The most merciful thing in the world
Perhaps the most famous of H.P. Lovecraft’s chilling SciFi stories, The Call of Cthulhu (full text here) hooks you from the first line:
“The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far. The sciences, each straining in its own direction, have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the light into the peace and safety of a new dark age.”
One Response to “The most merciful thing in the world”
2009/12/9 Patrick
I don’t think I’ve read any Lovecraft at all. I went on a Hemingway binge over the summer and that was great. I think I’ll add ole H.P. to my list.
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