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Acolyte, v. 3, issue 4, whole no. 12, Fall 1945
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accompanied by bodiless voices; the half-seen glimpses of a dark form following the desecrator of the sacred crown in "A Warning to the Curious"; and the sly conversation of the two Druid-worshippers in "An Evening's Entertainment" about their nocturnal visits to the hillside. All of these incidents gain their principal emotional weight from what is not said outright but only implied or intimated, or what may be assumed by the reader if he so wishes. Under the circumstances he knows full well that more than the literal meaning is intended in these passages, and the uncertainty of the exact nature of what is meant increases his uneasiness, in accordance with the familiar psychological principle that unknown dangers are more fearsome than known ones. As Lovecraft says, "Dr. James has, it is clear, an intelligent and scientific knowledge of human nerves and feelings; and knows just how to apportion statement, imagery, and subtle suggestion in order to secure the best results with his readers. He is an artist in incident and arrangement rather than in atmosphere, and reaches the emotions more often through the intellect than directly." (16) Notable among the instruments of suggestion with which James plays upon the sensitive nerves of his readers are the archaically styled quotations and mottoes with which, at or near the ends of his stories, he frequently intimates something of the reasons for what has occured or succinctly rounds off the denouement. Such (among many) are Canon Alberic's last words on the back of his demon-picture, the intriguing not by Count Magnus about Chorazin, Abbot Thomas' "Depositum Custodi" ("Keep that which is committed to thee"), and the poem from 1699 at the end of "The Stalls of Barchester Cathedral". The latter is worth quoting as an example: "When I grew in the Wood I was water'd wth Blood Now in the Church I stand Who that touches me with his Hand If a Bloody hand he bear I councell him to be ware Lest he be fecht away Whether by night or day, But chiefly when the wind blows high In a night of February." It is the very roughness and erratic mistakes in the meter and rhyme of this crabbed bit of doggeral that give it its creepy effectiveness,both by accentuating the antiquity and strangeness of the message and by giving the impression of blind, automatic forces seeking to express themselves through the unaccustomed and imperfect medium of human speech. The mention of the February wind, in which the lonely archdeacon met his end on the dark staircase, is the final touch that sends a chill up one's spine. Another impressive Jamesian technique in which suggestion plays a large part is that of leading up to the climactic introduction of the demon in a disarmingly casual and mundane way, so that there is no atmospheric foreshadowing to prepare one for the shock, and the horror appears almost before one realises it. Here we find the stories in which the creature is touched before it is seen, such as "The Diary of Mr. Poynter": Then he dozed and then he woke, and bethought himself that his brown spaniel, which ordinarily slept in his room, had not come upstairs with him. Then he thought he was mistaken: for happening to move his hand which hung down over -- 19 --
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accompanied by bodiless voices; the half-seen glimpses of a dark form following the desecrator of the sacred crown in "A Warning to the Curious"; and the sly conversation of the two Druid-worshippers in "An Evening's Entertainment" about their nocturnal visits to the hillside. All of these incidents gain their principal emotional weight from what is not said outright but only implied or intimated, or what may be assumed by the reader if he so wishes. Under the circumstances he knows full well that more than the literal meaning is intended in these passages, and the uncertainty of the exact nature of what is meant increases his uneasiness, in accordance with the familiar psychological principle that unknown dangers are more fearsome than known ones. As Lovecraft says, "Dr. James has, it is clear, an intelligent and scientific knowledge of human nerves and feelings; and knows just how to apportion statement, imagery, and subtle suggestion in order to secure the best results with his readers. He is an artist in incident and arrangement rather than in atmosphere, and reaches the emotions more often through the intellect than directly." (16) Notable among the instruments of suggestion with which James plays upon the sensitive nerves of his readers are the archaically styled quotations and mottoes with which, at or near the ends of his stories, he frequently intimates something of the reasons for what has occured or succinctly rounds off the denouement. Such (among many) are Canon Alberic's last words on the back of his demon-picture, the intriguing not by Count Magnus about Chorazin, Abbot Thomas' "Depositum Custodi" ("Keep that which is committed to thee"), and the poem from 1699 at the end of "The Stalls of Barchester Cathedral". The latter is worth quoting as an example: "When I grew in the Wood I was water'd wth Blood Now in the Church I stand Who that touches me with his Hand If a Bloody hand he bear I councell him to be ware Lest he be fecht away Whether by night or day, But chiefly when the wind blows high In a night of February." It is the very roughness and erratic mistakes in the meter and rhyme of this crabbed bit of doggeral that give it its creepy effectiveness,both by accentuating the antiquity and strangeness of the message and by giving the impression of blind, automatic forces seeking to express themselves through the unaccustomed and imperfect medium of human speech. The mention of the February wind, in which the lonely archdeacon met his end on the dark staircase, is the final touch that sends a chill up one's spine. Another impressive Jamesian technique in which suggestion plays a large part is that of leading up to the climactic introduction of the demon in a disarmingly casual and mundane way, so that there is no atmospheric foreshadowing to prepare one for the shock, and the horror appears almost before one realises it. Here we find the stories in which the creature is touched before it is seen, such as "The Diary of Mr. Poynter": Then he dozed and then he woke, and bethought himself that his brown spaniel, which ordinarily slept in his room, had not come upstairs with him. Then he thought he was mistaken: for happening to move his hand which hung down over -- 19 --
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