Chapter XI: Part 11

And as she speaks there comes again a vision of Parnassus and the far-off sound of a mighty voice saying, "By his word shall thy steps be guided to happiness, and in his dreams of beauty shall thy spirit find all that it craveth."

* * * * *

Mr. Paul J. Campbell deserves the most unstinted thanks of the United this year, for besides serving as First Vice-President he has furnished free of charge a supply of recruiting booklets and application blanks, thus relieving us of one of our most onerous burdens. Mr. Campbell's eighteen years of undiminished devotion to amateurdom form a thing worthy of emulation.

THE UNITED AMATEUR NOVEMBER 1920

Nyarlathotep

H. P. LOVECRAFT

Nyarlathotep ... the crawling chaos ... I am the last ... I will tell the audient void....

I do not recall distinctly when it began, but it was months ago. The general tension was horrible. To a season of political and social upheaval was added a strange and brooding apprehension of hideous physical danger; a danger widespread and all-embracing, such a danger as may be imagined only in the most terrible phantasms of the night. I recall that the people went about with pale and worried faces, and whispered warnings and prophecies which no one dared consciously repeat or acknowledge to himself that he had heard. A sense of monstrous guilt was upon the land, and out of the abysses between the stars swept chill currents that made men shiver in dark and lonely places. There was a demoniac alteration in the sequence of the seasons--the autumn heat lingered fearsomely, and everyone felt that the world and perhaps the universe had passed from the control of known gods or forces to that of gods or forces which were unknown.

And it was then that Nyarlathotep came out of Egypt. Who he was, none could tell, but he was of the old native blood and looked like a Pharaoh. The fellahin knelt when they saw him, yet could not say why. He said he had risen up out of the blackness of twenty-seven centuries, and that he had heard messages from places not on this planet. Into the lands of civilisation came Nyarlathotep, swarthy, slender, and sinister, always buying strange instruments of glass and metal and combining them into instruments yet stranger. He spoke much of the sciences--of electricity and psychology--and gave exhibitions of power which sent his spectators away speechless, yet which swelled his fame to exceeding magnitude. Men advised one another to see Nyarlathotep, and shuddered. And where Nyarlathotep went, rest vanished; for the small hours were rent with the screams of nightmare. Never before had the screams of nightmare been such a public problem; now the wise men almost wished they could forbid sleep in the small hours, that the shrieks of cities might less horribly disturb the pale, pitying moon as it glimmered on green waters gliding under bridges, and old steeples crumbling against a sickly sky.

I remember when Nyarlathotep came to my city--the great, the old, the terrible city of unnumbered crimes. My friend had told me of him, and of the impelling fascination and allurement of his revelations, and I burned with eagerness to explore his uttermost mysteries. My friend said they were horrible and impressive beyond my most fevered imaginings; that what was thrown on a screen in the darkened room prophesied things none but Nyarlathotep dare prophesy, and that in the sputter of his sparks there was taken from men that which had never been taken before yet which shewed only in the eyes. And I heard it hinted abroad that those who knew Nyarlathotep looked on sights which others saw not.

It was in the hot autumn that I went through the night with the restless crowds to see Nyarlathotep; through the stifling night and up the endless stairs into the choking room. And shadowed on a screen, I saw hooded forms amidst ruins, and yellow evil faces peering from behind fallen monuments. And I saw the world battling against blackness; against the waves of destruction from ultimate space; whirling, churning; struggling around the dimming, cooling sun. Then the sparks played amazingly around the heads of the spectators, and hair stood up on end whilst shadows more grotesque than I can tell came out and squatted on the heads. And when I, who was colder and more scientific than the rest, mumbled a trembling protest about "imposture" and "static electricity," Nyarlathotep drave us all out, down the dizzy stairs into the damp, hot, deserted midnight streets. I screamed aloud that I was _not_ afraid; that I never could be afraid; and others screamed with me for solace. We sware to one another that the city _was_ exactly the same, and still alive; and when the electric lights began to fade we cursed the company over and over again, and laughed at the queer faces we made.

I believe we felt something coming down from the greenish moon, for when we began to depend on its light we drifted into curious involuntary marching formations and seemed to know our destinations though we dared not think of them. Once we looked at the pavement and found the blocks loose and displaced by grass, with scarce a line of rusted metal to show where the tramways had run. And again we saw a tram-car, lone, windowless, dilapidated, and almost on its side. When we gazed around the horizon, we could not find the third tower by the river, and noticed that the silhouette of the second tower was ragged at the top. Then we split up into narrow columns, each of which seemed drawn in a different direction. One disappeared in a narrow alley to the left, leaving only the echo of a shocking moan. Another filed down a weed-choked subway entrance, howling with a laughter that was mad. My own column was sucked toward the open country, and presently felt a chill which was not of the hot autumn: for as we stalked out on the dark moor, we beheld around us the hellish moon-glitter of evil snows. Trackless, inexplicable snows, swept asunder in one direction only, where lay a gulf all the blacker for its glittering walls. The column seemed very thin indeed as it plodded dreamily into the gulf. I lingered behind, for the black rift in the green-litten snow was frightful, and I thought I had heard the reverberations of a disquieting wail as my companions vanished; but my power to linger was slight. As if beckoned by those who had gone before, I half-floated between the titanic snowdrifts, quivering and afraid, into the sightless vortex of the unimaginable.

Screamingly sentient, dumbly delirious, only the gods that were can tell. A sickened, sensitive shadow writhing in hands that are not hands, and whirled blindly past ghastly midnights of rotting creation, corpses of dead worlds with sores that were cities, charnel winds that brush the pallid stars and make them flicker low. Beyond the worlds vague ghosts of monstrous things; half-seen columns of unsanctified temples that rest on nameless rocks beneath space and reach up to dizzy vacua above the spheres of light and darkness. And through this revolving graveyard of the universe the muffled, maddening beating of drums, and thin, monotonous whine of blasphemous flutes from inconceivable, unlighted chambers beyond Time; the detestable pounding and piping whereunto dance slowly, awkwardly and absurdly the gigantic, tenebrous ultimate gods--the blind, voiceless, mindless gargoyles whose soul is Nyarlathotep.

