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The Street
by H.P. Lovecraft
There be those who say that things and places have souls,
and there be those who say they have not; I dare not say,
myself, but I will tell of the Street.
Men of strength and honour fashioned that Street: good
valiant men of our blood who had come from the Blessed
Isles across the sea. At first it was but a path trodden by
bearers of water from the woodland spring to the cluster
of houses by the beach. Then, as more men came to the
growing cluster of houses and looked about for places to
dwell, they built cabins along the north side, cabins of
stout oaken logs with masonry on the, side toward the
forest, for many Indians lurked there with fire-arrows. And
in a few years more, men built cabins on the south side of
the Street.
Up and down the Street walked grave men in conical
hats, who most of the time carried muskets or fowling
pieces. And there were also their bonneted wives and sober
children. In the evening these men with their wives and
children would sit about gigantic hearths and read and
speak. Very simple were the things of which they read and
spoke, yet things which gave them courage and goodness
and helped them by day to subdue the forest and till the
fields. And the children would listen and learn of the laws
and deeds of old, and of that dear England which they had
never seen or could not remember.
There was war, and thereafter no more Indians troubled
the Street. The men, busy with labour, waxed prosperous
and as happy as they knew how to be. And the children
grew up comfortable, and more families came from the
Mother Land to dwell on the Street. And the children's
children, and the newcomers' children, grew up. The town
was now a city, and one by one the cabins gave place to
houses - simple, beautiful houses of brick and wood, with
stone steps and iron railings and fanlights over the doors,
No flimsy creations were these houses, for they were made
to serve many a generation. Within there were carven mantels and graceful stairs, and sensible, pleasing furniture,
china, and silver, brought from the Mother Land.
So the Street drank in the dreams of a young people and
rejoiced as its dwellers became more graceful and happy.
Where once had been only strength and honour, taste and
learning now abode as well. Books and paintings and music
came to the houses, and the young men went to the university which rose above the plain to the north. In the place of
conical hats and small-swords, of lace and snowy periwigs.
there were cobblestones over which clattered many a
blooded horse and rumbled many a gilded coach; and
brick sidewalks with horse blocks and hitching-posts.
There were in that Street many trees: elm and oaks and
maples of dignity; so that in the summer, the scene was ail
soft verdure and twittering bird-song. And behind the
houses were walled rose-gardens with hedged paths and
sundials, where at evening the moon and stars would shine
bewitchingly while fragrant blossoms glistened with dew.
So the Street dreamed on, past wars, calamities, and
change. Once most of the young men went away, and
some never came back. That was when they furled the old
flag and put up a new banner of stripes and stars. But
though men talked of great changes, the Street felt them
not, for its folk were still the same, speaking of the old
familiar things in the old familiar accounts. And the trees
still sheltered singing birds, and at evening the moon and
stars looked down upon dewy blossoms in the walled rose-gardens.
In time there were no more swords, three-cornered hats,
or periwigs in the Street. How strange seemed the inhabitants with their walking-sticks, tall beavers, and cropped
heads! New sounds came from the distance - first strange
puffings and shrieks from the river a mile away, and then,
many years later, strange puffings and shrieks and rumblings from other directions. The air was not quite so pure
as before, but the spirit of the place had not changed. The
blood and soul of their ancestors had fashioned the Street.
Nor did the spirit change when they tore open the earth
to lay down strange pipes, or when they set up tall posts
bearing weird wires. There was so much ancient lore in
that Street, that the past could not easily be forgotten.
Then came days of evil, when many who had known the
Street of old knew it no more, and many knew it who had
not known it before, and went away, for their accents were
coarse and strident, and their mien and faces unpleasing.
Their thoughts, too, fought with the wise just spirit of the
Street, so that the Street pined silently as its houses fell into
decay, and its trees died one by one, and its rose-gardens
grew rank with weeds and waste. But it felt a stir of pride
one day when again marched forth young men, some of
whom never came back. These young men were clad in
blue.
With the years, worse fortune came to the Street. Its
trees were all gone now, and its rose-gardens were displaced
by the backs of cheap, ugly new buildings on parallel
streets. Yet the houses remained, despite the ravages of the
years and the storms and worms, for they had been made
to serve many a generation. New kinds of faces appeared
in the Street, swarthy, sinister faces with furtive eyes and
odd features, whose owners spoke unfamiliar words and
placed signs in known and unknown characters upon most
of the musty houses. Push-carts crowded the gutters. A
sordid, undefinable stench settled over the place, and the
ancient spirit slept.
Great excitement once came to the Street. War and revolution were raging across the seas; a dynasty had collapsed, and its degenerate subjects were flocking with
dubious intent to the Western Land. Many of these took
lodgings in the battered houses that had once known the
songs of birds and the scent of roses. Then the Western
Land itself awoke and joined the Mother Land. in her titanic
struggle for civilization. Over the cities once more floated
the old flag, companioned by the new flag, and by a plainer,
yet glorious tri-colour. But not many flags floated over the
Street, for therein brooded only fear and hatred and ignorance. Again young men went forth, but not quite as did
the young men of those other days. Something was lacking.
