Science Fiction by Gaslight: A History and Anthology of Science Fiction in the Popular Magazines, 1891-1911

by Sam Moskowitz (ed. )

  “But you will have trouble in killing it, unless you hack it to pieces, and that won’t do. Oh, if I only had the vitality of that animal. There is a monster whose vitality is so splendid that the removal of its brain does not disturb it. I should feel very happy if someone would remove my body. If I only had some of that beast’s useless strength.”

  “In your case, the possession of a too active brain has injured the body,” said I. “Too much brain exercise and too little bodily exercise are the causes of your trouble. It would be a pleasant thing if you had the robust health of the elasmosaurus, but what a wonderful thing it would be if that mighty engine had your intelligence.”

  I turned away to examine the reptile’s wounds, for I had brought my surgical instruments with me, and intended to dress them. I was interrupted by a burst of groans from Framingham and turning, beheld him rolling on the sand in an agony. I hastened to him, but before I could reach him, he seized my case of instruments, and taking the largest and sharpest knife, cut his throat from ear to ear.

  “Framingham, Framingham,” I shouted and, to my astonishment, he looked at me intelligently. I recalled the case of the French doctor who, for some minutes after being guillotined, answered his friends by winking.

  “If you hear me, wink,” I cried. The right eye closed and opened with a snap. Ah, here the body was dead and the brain lived. I glanced at the elasmosaurus. Its mouth, half closed over its gleaming teeth, seemed to smile an invitation. The intelligence of the man and the strength of the beasts. The living body and the living brain. The curious resemblance of the reptile’s brain-pan to that of a man flashed across my mind.

  “Are you still alive, Framingham?”

  The right eye winked. I seized my machete, for there was no time for delicate instruments. I might destroy all by haste and roughness, I was sure to destroy all by delay. I opened the skull and disclosed the brain. I had not injured it, and breaking the wound of the elasmosaurus’s head, placed the brain within, I dressed the wound and, hurrying to the house, brought all my store of stimulants and administered them.

  For years the medical fraternity has been predicting that brain-grafting will some time be successfully accomplished. Why has it never been successfully accomplished? Because it has not been tried. Obviously, a brain from a dead body cannot be used and what living man would submit to the horrible process of having his head opened, and portions of his brain taken for the use of others?

  The brains of men are frequently examined when injured and parts of the brain removed, but parts of the brains of other men have never been substituted for the parts removed. No injured man has even been found who would give any portion of his brain for the use of another. Until criminals under sentence of death are handed over to science for experimentation, we shall not know what can be done in the way of brain-grafting. But the public opinion would never allow it.

  Conditions are favorable for a fair and thorough trial of my experiment. The weather is cool and even, and the wound in the head of the elasmosaurus has every chance for healing. The animal possesses a vitality superior to any of our later-day animals, and if any organism can successfully become the host of a foreign brain, nourishing and cherishing it, the elasmosaurus with its abundant vital forces can do it. It may be that a new era in the history of the world will begin here.

  May 6th, Noon.

  I think I will allow my experiment a little more time.

  May 7th, Noon.

  It cannot be imagination. I am sure that as I looked into the elasmosaurus’s eyes this morning there was expression in them. Dim, it is true, a sort of mistiness that floats over them like the reflection of passing clouds.

  May 8th, Noon.

  I am more sure than yesterday that there is expression in the eyes, a look of troubled fear, such as is seen in the eyes of those who dream nightmares with unclosed lids.

  May 11th, Evening.

  I have been ill, and have not seen the elasmosaurus for three days, but I shall be better able to judge the progress of the experiment by remaining away a period of some duration.

  May 12th, Noon.

  I am overcome with awe as I realise the success that has so far crowned my experiment. As I approached the elasmosaurus this morning, I noticed a faint disturbance in the water near its flippers. I cautiously investigated, expecting to discover some fishes nibbling at the helpless monster, and saw that the commotion was not due to fishes, but to the flippers themselves, which were feebly moving.