Editorial

Editorial comment upon amateur journalism generally falls within one of two classes; complacent self-congratulation upon a mythical perfection, or hectic urging toward impossible achievements. It is our purpose this month to indulge in neither of these rhetorical recreations, but to make one very prosaic and practical appeal which springs solely from realistic observation.

This appeal concerns the official situation in the United. For several years our foes have reproached us for excessive centralisation of authority: asserting that the control of our society is anything from oligarchical to monarchial, and pointing to the large amount of influence wielded by a very few leaders. Denials on our part, prompted by the conspicuous absence of any dictatorial ambitions in the minds of our executives, have been largely nullified by the fact that while power has not been autocratically usurped and arbitrarily exercised, the burden of administrative work has certainly been thrust by common consent on a small number of reluctant though loyal shoulders. A few persons have been forced to retain authority because no others have arisen to relieve them of their burdens, until official nominations have come to mean no more than a campaign by one or two active spirits to persuade certain patient drudges to "carry on" another year. Nor does the formal official situation reflect all of the prevailing condition. Much of the Association's most important activity, such as recruiting, welcoming and criticism, verges into the field of unorganised effort; and here the tendency to leave everything to a narrow group is overwhelming.

Obviously, this condition demands a remedy; and that remedy lies in one direction only--an acceptance of potential official responsibility by all of those members who possess the time and experience to act as leaders. As the fiscal year progresses, the season for candidacies draws near; and amateurs who feel competent to sustain their share of the administrative burden should come forward as nominees, or at least should respond when approached by their friends. That office-holding involves tedious work, all admit, but this tedium is a small enough price to pay for the varied boons of amateurdom. In unofficial labour an equal willingness should be shown. Why is it that all the private revision in the United is performed by about three men at most, despite the presence in our ranks of a full score of scholars abundantly capable of rendering such service? If the _literati_ as a whole will not awaken to the needs of the day, one of two things will occur. The United will stagnate quietly under the perpetual dictatorship of a limited group of unwilling but benevolent autocrats, or it will succumb to the onslaught of some political clique of vigorous barbarians who will destroy in a month what it has taken the United over ten years to build up. Memories of 1919 should prove to us the reality of such a danger of sudden relapse.

Our appeal, then, is for responsible candidates for high office, and for volunteers in the work of maintaining interest and lending literary aid. We know that executive energy and enthusiasm tend to be more abundant in the Goth than in the Greek; that those best qualified to serve are generally least moved by political ambition. But we are sure that the needs of our society should arouse enough sense of duty among its cultivated membership to draw to the front a new generation of leaders. We ask for new presidential and editorial candidates who are prepared to serve faithfully and independently if elected; for new critics and recruiters who understand our traditions and are willing to expend energy in upholding and diffusing them. Shall 1921 bring them to light?

--H. P. LOVECRAFT

Official Organ Fund

RECEIPTS

Woodbee Press Club $25.00 From Treasurer, up to October 15 23.00 Susan Nelson Furgerson 6.00 Jonathan E. Hoag 5.00 Verna McGeoch (for each issue) 5.00 Howard R. Conover 3.00 Victor O. Schwab 3.00 Mr. and Mrs. Fritter (for each issue) 2.00 Rev. Eugene B. Kuntz 1.50 Anne Tillery Renshaw 1.50 Anonymous .25 _One dollar each_: Margaret Abraham, Agnes R. Arnold, Elizabeth Barnhart, Grace M. Bromley, Mary Faye Durr, Alice M. Hamlet, Hester Harper. Total on hand, November 6, 1920 $82.25

REMARKS

The doubling of printing rates makes large contributions imperative if the Organ is to approach its customary standard. Acknowledgments are due the Woodbee Press Club for its exceedingly generous contribution, and ex-Editor Renshaw for the mailing of an appeal which has proved most effective in the campaign for funds. Emulation of the Woodbees' generosity by other clubs would save a situation which is very threatening.

H. P. LOVECRAFT,
Custodian.

THE UNITED AMATEUR JANUARY 1921

OFFICIAL ORGAN FUND

Providence, R. I., April 1, 1921.

RECEIPTS SINCE NOVEMBER 6, 1920

From Treasurer, up to April 1, 1921 $21.50 Verna McGeoch (3 instalments) 15.00 E. Edward Ericson 10.00 Edward F. Daas 6.00 Howard R. Conover 2.00 Anna H. Crofts 1.00 Ernest L. McKeag 1.00 John Milton Samples 1.00 Anonymous .75 ------- Balance on Hand, November 6, 1920 $82.25 Received, November 6, 1920, to April 1, 1921 58.25 ------- Total Receipts $140.50

EXPENDITURES

To E. E. Ericson, for September U. A. $48.00 To E. E. Ericson, for November U. A. 48.00 To E. E. Ericson, for January U. A. 36.00 ------- Total Expenditures $132.00

Balance on Hand, April 1, 1921 $8.50

H. P. LOVECRAFT,
Custodian.

THE UNITED AMATEUR MARCH 1921

Winifred Virginia Jackson: A "Different" Poetess

H. P. LOVECRAFT

In these days of unrestrained license in poetry, it would at first sight seem difficult to single out any one bard as the possessor of ideas and modes of expression so unique and original that the overworked adjective "different" is merited. Every poetaster of the modern school claims to be "different," and bases his claim to celebrity upon this "difference"; an effect usually achieved by the adoption of a harsh, amorphous style, and a tone of analytical, introspective subjectivity so individual that all the common and universal elements of beauty and poetry are excluded. Indeed, eccentricity has come so completely into fashion, that he who follows up the wildest vagaries is actually the least different from the hectic scribbling throng about him.

But notwithstanding this malady of the times, there does remain among us an ample field for genius and artistic distinctiveness. The laws of human thought are unchangeable, and whenever there is born a soul attuned to real harmony, and inspired by that rare sensitiveness which enables it to feel and express the latent beauty and hidden relationships of Nature, the world receives a new poet. Such an one will of necessity break through the decadent customs of the period; and falling back to the forms of true melody, sing a spontaneous song which can not help being original, because it represents the unforced reaction of a keen and delicate mind to the panorama of life. And when this reaction is enabled to bring out in the simplest and most beautiful style fancies and images which the world has not received or noted before, we are justified in claiming that the bard is "different."

