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The Picture in the House

byH. P. Lovecraft

Written12 December 1920?

Published July 1919 in The National Amateur, Vol. 41, No. 6,p . 246-49.

Searchers after horror haunt strange, far places. For them are the catacombs of

Ptolemais,and the carven mausolea of the nightmare countries. They climb to the

moonlittowers of ruinedRhinecastles, and falter down black cobwebbed steps

beneaththe scattered stones of forgotten cities inAsia. The haunted wood and

thedesolate mountain are their shrines, and they linger around the sinister

monolithson uninhabited islands. But the true epicure in the terrible, to whom

anew thrill of unutterable ghastliness is the chief end and justification of

existence, esteems most of all the ancient, lonely farmhouses of backwoods New

England; for there the dark elements of strength, solitude, grotesqueness and

ignorancecombine to form the perfection of the hideous.

Most horrible of all sights are the little unpainted wooden houses remote from

travelledways, usually squatted upon some damp grassy slope or leaning against

somegigantic outcropping of rock. Two hundred years and more they have leaned

orsquatted there, while the vines have crawled and the trees have swelled and

spread. They are almost hidden now in lawless luxuriances of green and guardian

shroudsof shadow; but the small-paned windows still stare shockingly, as if

blinkingthrough a lethal stupor which wards off madness by dulling the memory

ofunutterable things.

In such houses have dwelt generations of strange people, whose like the world

hasnever seen. Seized with a gloomy and fanatical belief which exiled them from

theirkind, their ancestors sought the wilderness for freedom. There the scions

ofa conquering race indeed flourished free from the restrictions of their

fellows, but cowered in an appalling slavery to the dismal phantasms of their

ownminds. Divorced from the enlightenment of civilization, the strength of

thesePuritans turned into singular channels; and in their isolation, morbid

self-repression, and struggle for life with relentless Nature, there came to

themdark furtive traits from the prehistoric depths of their cold Northern

heritage. By necessity practical and by philosophy stern, these folks were not

beautifulin their sins. Erring as all mortals must, they were forced by their

rigidcode to seek concealment above all else; so that they came to use less and

lesstaste in what they concealed. Only the silent, sleepy, staring houses in

thebackwoods can tell all that has lain hidden since the early days, and they

arenot communicative, being loath to shake off the drowsiness which helps them

forget. Sometimes one feels that it would be merciful to tear down these houses,

forthey must often dream.

It was to a time-battered edifice of this description that I was driven one

afternoonin November, 1896, by a rain of such chilling copiousness that any

shelterwas preferable to exposure. I had been travelling for some time amongst

thepeople of theMiskatonicValleyin quest of certain genealogical data; and

fromthe remote, devious, and problematical nature of my course, had deemed it

convenientto employ a bicycle despite the lateness of the season. Now I found

myselfupon an apparently abandoned road which I had chosen as the shortest cut

toArkham, overtaken by the storm at a point far from any town, and confronted

withno refuge save the antique and repellent wooden building which blinked with

blearedwindows from between two huge leafless elms near the foot of a rocky

hill. Distant though it is from the remnant of a road, this house none the less

impressedme unfavorably the very moment I espied it. Honest, wholesome

structuresdo not stare at travellers so slyly and hauntingly, and in my

genealogicalresearches I had encountered legends of a century before which

biasedme against places of this kind. Yet the force of the elements was such as

toovercome my scruples, and I did not hesitate to wheel my machine up the weedy

riseto the closed door which seemed at once so suggestive and secretive.

I had somehow taken it for granted that the house was abandoned, yet as I

approachedit I was not so sure, for though the walks were indeed overgrown with

weeds, they seemed to retain their nature a little tco well to argue complete

desertion. Therefore instead of trying the dcor I knocked, feeling as I did so a

trepidationI could scarcely explain. As I waited on the rough, mossy rock which

servedas a dcor-step, I glanced at the neighboring windows and the panes of the

transomabove me, and noticed that although old, rattling, and almost opaque

withdirt, they were not broken. The building, then, must still be inhabited,

despiteits isolation and general neglect. However, my rapping evoked no

response, so after repeating the summons I tried the rusty latch and found the

doorunfastened. Inside was a little vestibule with walls from which the plaster

wasfalling, and through the doorway came a faint but peculiarly hateful odor. I

entered, carrying my bicycle, and closed the door behind me. Ahead rose a narrow

staircase, flanked by a small door probably leading to the cellar, while to the

leftand right were closed doors leading to rooms on the ground floor.

Leaning my cycle against the wall I opened the door at the left, and crossed

intoa small low-ceiled chamber but dimly lighted by its two dusty windows and

furnishedin the barest and most primitive possible way. It appeared to be a

kindof sitting-room, for it had a table and several chairs, and an immense

fireplaceabove which ticked an antique clock on a mantel. Books and papers were

veryfew, and in the prevailing gloom I could not readily discern the titles.

What interested me was the uniform air of archaism as displayed in every visible

detail. Most of the houses in this region I had found rich in relics of the

past, but here the antiquity was curiously complete; for in all the room I could

notdiscover a single article of definitely post-revolutionary date. Had the

furnishingsbeen less humble, the place would have been a collector's paradise.

As I surveyed this quaint apartment, I felt an increase in that aversion first

excitedby the bleak exterior of the house. Just what it was that I feared or

loathed, I could by no means define; but something in the whole atmosphere

seemedredolent of unhallowed age, of unpleasant crudeness, and of secrets which

shouldbe forgotten. I felt disinclined to sit down, and wandered about

examiningthe various articles which I had noticed. The first object of my

curiositywas a book of medium size lying upon the table and presenting such an

antediluvianaspect that I marvelled at beholding it outside a museum or

library. It was bound in leather with metal fittings, and was in an excellent

stateof preservation; being altogether an unusual sort of volume to encounter

inan abode so lowly. When I opened it to the title page my wonder grew even

greater, for it proved to be nothing less rare than Pigafetta's account of the

Congoregion, written in Latin from the notes of the sailor Lopex and printed at

Frankfurtin 1598.I had often heard of this work, with its curious

illustrationsby the brothers De Bry, hence for a moment forgot my uneasiness in

mydesire to turn the pages before me. The engravings were indeed interesting,

drawnwholly from imagination and careless descriptions, and represented negroes

withwhite skins and Caucasian features; nor would I soon have closed the book

hadnot an exceedingly trivial circumstance upset my tired nerves and revived my

sensationof disquiet. What annoyed me was merely the persistent way in which

thevolume tended to fall open of itself at Plate XII, which represented in

gruesomedetail a butcher's shop of the cannibal Anziques. I experienced some

shameat my susceptibility to so slight a thing, but the drawing nevertheless

disturbedme, especially in connection with some adjacent passages descriptive

ofAnzique gastronomy.

I had turned to a neighboring shelf and was examining its meagre literary

contents- an eighteenth century Bible, a "Pilgrim's Progress" of like period,

illustratedwith grotesque woodcuts and printed by the almanack-maker Isaiah

Thomas, the rotting bulk of Cotton Mather's "Magnalia Christi Americana," and a

fewother books of evidently equal age - when my attention was aroused by the

unmistakablesound of walking in the room overhead. At first astonished and

startled, considering the lack of response to my recent knocking at the door, I

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