  “Framingham, Framingham,” I bawled at the top of my voice. The vast bulk stirred a little, a very little, but enough to notice. Is the brain, or Framingham, it would perhaps be better to say, asleep, or has he failed to establish connection with the body? Undoubtedly he has not yet established connection with the body, and this of itself would be equivalent to sleep, to unconsciousness. As a man born with none of the senses would be unconscious of himself, so Framingham, just beginning to establish connections with his new body, is only dimly conscious of himself and sleeps. I fed him, or it—which is the proper designation will be decided in a few days—with the usual allowance.

  May 17th, Evening.

  I have been ill for the past three days, and have not been out of doors until this morning. The elasmosaurus was still motionless when I arrived at the cove this morning. Dead, I thought; but I soon detected signs of breathing, and I began to prepare some mussels for it, and was intent upon my task, when I heard a slight, gasping sound, and looked up. A feeling of terror seized me. It was as if in response to some doubting incantations there had appeared the half-desired, yet wholly-feared and unexpected apparition of a fiend. I shrieked, I screamed, and the amphitheatre of rocks echoed and re-echoed my cries, and all the time the head of the elasmosaurus raised aloft to the full height of its neck, swayed about unsteadily, and its mouth silently struggled and twisted, as if in an attempt to form words, while its eyes looked at me now with wild fear and now with piteous intreaty.

  “Framingham,” I said.

  The monster’s mouth closed instantly, and it looked at me attentively, pathetically so, as a dog might look.

  “Do you understand me?”

  The mouth began struggling again, and little gasps and moans issued forth. “If you understand me, lay your head on the rock.”

  Down came the head. He understood me. My experiment was a success. I sat for a moment in silence, meditating upon the wonderful affair, striving to realise that I was awake and sane, and then began in a calm manner to relate to my friend what had taken place since his attempted suicide.

  “You are at present something in the condition of a partial paralytic, I should judge,” said I, as I concluded my account. “Your mind has not yet learned to command your new body. I see you can move your head and neck, though with difficulty. Move your body if you can. Ah, you cannot, as I thought. But it will all come in time. Whether you will ever be able to talk or not, I cannot say, but I think so, however. And now if you cannot, we will arrange some means of communication. Anyhow, you are rid of your human body and possessed of the powerful vital apparatus you so much envied its former owner. When you gain control of yourself, I wish you to find the communication between this lake and the under-world, and conduct some explorations. Just think of the additions to geological knowledge you can make. I will write an account of your discovery, and the names of Framingham and McLennegan will be among those of the greatest geologists.”

  I waved my hands in my enthusiasm, and the great eyes of my friend glowed with a kindred fire.

  June 2nd, Night.

  The process by which Framingham has passed from his first powerlessness to his present ability to speak, and command the use of his corporeal frame, has been so gradual that there has been nothing to note down from day to day. He seems to have all the command over his vast bulk that its former owner had, and in addition speaks and sings. He is singing now. The north wind has risen with the fall of night, and out there in the darkness I hear the mighty organ pipetone
s of his tremendouus, magnificent voice, chanting the solemn notes of the Gregorian, the full-throated Latin words mingling with the roaring of the wind in a wild and weird harmony.

  To-day he attempted to find the connection between the lake and the interior of the earth, but the great well that sinks down in the centre of the lake is choked with rocks and he has discovered nothing. He is tormented by the fear that I will leave him, and that he will perish of loneliness. But I shall not leave him. I feel too much pity for the loneliness he would endure, and besides, I wish to be on the spot should another of those mysterious convulsions open the connection between the lake and the lower world.

  He is beset with the idea that should other men discover him, he may be captured and exhibited in a circus or museum, and declares that he will fight for his liberty even to the extent of taking the lives of those attempting to capture him. As a wild animal, he is the property of whomsoever captures him, though perhaps I can set up title to him on the ground of having tamed him.