Such a bard is Winifred Virginia Jackson, whose poetry has for six years been the pride of the United Amateur Press Association. Born in Maine, and through childhood accustomed to the mystical spell of the ancient New-England countryside, Miss Jackson for a long period quietly and unconsciously absorbed a prodigious store of beauty and phantasy from life. Having no design to become a poet, she accepted these ethereal gifts as a matter of course; until about a decade ago they manifested themselves in a burst of spontaneous melody which can best be described as a sheer overflowing of delightful dreams and pictures from a mind filled to the brim with poetic loveliness. Since that time Miss Jackson has written vast quantities of verse; always rich and musical, and if one may speak in paradox, always artless with supreme art. None of these poems is in any sense premeditated or consciously composed; they are more like visions of the fancy, instantaneously photographed for the perception of others, and unerringly framed in the most appropriate metrical medium.

When we peruse the poetry of Miss Jackson we are impressed first by its amazing variety, and almost as quickly by a certain distinctive quality which gives all the varied specimens a kind of homogeneity. As we analyse our impressions, we find that both of these qualities have a common source--the complete objectivity and almost magical imagination of supreme genius. Objectivity and imagination, the gifts of the epic bards of classical antiquity, are today the rarest of blessings. We live in an age of morbid emotion and introspectiveness; wherein the poets, such as they are, have sunk to the level of mere pathologists engaged in the dissection of their own ultra-sophisticated spirits. The fresh touch of Nature is lost to the majority, and rhymesters rant endlessly and realistically about the relation of man to his fellows and to himself; overlooking the real foundations of art and beauty--wonder, and man's relation to the unknown cosmos. But Miss Jackson is not of the majority, and has not overlooked these things. In her the ancient and unspoiled bard is refulgently reincarnated; and with an amazing universality and freedom from self-consciousness she suppresses the ego completely, delineating Nature's diverse moods and aspects with an impersonal fidelity and delicacy which form the delight of the discriminating reader, and the despair of the stupid critic who works by rule and formula rather than by brain. There is no medium which the spirit of Miss Jackson can not inhabit. The same mind which reflects the daintiest and most gorgeous phantasies of the faery world, or furnishes the most finely wrought pictures or refined pathos and sentiment, can abruptly take up its abode in some remote Maine timber region and pour out such a wild, virile chantey of the woods and the river that we seem to glimpse the singer as the huskiest of a tangle-bearded, fight-scarred, loud-shouting logging crew sprawling about a pine campfire.

A critic has grouped the poetical work of Miss Jackson into six classes: Lyrics of ideal beauty, including delightful Nature-poems replete with local colour; delicate amatory lyrics; rural dialect lyrics and vigorous colloquial pieces; poems of sparkling optimism; child verse; and poems of potent terror and dark suggestion. "With her," he adds, "sordid realism has no place; and her poems glow with a subtle touch of the fanciful and the supernatural which is well sustained by tasteful and unusual word-combinations, images, and onomatopoetic effects." This estimate is confirmed by the latest productions of the poetess, as we shall endeavour to show by certain specimens lately published or about to be published, selected almost at random:

"The Bonnet" is a characteristic bit of Jacksonian delicacy and originality. We here behold a sustained metaphor of that striking type which the author so frequently creates; a metaphor which draws on all Nature and the unseen world for its basis, and whose analogies are just the ones which please us most, yet which our own minds are never finely attuned enough to conceive unaided. The swain in the poem tells of his intention to make a bonnet for his chosen nymph to wear. He will fashion it with "golden thimble, scissors, needle, thread"; taking velvet from the April sky as a groundwork, stars for trimming, moonlight for banding, and a web of dreams for lining. He will scent it with the perfume of "the reddest rose that the singing wind finds sweetest where it farthest blows," and "will take it at the twilight for his love to wear." Here we have nothing of the bizarre or the conspicuous, yet in the six little stanzas of quaintly regular metre there is suggested all of that world of faery beauty which the eye can glimpse beyond the leaden clouds of reality; a world which exists because it can be dreamed of. The poem is "different" in the truest way; it is original because it conveys beauty originally in an inconspicuous and harmonious vehicle.

But turn now to "Ellsworth to Great Pond" and marvel! True, we still find the vivid delineation of human feelings, but what a distance we have travelled! Gone is the young dreamer with his world of moonshine, for here roars the Maine lumberjack with all the uncouth vigour and rude natural expressiveness of the living satyr. It is life; primal, uncovered, and unpolished--the ebullient, shouting vitality of healthy animalism.

"Drink hard cider, swig hard cider,
Swill hard cider, Boys!
Throw yer spikers, throw yer peavies,
Beller out yer noise!"

We have drifted from the aether of Keats to the earth of Fielding, yet under the guidance of the same author. Greater proof of Miss Jackson's absolute objectivity and marvellous imagination could not be produced or asked.

Yet who shall say that the Jackson pendulum is powerful only at the extremes of its sweeping arc? In "Workin' Out" we discover a pastoral love-lyric which for quaintness and graphic humanness could not well be surpassed. Here the distinctive and spontaneous inventiveness of Miss Jackson's fancy is displayed with especial vividness. The rural youth, "workin' out" far from his loved Molly, enumerates the prosaic chores he can perform with easy heart; but mentions in each case some more poetic thing which stirs his emotions and gives him loneliness for the absent fair. He can cut and husk corn, but the golden-rod reminds him of his Molly's golden hair. He can milk cows, but the gentian reminds him of his Molly's blue eyes. Aside from their intrinsic ingeniousness, these images possess an unconscious lesson for the poet who can read it. They expose with concrete illustrations the fallacy of the so-called "new poetry," which disregards the natural division between beautiful and unbeautiful things and rhapsodises as effusively over a sewer-pipe as over the crescent moon.

