Mr. Lovecraft has stated very lucidly and succinctly the essential value and validity of the horror story as literary art, and there is no need to recapitulate his conclusions. It has often occurred to me that the interest in tales of horror and weirdness is a manifestation of the adventure impulse so thoroughly curbed in most of us by physical circumstances. In particular, it evinces a desire—perhaps a deep-lying spiritual need—to transcend the common limitations of time, space, and matter. It might be argued that this craving is not, as many shallow modernists suppose, a desire to escape from reality, but an impulse to penetrate the verities which lie beneath the surface of things; to grapple with, and to dominate, the awful mysteries of mortal existence. The attitude of those who would reprehend a liking for horror and eeriness and would dismiss it as morbid and unhealthy, is simply ludicrous. The true morbidity, the true unhealthiness, lies on the other side.