And the sons of those young men of other days, who did
indeed go forth in olive-drab with the true spirit of their
ancestors, went from distant places and knew not the Street
and its ancient spirit.
Over the seas there was a great victory, and in triumph
most of the young men returned. Those who had lacked
something lacked it no longer, yet did fear and hatred and
ignorance still brood over the Street; for many had stayed
behind, and many strangers had come from distant places
to the ancient houses. And the young men who had returned dwelt there no longer. Swarthy and sinister were
most of the strangers, yet among them one might find a
few faces like those who fashioned the Street and moulded
its spirit. Like and yet unlike, for there was in the eyes of
all a weird, unhealthy glitter as of greed, ambition, vindictiveness, or misguided zeal. Unrest and treason were abroad
amongst an evil few who plotted to strike the Western Land
its death blow, that they might mount to power over its
ruins, even as assassins had mounted in that unhappy,
frozen land from whence most of them had come. And
the heart of that plotting was in the Street, whose crumbling houses teemed with alien makers of discord and echoed
with the plans and speeches of those who yearned for the
appointed day of blood, flame and crime.
Of the various odd assemblages in the Street, the law said
much but could prove little. With great diligence did men
of hidden badges linger and listen about such places as
Petrovitch's Bakery, the squalid Rifkin School of Modem
Economics, the Circle Social Club, and the Liberty Cafe.
There congregated sinister men in great numbers, yet always was their speech guarded or in a foreign tongue. And
still me old houses stood, with their forgotten lore of nobler,
departed centuries; of sturdy Colonial tenants and dewy
rose-gardens in the moonlight. Sometimes a lone poet or
traveler would come to view them, and would try to picture them in their vanished glory; yet of such travelers and poets there were not many.
The rumour now spread widely that these houses contained the leaders of a vast band of terrorists, who on a
designated day were to launch an orgy of slaughter for the
extermination of America and of all the fine old traditions
which the Street had loved. Handbills and papers fluttered
about filthy gutters; handbills and papers printed in many
tongues and in many characters, yet all bearing messages of
crime and rebellion. In these writings the people were
urged to tear down the laws and virtues that our fathers
had exalted, to stamp out the soul of the old America -
the soul that was bequeathed through a thousand and a
half years of Anglo-Saxon freedom, justice, and moderation. It was said that the swart men who dwelt in the Street
and congregated in its rotting edifices were the brains of a
hideous revolution, that at their word of command many
millions of brainless, besotted beasts would stretch forth
their noisome talons from the slums of a thousand cities,
burning, slaying, and destroying till the land of our fathers
should be no more. All this was said and repeated, and
many looked forward in dread to the fourth day of July,
about which the strange writings hinted much; yet could
nothing be found to place the guilt. None could tell just
whose arrest might cut off the damnable plotting at its
source. Many times came bands of blue-coated police to
search the shaky houses, though at last they ceased to come;
for they too had grown tired of law and order, and had
abandoned all the city to its fate. Then men in olive-drab
came, bearing muskets, till it seemed as if in its sad sleep
the Street must have some haunting dreams of those other
days, when musket-bearing men in conical hats walked
along it from the woodland spring to the cluster of houses
by the beach. Yet could no act be performed to check the
impending cataclysm, for the swart, sinister men were old
in cunning.
So the Street slept uneasily on, till one night there gathered in Petrovitch's Bakery and the Rifkin School of Modern Economics, and the Circle Social Club, and
Liberty Cafe, and in other places as well, vast hordes of
men whose eyes were big with horrible triumph and expectation. Over hidden wires strange messages traveled,
and much was said of still stranger messages yet to travel;
but most of this was not guessed till afterward, when the
Western Land was safe from the peril. The men in olive-drab could not tell what was happening, or what they ought to do; for the swart, sinister men were skilled in subtlety and concealment.
And yet the men in olive-drab will always remember that
night, and will speak of the Street as they tell of it to their
grandchildren; for many of them were sent there toward
morning on a mission unlike that which they had expected.
It was known that this nest of anarchy was old, and that
the houses were tottering from the ravages of the years
and the storms and worms; yet was the happening of that
summer night a surprise because of its very queer uniformity. It was, indeed, an exceedingly singular happening,
though after all, a simple one. For without warning, in one
of the small hours beyond midnight, all the ravages of the
years and the storms and the worms came to a tremendous
climax; and after the crash there was nothing left standing
in the Street save two ancient chimneys and part of a stout
brick wall. Nor did anything that had been alive come alive
from the ruins. A poet and a traveler, who came with the
mighty crowd that sought the scene, tell odd stories. The
poet says that all through the hours before dawn he beheld
sordid ruins indistinctly in the glare of the arc-lights; that
there loomed above the wreckage another picture wherein
he could describe moonlight and fair houses and elms and
oaks and maples of dignity. And the traveler declares that
instead of the place's wonted stench there lingered a deli-
cate fragrance as of roses in full bloom. But are not the
dreams of poets and the tales of travelers notoriously false?
There be those who say that things and places have souls.
and there be those who say they have not; I dare not say,
myself, but I have told you of the Street.
H.P. LOVECRAFT
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