"The Token" exhibits Miss Jackson in her airiest lyrical mood; a mood original because it possesses the rare lyrism of pure music and fancy rather than the common lyrism of unsubtilised emotion. There is bounding music in thought and medium alike, whilst the naive plunge into the theme without introduction or explanation is a stroke savouring of the simplicity of genius. Equally effective is the simple metrical transition whereby the chorus assumes the trochaic measure of a childhood chant or carol:

"Lightly O, brightly O,
Down the long lane she will go!
Dancing she, glancing she,
Down the lane with eyes aglow!"

In "Assurance" and "It's Lovetime," the author displays a lyrical fervour of more conventional type; adding the touch of originality by means of melodious simplicity and reiteration in the one case, and pure lyric ecstasy in the other.

The metrical originality of Miss Jackson, displayed in all classes of her work, should not be slighted amidst the enthusiasm one entertains for her magical mastery of thoughts and images. No other conservative poet of the period is more versatile and individual in choice of numbers, or in adaptation of measure to mood. "Driftwood," a wonderfully original poem of imagination describing the fancies which arise from the smoke of logs wafted from far mysterious lands where once the trees grew under strange suns, moons, and rainbows, is as remarkable in form as in idea. One may judge by a sample pair of stanzas:

"You warm your hands
And smile
Before the fire of driftwood.

"I feel old lands'
Wan guile
That writhes in fire of driftwood."

We have so far viewed poetry which would lead us to classify Miss Jackson as a delineator of moods rather than of character; yet knowing her versatility, we naturally expect to find among her works some potent character studies. Nor are we disappointed. "Joe," a song of the Maine woods, describes in admirably appropriate verbiage--as simple and as nearly monosyllabic as possible--the typical Anglo-Saxon stoic of far places, who faces comfort and disaster, life and death, with the same unemotional attitude which Miss Jackson sums up so skilfully in the one ejaculatory bit of colloquial indifference--"Dunno!"

"The Song of Jonny Laughlin" is a highly unusual ballad relating the history of a peculiarly good and self-sacrificing river character. The story is simple, but the piece gains distinctiveness from its absolutely faithful reproduction of the spirit of frontier balladry. In words, swing, and weird refrain, there exists every internal evidence of traditional authenticity; and that such a bit of Nature could be composed by a cultivated feminine author is an overwhelming testimonial to Miss Jackson's unique gifts.

That Miss Jackson can reflect the spirit of the most dissimilar characters is further proved by the two immensely powerful studies of the vagabond type entitled "The Call" and "John Worthington Speaks." These things are masterpieces of their kind; the self-revealing narratives of restless wanderers by land and sea, crammed to repletion with details and local colour which no one but their author could command without actual experience as a derelict of five continents and as many oceans. They leave the reader veritably breathless with wonder at the objectivity and imagination which can enable a New-England poetess to mirror with such compelling vividness in thought and language the sentiments of so utterly opposite a type. Not even the narrowly specialised genius of such rough-and-ready writers as Service and Knibbs, working in their own peculiar field, can surpass this one slight phase of Miss Jackson's universal genius.

It remains to speak of the singular power of Miss Jackson in the realm of the gruesome and the terrible. With that same sensitiveness to the unseen and the unreal which lends witchery to her gayer productions, she has achieved in darker fields of verse results inviting comparison with the best prose work of Ambrose Bierce or Maurice Level. Among her older poems the ghastly and colourful phantasy "Insomnia" and the grimly realistic rustic tragedy "Chores" excited especial praise, a critic referring as follows to the latter piece:

"It has all the compelling power which marks Miss Jackson's darker
productions, and is conveyed in an arresting staccato measure which
emphasises the homely horror of the theme. The phraseology, with its
large proportion of rural and archaic words and constructions, adds
vastly to the general effect and atmosphere."

This reference to Miss Jackson's unusual vocabulary deserves elaboration, for one of the secrets of her effective poetry is the wide and diverse array of words and word-combinations which she commands. Recondite archaisms and ruralisms, together with marvellously apt and original descriptive compounds, are things which perpetually astonish and delight her readers. Of recent specimens of Miss Jackson's darker verse, "Finality," "The Song" and "Fallen Fences" deserve especial praise. The horrible picture conjured up in the closing lines of the first named piece is one well calculated to haunt the dreams of the imaginative.

As we conclude this survey of rich and varied poetry, our dominant impression aside from admiration is that of wonder at the tardiness with which the author has been recognised by the non-amateur public. As yet the name of Jackson is a comparative novelty to the literary world, a thing explainable only by the reluctance of its possessor to adopt that species of trumpeting which helps less modest and less genuine poets into the glare of celebrity. But genius such as Miss Jackson's can not remain forever hidden, however slight be her striving for fame; so that we may reasonably expect the next few years to witness her establishment among the leading literary figures, as one of the ablest, broadest and most original of contemporary bards.

Ex Oblivione

WARD PHILLIPS

When the last days were upon me, and the ugly trifles of existence began to drive me to madness like the small drops of water that torturers let fall ceaselessly upon one spot of their victim's body, I loved the irradiate refuge of sleep. In my dreams I found a little of the beauty I had vainly sought in life, and wandered through old gardens and enchanted woods.

Once when the wind was soft and scented I heard the south calling, and sailed endlessly and languorously under strange stars.

Once when the gentle rain fell I glided in a barge down a sunless stream under the earth till I reached another world of purple twilight, iridescent arbours and undying roses.

And once I walked through a golden valley that led to shadowy groves and ruins, and ended in a mighty wall green with antique vines, and pierced by a little gate of bronze.

Many times I walked through that valley, and longer and longer would I pause in the spectral half-light where the giant trees squirmed and twisted grotesquely, and the grey ground stretched damply from trunk to trunk, sometimes disclosing the mould-stained stones of buried temples. And always the goal of my fancies was the mighty vine-grown wall with the little gate of bronze therein.

After a while, as the days of waking became less and less bearable from their greyness and sameness, I would often drift in opiate peace through the valley and the shadowy groves, and wonder how I might seize them for my eternal dwelling-place, so that I need no more crawl back to a dull world stript of interest and new colours. And as I looked upon the little gate in the mighty wall, I felt that beyond it lay a dream-country from which, once it was entered, there would be no return.

