Writings in the United Amateur, 1915-1922Lovecraft, H. P. (Howard Phillips)
History
Writings in the United Amateur, 1915-1922
Lovecraft, H. P. (Howard Phillips)
Essays; Literature -- History and criticism; Periodicals
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.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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