upheaval was added a strange and brooding apprehension of hideous and physical danger ..."

Here we have a concrete historical situation of Rhode Island politics. Just before December 14, 1920 (when he wrote Kleiner) Samuel Loveman was hot on his mind. The fact that Lovecraft frequently dreamed of this man he had not yet met lends some to suspect Lovecraft of homoeroticism. This is probably preposterous, but he was definitely under the spell of Loveman.

The 19th ammendment had passed in 1920. Despite the independence of the Phillips women, Lovecraft would have been appalled. The era began slowly by democrats overthrowing the Republican status quo. We read, In addition, By 1920 the senate -- the possessor of state appointive and budgetary power -- was more malapportioned than ever. For example, West Greenwich, population 367, had the same voice as Providence, population 237.595; the twenty smallest towns, with an aggregate population of 41,660, outvoted Providence twenty to one, although the capital city had over 39 percent of Rhode Island's total population. The senate, said Democratic Congressman George F. O'Shaunessy (1911-1919), was "a strong power exercised by the abandoned farms of Rhode Island."

Lovecraft was feeling very isolated from his roots.

"strange and brooding apprehension of hideous and physical danger..."

Lovecraft again uses adjectivitis to broaden the apocalypticism. {Strange} {Brooding} {Apprehension) {Hideous} and {Physical} all aggregate to send goseflesh. Yet {danger} is the opperative. Lovecraft might have had the pervasive sense of communism on his mind, since 1920 was a strong watershed year.