Even yet I do not know why the ocean holds such a fascination for me. But then, perhaps none of us can solve those things — they exist in defiance of all explanation. There are men, and wise men, who do not like the sea and its lapping surf on yellow shores; and they think us strange who love the mystery of the ancient and unending deep. Yet for me there is a haunting and inscrutable glamour in all the ocean’s moods. It is in the melancholy silver foam beneath the moon’s waxen corpse; it hovers over the silent and eternal waves that beat on naked shores; it is there when all is lifeless save for unknown shapes that glide through sombre depths. And when I behold the awesome billows surging in endless strength, there comes upon me an ecstasy akin to fear; so that I must abase myself before this mightiness, that I may not hate the clotted waters and their overwhelming beauty.
Vast and lonely is the ocean, and even as all things came from it, so shall they return thereto. In the shrouded depths of time none shall reign upon the earth, nor shall any motion be, save in the eternal waters. And these shall beat on dark shores in thunderous foam, though none shall remain in that dying world to watch the cold light of the enfeebled moon playing on the swirling tides and coarse-grained sand. On the deep’s margin shall rest only a stagnant foam, gathering about the shells and bones of perished shapes that dwelt within the waters. Silent, flabby things will toss and roll along empty shores, their sluggish life extinct. Then all shall be dark, for at last even the white moon on the distant waves shall wink out. Nothing shall be left, neither above nor below the sombre waters. And until that last millennium, as after it, the sea will thunder and toss throughout the dismal night.
LIST OF SHORT STORIES IN CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER
The Little Glass Bottle
The Secret Cave
The Mystery of the Grave-Yard
The Mysterious Ship
The Beast in the Cave
The Alchemist
The Tomb
Dagon
A Reminiscence of Dr. Samuel Johnson
Sweet Ermengarde
Polaris
The Green Meadow
Beyond the Wall of Sleep
Memory
Old Bugs
The Transition of Juan Romero
The White Ship
The Doom That Came to Sarnath
The Statement of Randolph Carter
The Terrible Old Man
The Tree
The Cats of Ulthar
The Temple
Facts Concerning the Late Arthur Jermyn and His Family
The Street
Poetry and the Gods
Celephaïs
From Beyond
Nyarlathotep
The Picture in the House
The Crawling Chaos
Ex Oblivione
The Nameless City
The Quest of Iranon
The Moon-Bog
The Outsider
The Other Gods
The Music of Erich Zann
Herbert West — Reanimator
Hypnos
What the Moon Brings
Azathoth
The Horror at Martin’s Beach
The Hound
The Lurking Fear
The Rats in the Walls
The Unnamable
The Festival
Under the Pyramids
The Shunned House
The Horror at Red Hook
He
In the Vault
The Descendant
Cool Air
The Call of Cthulhu
Two Black Bottles
Pickman’s Model
The Silver Key
The Strange High House in the Mist
The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath
The Case of Charles Dexter Ward
The Colour Out of Space
The Very Old Folk
The Thing in the Moonlight
The Last Test
The History of the Necronomicon
The Curse of Yig
Ibid
The Dunwich Horror
The Electric Executioner
The Mound
Medusa’s Coil
The Whisperer in Darkness
At the Mountains of Madness
The Shadow Over Innsmouth (Draft)
The Shadow Over Innsmouth
The Trap
The Dreams in the Witch House
The Man of Stone
The Horror in the Museum
Through the Gates of the Silver Key
Winged Death
Out of the Aeons
The Thing on the Doorstep
The Evil Clergyman
The Horror in the Burying-Ground
The Hoard of the Wizard-Beast
The Slaying of the Monster
The Book
The Tree on the Hill
The Battle that Ended the Century
The Shadow out of Time
Till A’ the Seas”
Collapsing Cosmoses
The Challenge from Beyond
The Disinterment
The Diary of Alonzo Typer
The Haunter of the Dark
In the Walls of Eryx
The Night Ocean
LIST OF SHORT STORIES IN ALPHABETICAL ORDER
A Reminiscence of Dr. Samuel Johnson
At the Mountains of Madness
Azathoth
Beyond the Wall of Sleep
Celephaïs
Collapsing Cosmoses
Cool Air
Dagon
Ex Oblivione
Facts Concerning the Late Arthur Jermyn and His Family
From Beyond
He
Herbert West — Reanimator
Hypnos
Ibid
In the Vault
In the Walls of Eryx
Medusa’s Coil
Memory
Nyarlathotep
Old Bugs
Out of the Aeons
Pickman’s Model
Poetry and the Gods
Polaris
Sweet Ermengarde
The Alchemist
The Battle that Ended the Century
The Beast in the Cave
The Book
The Call of Cthulhu
The Case of Charles Dexter Ward
The Cats of Ulthar
The Challenge from Beyond