“The kinship and hospitality of the Main Street [of Brattleboro] spread over us, and encourage us to climb higher into the charmed sea of westerly greenness to which these atavistic bricks form pylon and peristyle. The wild hills are before us […] Narrow, half-hidden roads bore their way through solid, luxuriant masses of forest, among whose primal trees whole armies of elemental spirits lurk.” — H.P. Lovecraft, “Vermont: A First Impression” (September 1927).

Lovecraft’s friend and fellow amateur pressman Arthur H. Goodenough lived near Brattleboro, hence Lovecraft came to know the place quite well on several visits. He also visited with Vrest Orton, also near Brattleboro.

The local history Brattleboro Words project also has…

“I’ve never seen no country niftier than the wild hills west of Brattleboro,” Lovecraft wrote to a friend. “The nearness and intimacy of the little domed hills become almost breathtaking. Their steepness and abruptness hold nothing in common with the hum-drum standardized world we know, and we cannot help feeling that our outlines have some strange and almost forgotten meaning.”

The full quote, uncensored by political correctness, is as follows. Lovecraft starts off in contemporary slang…

“I never seen no country niftier than the wild hills west of Brattleboro, where this guy hangs out. Brat itself is the diploduccus’ gold molar, with its works of pristine Yankee survival, but once you climb the slopes toward the setting sun you’re in another and an elder world. All allegiance to modern and decadent things is cast off — all memory of such degenerate excrescences as steel and steam, tar and concrete roads, and the vulgar civilization that bred them —”

The nearness and intimacy of the little domed hills become almost breath-taking — their steepness and abruptness hold nothing in common with the humdrum, standardized world we know, and we cannot help feeling that their outlines have some strange and almost-forgotten meaning, like vast hieroglyphs left by a rumoured titan race whose glories live on in rare, deep dreams.”