So each night in sleep I strove to find the hidden latch of the gate in the ivied antique wall, though it was exceedingly well-hidden. And I would tell myself that the realm beyond the wall was not more lasting merely, but more lovely and radiant as well.

Then one night in the dream-city of Zakarion I found a yellowed papyrus filled with the thoughts of dream-sages who dwelt of old in that city, and who were too wise ever to be born in the waking world. Therein were written many things concerning the world of dream, and among them was lore of a golden valley and a sacred grove with temples, and a high wall pierced by a little bronze gate. When I saw this lore, I knew that it touched on the scenes I had haunted, and I therefore read long in the yellowed papyrus.

Some of the dream-sages wrote gorgeously of the wonders beyond the irrepassable gate, but others told of horror and disappointment. I knew not which to believe, yet longed more and more to cross forever into the unknown land; for doubt and secrecy are the lure of lures, and no new horror can be more terrible than the daily torture of the commonplace. So when I learned of the drug which would unlock the gate and drive me through, I resolved to take it when next I awaked.

Last night I swallowed the drug and floated dreamily into the golden valley and the shadowy groves; and when I came this time to the antique wall, I saw that the small gate of bronze was ajar. From beyond came a glow that weirdly lit the giant twisted trees and tops of the buried temples, and I drifted on songfully, expectant of the glories of the land from whence I should never return.

But as the gate swung wider and the sorcery of drug and dream pushed me through, I knew that all sights and glories were at an end; for in that new realm was neither land nor sea, but only the white void of unpeopled and illimitable space. So, happier than I had ever dared hope to be, I dissolved again into that native infinity of crystal oblivion from which the daemon Life had called me for one brief and desolate hour.

OFFICIAL ORGAN FUND

Providence, R. I., July 1, 1921.

RECEIPTS SINCE APRIL 1, 1921

From Treasurer, up to July 1, 1921 $18.50 Verna McGeoch (2 instalments) 10.00 E. Edward Ericson 10.00 Mr. and Mrs. Leo Fritter 2.00 John Milton Samples 1.00 Balance on Hand, April 1, 1921 8.50 ------ Total Receipts $50.00

EXPENDITURES

To E. E. Ericson, for March U. A. $46.00

Balance on Hand, July 1, 1921 $4.00

H. P. LOVECRAFT,
Custodian.

THE UNITED AMATEUR SEPTEMBER 1921

THE UNITED AMATEUR

Official Organ
of the
UNITED AMATEUR PRESS ASSOCIATION

H. P. LOVECRAFT _Official Editor_ E. EDWARD ERICSON _Official Publisher_

Issued bi-monthly by the United Amateur Press Association.

Subscription Price, 50 cents per year.

Published at Elroy, Wisconsin.

Entered as second-class mail matter at the post office at Elroy, Wis.

_SEPTEMBER 1921_

* * * * *

OFFICIAL BOARD

_President_--Mrs. Ida C. Haughton, 1372 E. Long St., Columbus, Ohio.

_First Vice-President_--Frank Belknap Long, Jr., 823 West End Ave., New York City.

_Second Vice-President_--Eleanor Beryl North, 316 Beaver Ave., State College, Pa.

_Secretary-Treasurer_--Alma B. Sanger, 667 Lilley Ave., Columbus, Ohio.

_Official Editor_--H. P. Lovecraft, 598 Angell St., Providence, R. I.

_Official Publisher_--E. Edward Ericson, Elroy, Wis.

_Laureate Recorder_--Howard R. Conover, Route 1, Cozaddale, Ohio.

_Manuscript Manager_--Grace M. Bromley, 1432 R St., N. W., Washington, D. C.

_Historian_--Myrta Alice Little, Westville, N. H.

_Supervisor of Amendments_--(To be appointed.)

_Directors_--Paul J. Campbell, Route 2, Ridgefarm, Ill.; Anne T. Renshaw, 2109 F St., N. W., Washington, D. C.; Jay Fuller Spoerri, 304 House Office Bldg., Washington, D. C.

_Department of Public Criticism_--Alfred Galpin, Jr., Chairman, 830 W. Johnson St., Madison, Wis.

_Department of Private Criticism_--Maurice W. Moe, Chairman, 2812 Chestnut St., Milwaukee, Wis.

_Recruiting Committee_--Frank Belknap Long, Jr., Chairman, Paul J. Campbell, Leo Fritter, Alfred L. Hutchinson, Gavin T. McColl, Maurice W. Moe.

_Ladies' Auxiliary Committee_--Eleanor Beryl North, Chairman, Mary Faye Durr, Jennie Eva Harris, Winifred Virginia Jackson, Margaret Mahon, Anne T. Renshaw.

* * * * *

LAUREATE TITLES

_Poetry_--S. Lilian McMullen; Honourable Mention, Mary Carver Williams.

_Story_--H. P. Lovecraft; Honourable Mention, Alfred Galpin, Jr.

_Essay_--Anna Helen Crofts and H. P. Lovecraft; Honourable Mention, Alfred Galpin, Jr.

_Editorial_--(To be awarded.)

* * * * *

LITERATI

_Poetry_--Arthur Goodenough, Olive G. Owen (deceased).

_Story_--Eleanor Barnhart Campbell.

_Editorial_--H. P. Lovecraft.

* * * * *

INFORMATION

"Amateur Journalism is for those who cultivate literature from taste or attachment, for those who write for the love of writing, for those who pursue the art of letters for its own sake. They may or may not be engaged (or aspire to be engaged) in authorship as a business, but those who are members of that profession will undoubtedly find in Amateur Journalism the air of freedom which develops personality in writing. They will find every encouragement to self-development, amid an environment of art. Amateur Journalism is for all those who do literary work for the love of it."

"The privileges of the United Amateur Press Association are: The use of the Manuscript Bureau and the columns of the papers connected with the Association; the Official Organ; attendance at Conventions; proxy representation at elections; laureate competitions, etc."

