Thomas Olney

Thomas Olney is a fictional character who appears in H. P. Lovecraft's "The Strange High House in the Mist". He represents the observation that "humdrum lives breed wistful longings of the unknown".
Lovecraft describes Olney as a "philosopher" who "taught ponderous things in a college by Narragansett Bay". He comes to spend a summer in Kingsport, and because "his eyes were weary with seeing the same things for many years, and thinking the same well-disciplined thoughts", he becomes captivated by the titular house on the crag overlooking the town. He gathers legends about the house from the Terrible Old Man and Grandma Orne, two of Kingsport's oldest residents.
As he is "avid for new strange things", he resolves to visit the house--which is almost unreachable, but just barely possible from the landward side. There he meet the "nameless hermit" who lives there, the One, who introduces him to Elder Gods like Nodens and Neptune. 
Olney returns from the house "with the look of far places in his eyes", but the Terrible Old Man vows:
Indeed, he seems to have left something vital up in the house, for 
Olney never returns to Kingsport after that summer, instead spending his vacations in the prosaic Bristol Highlands, Rhode Island. But ever since Olney's visit to the Strange High House, "old folk tell of pleasing voices heard singing there, and of laughter that swells with joys beyond earth’s joys; and say that at evening the little low windows are brighter than formerly."
Category:Characters Originating From Lovecraft Circle Works
Category:Humans