And I thought Edgar Allan Poe was terrible when it came to run-on sentences...

This isn't quite the classic existential dread you expect from Lovecraft, but it is his first short story attempt. Not to worry, we'll get there soon enough :-)

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You can follow along at: https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Alchemist_(Lovecraft)

The image used, entitled "Alchemist", is from an 1841 edition of "Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds" by Charles Mackay.

You if you follow along closely with the above text, you may notice a few trivial differences in my reading versus that text, but that is not error on my part, but rather a difference in the editions of the two texts. I am reading from a physical book rather than the website (since I record in a different place from where I edit), and indeed there are a few insignificant variations between the two. Why I am uncertain, but so it goes. Even if you are reading along, some of the differences are so slight and subtle you might not even catch them. If you are not following along but listening only, rest assured the differences are so trivial they do not impact or alter the story in any way.