Interlude

I started reading this as I'm doing some research for a new story. I realized it sounded vaguely liek the preliminary statement of some character in a Lovecraft story.



(I hope you can see the clip. Google allows a "clip and embed" for some books they have scanned.)

I really don't think taht's a coincidence. Remember, HPL wanted to be a scientist, and from an early age he absorbed Scientific American which was filled with dispatches just such as this one. While we might use the term scientist, it wasn't all that in vogue then, and Lovecraft was just emerging from the Victorian era. People had careers as "naturalists" which encompases all the sciences. Specializaton was happening, yes, but not to the extent it would after WWII - long past HPL's era.

When Lovecraft got into story vogue he often resorted to scientific structural language.