"Any person who edits or contributes prose or poetry to any amateur paper is eligible to membership."

"Application for membership must be accompanied by one dollar dues and a printed or written credential.... If rejected, dues will be returned."

"Renewal or reinstatement fee is two dollars."

"Applicants for membership should address their applications, with credential and dues, to the Secretary, Miss Alma B. Sanger, 667 Lilley Ave., Columbus, Ohio."

"Any person wishing to become connected with the Association without furnishing a credential or becoming active, may upon payment of two dollars be enrolled as a sustaining member for one year. A sustaining member shall be entitled to all the privileges of active membership except the right to vote or hold office."

"Laureate entries shall be poem, story, essay and editorial."

"Entries must be printed in an amateur paper, and a marked copy sent to the Laureate Recorder by June 1."

Anyone desiring application blanks for recruiting may receive them by applying to the Secretary.

* * * * *

IMPORTANT

Members are urged to remember the recent doubling of dues, whereby all renewals became _Two Dollars_ each.

* * * * *

The fullest of apologies is due the membership for the lateness of this issue of THE UNITED AMATEUR. A prostrating and overwhelming flood of professional duties, coupled with a state of health permitting only the shortest of working hours, has forced the editor to delay transmission of this copy to the publisher until November 4: a date which should be remembered in justice to the latter official, who is equally handicapped in the matter of conflicting duties.

THE EDITOR

Editorial

In the excellent October _Woodbee_, Mr. Leo Fritter criticises with much force the attempt of the present editor to conduct THE UNITED AMATEUR on a tolerably civilised plane. He points out that the appearance of a journal representing a fairly uniform maturity of thought and artistic development may perhaps tend to discourage those newer aspirants who have not yet attained their full literary stature, and thus defeat the educational ends of the Association.

Mr. Fritter gathers his material for complaint from the opinions of certain amateurs with whom he has held communication, and on this basis alleges a "wide-spreading dissatisfaction" with the present editorial policy. We have ourselves received numerous and enthusiastic assurances of an opposite nature, especially since the Fritter attack, so that we must rebut at least his charge that we are ignoring the membership's wishes and "trying to conform them to a mould we have arbitrarily cast according to ideas of our own." To adopt a lower standard would, indeed, be affronting a more influential element than that which may at present be dissatisfied; an element which has possibly gained higher claims to consideration through the _continuous_ nature of its services to the Association during trying times when others were silent and inactive.

But in determining the question of editorial policy, the abstract merits of the case are more important than the act of pleasing this or that person or group. Were we convinced that the existing order hampered the sincere novice, we would abandon it without pride or ceremony. That we do not, is because we are certain that retrogression and decadence would constitute a fatal mistake. The public we serve is assumed to be a genuinely progressive one, a group bent upon attaining some measure of proficiency in that sincere self-expression which is art. If it were not, it would have joined some other association of different purposes--the defiantly crude Erford pseudo-United or the complacently social and stationary National. What justifies the separate existence and support of the United is its higher aesthetic and intellectual cast; its demand for the unqualified best as a goal--which demand, by the way, must not be construed as discriminating against even the crudest beginner who honestly cherishes that goal. With these objects in mind, it will be seen that the self-satisfied exultation of the superficial, the obvious, the commonplace, and the conventional, would form the greatest possible tactical error. The goal would be unjustifiably obscured, and the aspiration of the membership stunted, through the enshrining of a false and inferior goal--a literary Golden Calf. We must envisage a genuine scale of values, and possess a model of genuine excellence toward which to strive. It would pay better to work toward a high standard oneself, than to seek to drag the standard down to fit whatever particular grade of ignorance one may happen to have at a given moment. With proper effort any member may eventually produce work of the UNITED AMATEUR grade, and such work will be certain of a cordial welcome in this office. The official organ is not so narrow as it seems; if more of our capable members would favour it with their literary contributions, the range of authors represented would not be so restricted. It is not the editor but the body of our _literati_ who must bear responsibility for the constant reappearance of certain names. This issue is headed by the same poet who headed the last two--but only because another eminent amateur, so far unrepresented during the present regime, utterly ignored our repeated requests for a contribution.

Mr. Fritter--who, I fear, wrongs etymology in his acceptance of the word _amateur_ as meaning a tyro rather than a genuine and disinterested artist--forgets that a relapse to cruder standards would totally unfit the United for serving that staunch element which has contributed most to its present welfare. Many would find a society of the lower grade intolerable; certainly it could not hope to hold the very ones who have given this organization its existing distinctiveness and pre-eminence.

Yet in the arguments of Mr. Fritter there is an underlying soundness which misapplication should not obscure to the analytical reader. He is right in lamenting, as we believe he does, the absence of a suitable publishing medium for the work of our younger writers. It is not in a spirit of affront to him that we give preference to the plan of President Haughton, as outlined in her opening message, for the re-establishment of a special magazine for credentials. We should be glad to curtail the official organ in the interest of such a magazine, as indeed we offered to do at the beginning of the term.

_Frustra laborat_, says the old proverb, _qui omnibus placere studet_. We regret that any one policy must of necessity displease a few members, yet do not see how any improvement could be effected by making a change which would merely shift the displeasure to another and even more continuously industrious group. It is significant that the Gothic party have no editorial candidate of their own to offer, so that the thankless and toilsome office has been forced upon one whose indifferent health makes it an almost unbearable burden to him. The question is one which should ultimately be decided at the polls, each party putting forward a nominee who can be depended upon to fulfil its mandates. Meanwhile the present editor, whose sincere beliefs and policies were fully known long before his unopposed election, stands ready to resign most cheerfully whenever a suitable successor can be found. Bitterness, division and personalities must be avoided at any cost, and we may be reckoned as a supporter of THE UNITED AMATEUR under any editor and policy.

THE UNITED AMATEUR NOVEMBER 1921

THE UNITED AMATEUR

Official Organ
of the
UNITED AMATEUR PRESS ASSOCIATION

H. P. LOVECRAFT _Official Editor_ E. EDWARD ERICSON _Official Publisher_

Issued bi-monthly by the United Amateur Press Association.

