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Hi all, I’m new here.
Recently picked up a Lovecraft collection. I’m having a lot of trouble comprehending one particular line from The Shadow Over Innsmouth:
“But at last I am going to defy the ban on speech about this thing. Results, I am certain, are so thorough that no public harm save a shock of repulsion could ever accrue from a hinting of what was found by those horrified raiders at Innsmouth.”
The second sentence just does not compute for me. Can anyone clarify?

The only part of the text that I'm having trouble with is the word "results". I think the results in question are the discoveries at Innsmouth by the soldiers, and the aftermath of the torpedoing by the submarine.

The speaker was forbidden from speaking.
He decided to defy the ban on speaking.
Everybody already knows what happened at Innsmouth (this is the "results" part).
The only thing that could occur from him speaking is people would have a shock of repulsion.

Murmur wrote:The only part of the text that I'm having trouble with is the word "results". I think the results in question are the discoveries at Innsmouth by the soldiers, and the aftermath of the torpedoing by the submarine.

The speaker was forbidden from speaking.
He decided to defy the ban on speaking.
Everybody already knows what happened at Innsmouth (this is the "results" part).
The only thing that could occur from him speaking is people would have a shock of repulsion.

Huh. That makes sense. Seems like a strange way of wording it though. Or maybe I just don’t get it because my English isn’t quite advanced enough. Oh well.

natedugan76 wrote:

Murmur wrote:The only part of the text that I'm having trouble with is the word "results". I think the results in question are the discoveries at Innsmouth by the soldiers, and the aftermath of the torpedoing by the submarine.

The speaker was forbidden from speaking.
He decided to defy the ban on speaking.
Everybody already knows what happened at Innsmouth (this is the "results" part).
The only thing that could occur from him speaking is people would have a shock of repulsion.

Huh. That makes sense. Seems like a strange way of wording it though. Or maybe I just don’t get it because my English isn’t quite advanced enough. Oh well.

Well, Lovecraft emulated Poe, and Poe used convoluted prose like that.

The "results" are not what the raiders found, it was how it was covered over and dealt with which the narrator talks about--dynamiting waterfront houses, carting certain individuals found there to goals and hospitals to be locked away.

EDIT: REDACTED.