"Nor is it to be thought, that man is
either the oldest or the last of earth's masters, or that the
common bulk of life and substance walks alone. The Old Ones were,
the Old Ones are, and the Old Ones shall be. Not in the spaces we
know, but between them, They walk serene and primal,
undimensioned and to us unseen. Yog-Sothoth knows the gate.
Yog-Sothoth is the gate. Yog-Sothoth is the key and guardian of
the gate. Past, present, future, all are one in Yog-Sothoth. He
knows where the Old Ones broke through of old, and where They
shall brake through again. He knows where They trod earth's
fields, and where They still tread them, and why no one can
behold Them as They tread. By Their smell can men sometimes know
Them near, but of Their semblance can no man know, saving only in
the features of those They have begotten on mankind; and of those
are there many sorts, differing in likeness from man's thruest
eidolon to that shape without sight or substance which is Them.
They walk useen and foul in lonely places where the Words have
been spoken and the Rites howled through at their Seasons. The
wind gribbers with Their voices, and the earth mutters with Their
consciousness. They bend the forest and crush the city, yet may
not forest or city behold the hand that smites. Kadath in the
cold waste hath known Them, and what man knows Kadath? The ice
desert of the South and the sunken isles of Ocean hold stones
whereon Their seals is engraven, but who hath seen the deep
frozen city or the sealed tower long garlanded with seaweed and
barnacles? Great Cthulhu is Their cousin, yet can he spy Them
only dimly. Ieal Shub-Niggurath! As a foulness shall ye know
Them. Their hand is at your throats, yet ye see Them not; and
Their habitation is even one with your guarded threshold.
Yog-Sothoth is the key to the gate, whereby the spheres meet. Man
rules now where They ruled once; They shall soon rule where man
rules now. After summer is winter, and after winter summer. They
wait patient and potent, for here shall They regin again."
-- H.P. Lovecraft (The Dunwich Horror)