It was from the artists and poets that the pertinent answers came,
and I know that panic would have broken loose had they been able to
compare notes. As it was, lacking their original letters, I half
suspected the compiler of having asked leading questions, or of having
edited the correspondence in corroboration of what he had latently
resolved to see. That is why I continued to feel that Wilcox, somehow
cognizant of the old data which my uncle had possessed, had been
imposing on the veteran scientist. These responses from esthetes told
a disturbing tale. From February 28th to April 2nd a large proportion
of them had dreamed very bizarre things, the intensity of the dreams
being immeasurably the stronger during the period of the sculptor's
delirium. Over a fourth of those who reported anything, reported
scenes and half-sounds not unlike those which Wilcox had described;
and some of the dreamers confessed acute fear of the gigantic nameless
thing visible toward the last. One case, which the note describes with
emphasis, was very sad. The subject, a widely known architect with
leanings toward theosophy and occultism, went violently insane on
the date of young Wilcox's seizure, and expired several months later
after incessant screamings to be saved from some escaped denizen of
hell. Had my uncle referred to these cases by name instead of merely
by number, I should have attempted some corroboration and personal
investigation; but as it was, I succeeded in tracing down only a
few. All of these, however, bore out the notes in full. I have often
wondered if all the objects of the professor's questioning felt as
puzzled as did this fraction. It is well that no explanation shall ever
reach them.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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