  July 6th.

  One of Framingham’s fears has been realised. I was at the pass leading into the basin, watching the clouds grow heavy and pendulous with their load of rain, when I saw a butterfly net appear over a knoll in the pass, followed by its bearer, a small man, unmistakably a scientist, but I did not note him well, for as he looked down into the valley, suddenly there burst forth with all the power and volume of a steam calliope, the tremendous voice of Framingham, singing a Greek song of Anacreon to the tune of “Where did you get that hat?” and the singer appeared in a little cove, the black column of his great neck raised aloft, his jagged jaws wide open.

  That poor little scientist. He stood transfixed, his butterfly net dropped from his hand, and as Framingham ceased his singing, curvetted and leaped from the water and came down with a splash that set the whole cove swashing, and laughed a guffaw that echoed among the cliffs like the laughing of a dozen demons, he turned and sped through the pass at all speed.

  I skip all entries for nearly a year. They are unimportant.

  June 30th, 1897.

  A change is certainly coming over my friend. I began to see it some time ago, but refused to believe it and set it down to imagination. A catastrophe threatens, the absorption of the human intellect by the brute body. There are precedents for believing it possible. The human body has more influence over the mind than the mind has over the body. The invalid, delicate Framingham with refined mind, is no more. In his stead is a roistering monster, whose boisterous and commonplace conversation betrays a constantly growing coarseness of mind.

  No longer is he interested in my scientific investigations, but pronounces them all bosh. No longer is his conversation such as an educated man can enjoy, but slangy and diffuse iterations concerning the trivial happenings of our uneventful life. Where will it end? In the absorption of the human mind by the brute body? In the final triumph of matter over mind and the degradation of the most mundane force and the extinction of the celestial spark? Then, indeed, will Edward Framingham be dead, and over the grave of his human body can I fittingly erect a headstone, and then will my vigil in this valley be over.

  Fort D. A. Russell, Wyoming,

  April 15 th, 1899.

  Prof. William G. Breyfogle.

  Dear Sir—The inclosed intact manuscript and the fragments which accompany it, came into my possession in the manner I am about to relate and I inclose them to you, for whom they were intended by their late author. Two weeks ago, I was dispatched into the mountains after some Indians who had left their reservation, having under my command a company of infantry and two squads of cavalrymen with mountain howitzers. On the seventh day of our pursuit, which led us into a wild and unknown part of the mountains, we were startled at hearing from somewhere in front of us a succession of bellowings of a very unusual nature, mingled with the cries of a human being apparently in the last extremity, and rushing over a rise before us, we looked down upon a lake and saw a colossal, indescribable thing engaged in rending the body of a man.

  Observing us, it stretched its jaws and laughed, and in saying this, I wish to be taken literally. Part of my command cried out that it was the devil, and turned and ran. But I rallied them, and thoroughly enraged at what we had witnessed, we marched down to the shore, and I ordered the howitzers to be trained upon the murderous creature. While we were doing this, the thing kept up a constant blabbing that bore a distinct resemblance to human speech, sounding very much like the jabbering of an imbecile, or a drunken man trying to talk. I gave the command to fire and to fire again, and the beast tore out into the lake in its death-agony, and sank.

  With the remains of Dr. McLennegan, I found the foregoing manuscript intact, and the torn fragments of the diary from which it was compiled, together with other papers on scientific subjects, all of which I forward. I think some attempts should be made to secure the body of the elasmosaurus. It would be a priceless addition to any museum.

  Arthur W. Fairchild

  Captain U.S.A.

