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<\/a><\/p>\nLovecraft would often jokingly refer to the size of his own nose in letters, and compare it to that of the resident pachyderm at Roger Williams Park in Providence…<\/p>\n
Note the proboscidian effect,\u201d [meaning his own large nose, in his photograph of him made by Robert Barlow …] \u201cmy only local rival in that field being the elephant at Roger Williams Park.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
The choice of word faintly indicates the tentacular, and it was used again as such in the story “Out of the Aeons”, said of the nameless creature glimpsed through the mummy’s eye… <\/p>\n
Even now I cannot begin to suggest it with any words at my command. I might call it gigantic \u2014 tentacled \u2014 proboscidian \u2014 octopus-eyed …<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
For most of the city’s children the elephant inspired amazement and curiosity rather than horror. They had clubbed together to raise the funds to obtain and keep him for the city. His name was “Baby Roger”, and he appears to have arrived at the park as a baby elephant when Lovecraft was aged three. We can plausibly imagine that the infant Lovecraft was taken to see him several times, and the elephant’s trunk may well have been his first real encounter with the ‘living tentacular’.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Continuing the vague ‘zoo’ theme (we had zebras two weeks ago), this week’s ‘picture postal’ from Lovecraft is of an …<\/p>\n