It is hard to explain just how a single sight of a tangible object with measurable dimensions could so shake and change a man
 and we may only say that there is about certain outlines and entities a power of symbolism and suggestion which acts frightfully on a sensitive thinker’s perspective and whispers terrible hints of obscure cosmic relationships and unnamable realities behind the protective illusions of common vision.
H.P. Lovecraft, The Case of Charles Dexter Ward