Subscription Price, 50 cents per year.

Published at Elroy, Wisconsin.

Entered as second-class mail matter at the post office at Elroy, Wis.

* * * * *

Members who criticised the present editor for severity during the chairmanship of the critical department are invited to take a vicarious revenge this month, observing the uncensored remarks of the present juvenile chairman concerning our pathetic ignorance. Of us Master Galpin says: "when the author approaches involved or technical subjects, he shows clearly the unfortunate circumstance that he has never profited by an advanced education." This certainly should purge us of all suspicion of conducting THE UNITED AMATEUR on too Olympian a level, although the critic qualifies his dictum by conceding that we realise our own crudity and are striving in our old age to acquire at least the rudiments of an elementary education. In the course of a few years we hope to guarantee our readers an official organ practically free from the grosser errors of spelling and grammar: meanwhile, _vivat Galpinius parvulus_!

* * * * *

Myrta Alice Little, Eugene B. Kuntz, Leo G. Schussman, Margaret Richard, Daisy Crump Whitehead, Clara L. Bell, John O. Baldwin, and the Editor.

The Tryout. October 1921. Uniform size. Contributions by H. P. Lovecraft, Margaret Richard, Beth Cheney Nichols, Arthur Goodenough, K. Leyson Brown, Horace L. Lawson, John Milton Samples, Washington Van Dusen, Leo G. Schussman, Lilian Middleton, Anita Roberta Kirksey, and the Editor.

THE UNITED AMATEUR. March 1921. Official Organ of the United Amateur Press Association. 14 Pages and cover. 7◊10. Contributions by Winifred Virginia Jackson, Lilian Middleton, Frank Belknap Long, Jr., J. E. Hoag, Anna H. Crofts, Eleanor Beryl North, Ward Phillips, and the Editor, H. P. Lovecraft.

THE UNITED AMATEUR. May 1921. 8 pages. 7◊10. Contributions by Lilian Middleton, Alfred Galpin, Jr., Eugene B. Kuntz, Margaret Mahon, Winifred Virginia Jackson, and Adam Harold Brown.

THE UNITED AMATEUR. July 1921. 6 pages. 7◊10. Contributions by Lilian Middleton and Myrta Alice Little.

The United Co-Operative. April 1921. 16 pages. 6◊9. Contributions by Lilian Middleton, Elizabeth Berkeley and Lewis Theobald, Jr., W. Edwin Gibson, John C. Pryor, H. P. Lovecraft, Samuel Loveman, Eugene B. Kuntz. Published under the auspices of the U. A. P. A. by the following members: Anne Tillery Renshaw, Rev. John Clinton Pryor, W. Edwin Gibson, H. P. Lovecraft.

The Woodbee. October 1921. 16 pages and cover. 5◊7. Contributions by Bess Ballou, Alma B. Sanger, Norma Helena Marie Sanger, Leo Fritter, Edna M. Haughton, Peggy Hepner Fritter, Henriette Ziegfeld, and the President, Ida C. Haughton. Official Organ of the Woodbee Press Club, Columbus, Ohio.

Ziegfeld's Follies. September 1921. 1 page. 5Ω◊8Ω. Contributions by the Editor, Arthur F. Ziegfeld.

Ziegfeld's Follies. October 1921. 4 pages. Uniform size. Contributions by Ida C. Haughton, Leo Fritter, and the Editor, Arthur F. Ziegfeld.

MYRTA ALICE LITTLE,
Historian.

OFFICIAL ORGAN FUND

Providence, R. I., December 29, 1921.

On Hand, July 1, 1921 $4.00

RECEIPTS SINCE JULY 1

Sonia H. Greene $50.00 From Treasury, up to Dec. 29, 1921 41.60 H. P. Lovecraft 15.40 Mr. and Mrs. Leo Fritter 6.00 Howard R. Conover 5.00 Woodbee Press Club 5.00 Theodore D. Gottlieb 1.00 Ida C. Haughton 1.00 ------- Total Receipts $129.00

EXPENDITURES

To E. E. Ericson, for May U. A. $24.00 To E. E. Ericson, for July U. A. 18.00 To E. E. Ericson, for Sept. U. A. 36.00 To E. E. Ericson, for Nov. U. A. 36.00 ------- Total Expenditures $114.00

Balance on Hand, December 29, 1921 $15.00

H. P. LOVECRAFT,
Custodian.

THE UNITED AMATEUR JANUARY 1922

THE UNITED AMATEUR

Official Organ
of the
UNITED AMATEUR PRESS ASSOCIATION

H. P. LOVECRAFT _Official Editor_ E. EDWARD ERICSON _Official Publisher_

Issued bi-monthly by the United Amateur Press Association.

Subscription Price, 50 cents per year.

Published at Elroy, Wisconsin.

Entered as second-class mail matter at the post office at Elroy, Wis.

Editorial

Amidst the prevailing efforts of a small but pugnacious group to "liven" up the United through attacks on the Official Organ, a few basic principles should be remembered by those who stand in bewilderment.

Our constitution does not define the functions of THE UNITED AMATEUR beyond making imperative the publication of certain official documents. The rest is left to an unwritten combination of tradition and editorial judgment. Any editor, once elected, is absolutely in control of the magazine aside from the essential official matter; his only external obligation being a tacit recognition of the prevailing objects of the Association. In the present case a narrow circle of agitators seems to be seeking political capital by accusing the editor of placing too high an estimate on the membership and purposes of the United.

Since the whole development of the Association is involved in this matter, it is important that a prompt and perfect understanding be reached. The opinions of all members should be known, and if the editor finds that he has been in error, he will be glad to arrange for the accommodation of the Organ to the wishes of the majority. Up to the present time, despite the florid overstatements of the few who are trying to work up a new and wholly artificial dissatisfaction, this office has received _not so much as one complaint_ as to policy save from the two politicians who are seeking to lower the United's standards. Endorsements as to the existing policy have been many, and as long as these remain so tremendously in the Majority, it would be a betrayal of trust to make a change to please a tiny group. If there are those who differ, why do they not speak?