  The Blue Book Magazine

  November, 1907

  THE VOICE IN THE NIGHT

  by William Hope Hodgson

  IT MAY be said that a spark of interest in the works of a nearly forgotten British writer of science fiction and horror. William Hope Hodgson, was revived when The Voice in the Night was anthologized in They Walk Again, “an anthology of ghost stories,” edited by Colin de la Mare, son of Walter de la Mare (E. P. Dutton, 1931). The appearance of that story in company with such greats of the supernatural as Algernon Blackwood, Lord Dunsany, Ambrose Bierce, Edith Wharton, E. F. Benson, Oliver Onions, M. R. James, Walter de la Mare, J. Sheridan Ie Fanu, and W. W. Jacobs centered special attention upon it and led at least one reader to investigate the background of the author.

  The Voice in the Night was certainly not a ghost story. Actually, it was science fiction. While its ultimate effect evoked horror, it was accomplished through a most sympathetic handling of the characters and their situation. The late Herman C. Koenig, an executive of an electrical testing laboratory in New York City and a collector and reader of science fiction, was intrigued by this story and began a campaign through the amateur press that eventually resulted in the republication of William Hope Hodgson’s four unique novels of science fiction and the supernatural under the title of The House on the Borderland and other Novels (Arkham House, 1946). The same publisher subsequently issued Carnacki, the Ghost Finder (1947), a collection of short stories concerning a detective who solves cases involving psychic phenomenon; and Deep Waters (1967), the cream of his shorter works of the fantastic.

  During his lifetime, William Hope Hodgson was a pulpster. He contributed some of his finest short stories, including The Voice in the Night to America’s The Blue Book Magazine (November 1907); his fiction appeared in Adventure, Short Stories, All Around, People’s Favorite Magazine, and after his death, in Sea Stories and Argosy-all-story magazine. In England, he could be found in the equivalent of the American pulps, among them The Harmsworth Red Magazine and Grand Magazine.

  There is no record that his novels were first serialized in magazines, but two of them, The Boats of the “Glen Carrig’“ (Chapman & Hall, 1907) and The House on the Borderland (Chapman & Hall, 1908), are such obvious cliff-hangers that it would not be surprising if they had been. He might quite understandably have been dismissed as a popular adventure story writer, with the emphasis in his work on tales of the sea, but this was not the case; his books received remarkable reviews from distinguished publications.

  In speaking of his short fantastic stories of the sea, which include The Voice in the Night, the reviewer for The Bookman (England) said in November 1914: “They grip you, as Poe’s grim stories do, by their subtle artistry and sheer imaginative power. . . . We have read few stories equal. . .

  Within the limited range of mounting and sustaining a peak of unrequited horror, William Hope Hodgson achieved heights of genius. In reading his short stories as a group, one might easily conclude that Ho
dgson’s imagination was circumscribed to dealing with variations on a theme, particularly involving horror at sea, and that his originality was confined to experimenting with new techniques and formulae that project such horrors. However, this impression is swept away by examining his novels, The House on the Borderland and The Nightland, where his imaginative reaches seem not only boundless but extraordinarily original, plumbing the furthermost reaches of space and time.

  Of the dozens of authors who wrote science fiction by gaslight, Hodgson is one of the very few a portion of whose work will endure.

  IT WAS a dark, starless night. We were becalmed in the Northern Pacific. Our exact position I do not know; for the sun had been hidden during the course of a weary, breathless week, by a thin haze which had seemed to float above us, about the height of our mastheads, at whiles descending and shrouding the surrounding sea.

  With there being no wind, we had steadied the tiller, and I was the only man on deck. The crew, consisting of two men and a boy, were sleeping forrard in their den; while Will—my friend, and the master of our little craft—was aft in his bunk on the port side of the little cabin.

  Suddenly, from out of the surrounding darkness, there came a hail:

  “Schooner, ahoy!”

  The cry was so unexpected that I gave no immediate answer, because of my surprise.

  It came again—a voice curiously throaty and inhuman, calling from somewhere upon the dark sea away on our port broadside:

  “Schooner, ahoy!”

  “Hullo!” I sung out, having gathered my wits somewhat. “What are you? What do you want?”

  “You need not be afraid,” answered the queer voice, having probably noticed some trace of confusion in my tone. “I am only an old—man.”