CLARK ASHTON SMITH Genius Loci
The Library of America • Story of the Week Excerpt from American Fantastic Tales: Terror and the Uncanny from Poe to the Pulps (The Library of America, )''0), pages -/( –-0.. © )''0 Literary Classics of the U.S., Inc. Originally appeared in Weird Tales (June (0**). Reprinted in Genius Loci and Other Tales ((0+,). CLARK ASHTON SMITH (1893–1961 ) Genius Loci “It is a very strange place,” said Amberville, “but I scarcely know how to convey the impression it made upon me. It will all sound so simple and ordinary. There is nothing but a sedgy meadow, surrounded on three sides by slopes of yellow pine. A dreary little stream flows in from the open end, to lose itself in a cul-de-sac of cat-tails and boggy ground. The stream, run - ning slowly and more slowly, forms a stagnant pool of some extent, from which several sickly- looking alders seem to fling themselves backward, as if unwilling to approach it. A dead willow leans above the pool, tangling its wan, skeleton-like re - flection with the green scum that mottles the water. There are no blackbirds, no kildees, no dragon-flies even, such as one usually finds in a place of that sort. It is all silent and desolate. The spot is evil— it is unholy in a way that I simply can’t de - scribe. I was compelled to make a drawing of it, almost against my will, since anything so outré is hardly in my line. In fact, I made two drawings. I’ll show them to you, if you like.” Since I had a high opinion of Amberville’s artistic abilities, and had long considered him one of the foremost landscape painters of his generation, I was naturally eager to see the drawings.
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