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Fantasy Fan, v. 2, issue 1, whole no. 13, September 1934
Page 5
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September, 1934, THE FANTASY FAN 5 crystalline essence of artistic fear which belongs tot he domain of poetry. In describing certain details of incantations, Lytton was greatly indebted to his amusingly serious occult studies, in the course of which he came in touch with that odd French scholar and cabalist Alphonse Louis Constant ("Eliphas Levi") who claimed to possess the secrets of ancient magic, and to have evoked the spectre of the old Grecian wizard Appollonius of Tyana, who lived in Nero's time. The romantic, semi-Gothic, quasi-moral tradition here represented was carried far down the nineteenth century by such authors as Joseph Sheridan LeFanu, Thomas Preskett with his famous "Varney, the Vampyre" (1847), Wilkie Collins, the late Sir H. Rider Haggard, (whose "She" is remarkably good) Sir A. Conan Doyle, H. G. Wells, and Robert Louis Stevenson--the latter of whom despite an atrocious tendency toward jaunty mannerisms, created permanent classics in "Markheim," "The Body Snatcher," and "Dr. Jekyl and Mr. Hyde." Indeed, we may say that this school still survives; for to it clearly below such of our contemporary horror tales as specialise in events rather than atmospheric details, address the intellect rather than the impressionistic imagination, cultivate a luminous glamour rather than a malign tensity or psychological verisimilitude, and take a definite stand in sympathy with mankind and its welfare. It has its undeniable stregth, and because of its "human element" commands a wider audience than does the sheer artistic nightmare. If not quite so potent as the latter, it is because a diluted product can never achieve the intensity of a concentrated essence. Quite alone both as a novel and as a piece of terror-literature stands the famous "Wuthering Heights" (1847) by Emily Bronte, wiih its mad vista of bleak, windswept Yorkshire moors and the violent, distorted lives they foster. Though primarily a tale of life, and of human passions in agony and conflict, its epically cosmic setting affords room for horror of the most spiritual sort. Heathcliff, the modified Byronic villain-hero, is a strange dark waif found in the streets as a small child and speaking only a strange gibberish till adopted by the family he ultimately ruins. That he is in truth a diabolic spirit rather than a human being is more than once suggested, and the unreal is further approached in the experience of the visitor who encounters a plaintive child-ghost at a bough-brushed upper window. Between Heathcliff and Catherine Earnshaw is a tie deeper and more terrible than human love. After her death he twice desturbs her grave, and is haunted by an impalpable presence which can be nothing less than her spirit. The spirit enters his life more and more, and at last he becomes confident of some imminent mystical reunion. He says he feels a strange change approaching, and ceases to take nourishment. At night he either walks abroad or opens the casement by his bed. When he dies the casement is still swinging open to the pouring rain, and a queer smile pervades the stiffened face. They bury him in a grave beside the mound (continued on page 12)
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September, 1934, THE FANTASY FAN 5 crystalline essence of artistic fear which belongs tot he domain of poetry. In describing certain details of incantations, Lytton was greatly indebted to his amusingly serious occult studies, in the course of which he came in touch with that odd French scholar and cabalist Alphonse Louis Constant ("Eliphas Levi") who claimed to possess the secrets of ancient magic, and to have evoked the spectre of the old Grecian wizard Appollonius of Tyana, who lived in Nero's time. The romantic, semi-Gothic, quasi-moral tradition here represented was carried far down the nineteenth century by such authors as Joseph Sheridan LeFanu, Thomas Preskett with his famous "Varney, the Vampyre" (1847), Wilkie Collins, the late Sir H. Rider Haggard, (whose "She" is remarkably good) Sir A. Conan Doyle, H. G. Wells, and Robert Louis Stevenson--the latter of whom despite an atrocious tendency toward jaunty mannerisms, created permanent classics in "Markheim," "The Body Snatcher," and "Dr. Jekyl and Mr. Hyde." Indeed, we may say that this school still survives; for to it clearly below such of our contemporary horror tales as specialise in events rather than atmospheric details, address the intellect rather than the impressionistic imagination, cultivate a luminous glamour rather than a malign tensity or psychological verisimilitude, and take a definite stand in sympathy with mankind and its welfare. It has its undeniable stregth, and because of its "human element" commands a wider audience than does the sheer artistic nightmare. If not quite so potent as the latter, it is because a diluted product can never achieve the intensity of a concentrated essence. Quite alone both as a novel and as a piece of terror-literature stands the famous "Wuthering Heights" (1847) by Emily Bronte, wiih its mad vista of bleak, windswept Yorkshire moors and the violent, distorted lives they foster. Though primarily a tale of life, and of human passions in agony and conflict, its epically cosmic setting affords room for horror of the most spiritual sort. Heathcliff, the modified Byronic villain-hero, is a strange dark waif found in the streets as a small child and speaking only a strange gibberish till adopted by the family he ultimately ruins. That he is in truth a diabolic spirit rather than a human being is more than once suggested, and the unreal is further approached in the experience of the visitor who encounters a plaintive child-ghost at a bough-brushed upper window. Between Heathcliff and Catherine Earnshaw is a tie deeper and more terrible than human love. After her death he twice desturbs her grave, and is haunted by an impalpable presence which can be nothing less than her spirit. The spirit enters his life more and more, and at last he becomes confident of some imminent mystical reunion. He says he feels a strange change approaching, and ceases to take nourishment. At night he either walks abroad or opens the casement by his bed. When he dies the casement is still swinging open to the pouring rain, and a queer smile pervades the stiffened face. They bury him in a grave beside the mound (continued on page 12)
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