Sherlock Holmes and the Shadwell Shadows (The Cthulhu Casebooks, #1)

by James Lovegrove

“THE MOST MERCIFUL THING IN THE WORLD, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents.”

Recent history had bred a recklessness in me, a sense that civilisation was a fragile, essentially meaningless construct, forever at the mercy of hostile undercurrents.

“Cynicism is simply realism with a veneer of irony.”

You look upward with your telescopes and downward with your microscopes, and there, in space and water drops, the stars and bacteria, do you find God.”

“A god,” he said, “is not some benevolent, omnipotent being who created us as an expression of his love. That is an anthropomorphic fallacy, brought about by man’s craven desire for an ineffable father figure to pat him on the head every so often and tell him he is doing well.

Cthulhu. One of the Great Old Ones. The greatest, some say. Son of Nug. Half-brother of Hastur. Husband of Idh-yaa. Father of Ghatanothoa, Ythogtha, Zoth-Ommog, Cthylla and Shaurash-Ho. Grandfather of Yogash the Ghoul. Great-grandfather of K’baa the Serpent.

“One way to rid the mind of unwanted tenants is to occupy it with something else, something practical.”

“What you perceive as calmness, Watson, is simply fixity of purpose. I cannot afford the luxury of giving free rein to my emotions. Fear is unproductive, it will only hinder my efforts. In order that we might have a chance to save the lives of Mycroft and Gregson, my thought processes must be as clear as possible.”

For civilisation rests on the assumption that the universe is kindly disposed towards mankind and intended for our benefit. Imagine the upheaval were it to become widespread knowledge that that is not so.”

That is not dead which can eternal lie, And with strange aeons even death may die.