Since truth is the only perfect clarifier when politics seeks to becloud, it is necessary that the editor state his policy here and now with the utmost candour. Shorn of all irrelevant things, that policy is simply the maintenance of those standards established in the United by the departure of the chronically political element in 1912. Prior to that time the Official Organ was mainly a bulletin of reports: not, as the present agitators would imply, a repository for indiscriminate amateur writings. The standard developed since then is the creation of no one person, but a logical outgrowth of the rising calibre of a vital and progressive society. It is neither one of favouritism nor one of autocracy; but merely one of _stimulation_. It is an embodiment of the United's desire to let the Official Organ exemplify the members' progress by using the best available material. No genuine aspirant has ever been frowned upon, or so far as we know given any ground for discouragement. The Organ is a beckoner and encourager, designed to inspire the members to renewed efforts to produce work worthy of symbolising the United. Would anyone so far insult the Association as to wish its official exponent to cater to that type of mediocrity which neither improves nor wishes to improve? Our columns are open to all who toil for the fruits of art, and statements to the contrary cannot be interpreted as other than irresponsibly ignorant or craftily misrepresentative. While insistence on a certain degree of merit is of course necessary, it is not true that THE UNITED AMATEUR makes any arbitrary restrictions. The Organ was not designed for the publication of various members' work, nor is access to its columns one of the special objects of membership, as certain agitators are artfully intimating. But notwithstanding those technical points, all proficient writers are welcome. It is illuminating, in view of the prevalent loose statements, to reflect that throughout the present editor's service _not more than three manuscripts have been rejected_; and that even these three were or will be elsewhere placed. Those seeking an Associational disturbance will not scruple to take advantage of every outward appearance which seems to favour them--unavoidable delays, spatial limitations, and other things interfering with prompt publication of all matter offered to this office. The present editor will be denounced as a "tyrant" by elements attempting to degrade standards which he did not establish!

The life and well-being of the United are at stake, and it is imperative that the membership exercise the most careful and independent reflection before accepting the views of radicals bent on retrogressive experiments.

THE UNITED AMATEUR MARCH 1922

OFFICIAL ORGAN FUND

Providence, R. I., April 25, 1922.

On Hand, December 29, 1921 $15.00

RECEIPTS SINCE DECEMBER 29

From Treasury, up to April 25 $31.00 Woodbee Press Club 10.00 H. P. Lovecraft 7.00 Anonymous 5.00 Mr. and Mrs. Leo Fritter 2.00 Ida C. Haughton 2.00 ------ Total Receipts $72.00

EXPENDITURES

To E. E. Ericson, for January U. A. $36.00
To E. E. Ericson, for March U. A. 36.00
------
Total Expenditures $72.00

Balance on Hand, April 25, 1922 None

H. P. LOVECRAFT,
Custodian.

THE UNITED AMATEUR MAY 1922

OFFICIAL ORGAN FUND

Providence, R. I., June 23, 1922.

On Hand, April 25, 1922 None

_Receipts Since April 25_

From Treasury, up to June 23 $28.00 Alfred Galpin, Jr. 6.00 Woodbee Press Club 5.00 Mr. and Mrs. Leo Fritter 2.00 ------ Total Receipts $41.00

_Expenditures_

To E. E. Ericson, for May U. A. $24.00

Balance on Hand, June 23, 1922 $17.00

H. P. LOVECRAFT, Custodian.

At the Home of Poe

_A Poem in Prose_

To H. P. Lovecraft

FRANK BELKNAP LONG, JR.

The home of Poe! It is like a fairy dwelling, a gnomic palace built of the aether of dreams. It is tiny and delicate and lovely, and replete with memories of sere leaves in November and of lilies in April. It is a castle of vanished hopes, of dimly-remembered dreams, of sad memories older than the deluge. The dead years circle slowly and solemnly around its low white walls, and clothe it in a mystic veil of unseen tears. And many marvellous stories could this quaint little old house tell, many weird and cryptic stories of him of the Raven hair, and high, pallid brow, and sad, sweet face, and melancholy mien; and of the beloved Virginia, that sweet child of a thousand magic visions, child of the lonesome, pale-gray latter years, child of the soft and happy South. And how the dreamer of the spheres must have loved this strange little house. Every night the hollow boards of its porch must have echoed to his footfall, and every morn the great rising sun must have sent its rays through the little window, and bathed the lovely tresses of the dream-child in mystical yellow. And perhaps there was laughter within the walls of that house--laughter and merriment and singing. But we know that the Evil One came at last, the grim humourless spectre who loves not beauty, and is not of this world. And we know that the house of youth and of love became a house of death, and that memories bitter as the tears of a beautiful woman assailed the dreamer within. And at last he himself left that house of mourning and sought solace among the stars. But the house remains a vision out of a magical book; a thing seen darkly as in a looking-glass; but lovely beyond the dreams of mortals, and ineffably sad.

Transcriber's Notes:

Minor typographical errors have been corrected without note. Significant amendments, author's corrections and further notes have been recorded below. American and British forms of typography, in addition to variant, dialect and archaic spellings, have been retained except where obvious errors exist.

Author's Corrections:

p. 14, see p. 30 for details:
'long' corrected to _longer_.

p. 49, see p. 60 for details:
'sublime' corrected to _sublimer_;
'star's' corrected to _stars_;
'father's' corrected to _fathers_;
'hollow'd' corrected to _hallow'd_.

Transcriber's Amendments:

p. 7, 'insanity' amended to _inanity_: 'triteness and inanity';
'permissable' amended to _permissible_: 'permissible clause';
'breath' amended to _breadth_: 'present moderate breadth'.

p. 8, 'woud' amended to _would_: 'would do much';
'editorials' amended to _editorial_: 'Mr Stokes' editorial';
'istincts' amended to _instincts_: 'in our instincts';
'amateurs' amended to _amateur_: 'in amateur circles'.

p. 9, 'from' amended to _form_: 'Credentials form the'.

p. 11, 'scacely' amended to _scarcely_: 'but scarcely equal';
'colums' amended to _columns_: 'Coyote's editorial columns'.