000-0696
000-0696
FROM H. P. Lovecraft
TO Robert E. Howard
2-Apr-1934

Abstract

Sorry to hear of Howard's car accident (and on a similar pole in Providence, sickness at the sight of blood, and the bicycle accident that made his nose crooked); on cats (rattler-killing and those at R. H. Barlow's home in Florida); on the arrest of Eugene B. Kuntz; Lovecraft reading and writing outdoors, discussing his New Years trip to New York where he met Frank Belknap Long, Howard and Donald Wandrei, T. Everett Harré, Desmond Hall of Astounding Stories, and A. Merritt of "The Moon Pool" fame; planning to visit R. H. Barlow in Florida (where Lovecraft may meet Edmond Hamilton and Jack Williamson); E. Hoffmann Price moved to Oklahoma; praise for Howard's "Shadows in the Moonlight" (the highlight of that issue of Weird Tales with "Black Thirst", Clark Ashton Smith's story and drawing notwithstanding, with mention of Smith's "The Charnel God"); a return to their argument, addressing their mutual misunderstandings (particularly values and "superiority"), on ethics (with Oscar Wilde as an example); Lovecraft breaks from this line of thought do to a lovely sunset, and returns to discuss freedom, liberty, and politics, seguing to the frontier versus urban life, shifting back to values and then barbarianism (quoting Dean Milman in his preface to Gibbon's The Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire), Lovecraft admitting he may be in error, on pleasure and satisfaction, on a biological basis for his logic (citing Ernst Haeckel) by comparing barbarianism to immaturity, on Howard's talk of fence-feuds in Texas, seguing into local laws and violence (and freedom of speech and police response to violence); on Germany (mentioning Oswald Spengler's Hour of Decision and the Nazis); returning to barbarism versus civilization, this time comparing civilized peasants or yeomen to barbarian serfs and slaves (with historical references, such as Regner Lodbrog of "Pugnavimus Ensibus"); Lovecraft picked up a copy of Arthur Weigall's Wanderings in Roman Britain; on freedom and the need for economic regulation (and Nazi and Italian fascism versus Russian communism, the New Deal and government socialism) and on the Constitution of the United States; on the late Harry Houdini and Howard's acrobat-cousin; on the radio programmes (with Lovecraft poking a little fun at Howard and mentioning Kappa Alpha Tau, Mahatma Gandhi, and George Russell among others); E. Hoffmann Price to visit Howard in Texas; Lovecraft setting off for a trip down south to visit R. H. Barlow by way of Charleston, SC and Richmond, VA; the debate on the original title of Nameless Cults in German between August Derleth, Farnsworth Wright, and E. Hoffmann Price, with a reference to Lovecraft's ghostwritten tale "The Man of Stone."

Cited By

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Included In

Preceded By 033-0257 Letters of H. P. Lovecraft and Robert E. Howard Followed By 032-0101
Preceded By 033-0257 A Means to Freedom Followed By 032-0101
Preceded By 000-0695 Selected Letters of H. P. Lovecraft Followed By 000-0697
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