Writings in the United Amateur, 1915-1922 Read online

  THE UNITED AMATEUR MAY 1919

  Helene Hoffman Cole--Litterateur

  Howard Phillips Lovecraft

  Of the various authors who have contributed to the fame of ourAssociation, few can be compared in sustained ability and breadth ofinterests to the late Helene Hoffman Cole. Represented in the press as apoet, critic, essayist, and fiction-writer, Mrs. Cole achieveddistinction in all of these departments; rising during recent years toan almost unique prominence in the field of book-reviewing. Hercompositions display a diversity of attainments and catholicity of tastehighly remarkable in one of so relatively slight an age, familiarknowledge of foreign and archaic literature supplying a maturebackground too seldom possessed by amateur authors.

  It is as a poet that Mrs. Cole has been least known, since her verse wasnot of frequent occurrence in the amateur press. A glance at the fewexisting specimens, however, demonstrates conclusively that her poeticalgifts were by no means inconsiderable; and that had she chosen such acourse, she might easily have become one of the leading bards of theUnited. Verse like the unnamed autumn pieces in =Leaflets= and =TheHellenian= possess an aptness and cleverness of fancy which bespeak thetrue poet despite trivial technical imperfections.

  In fiction the extent of Mrs. Cole's genius was still further revealed,nearly all her narratives moving along with impeccable grace andfluency. Her plots were for the most part light and popular in nature,and would have reflected credit on any professional writer of modernmagazine tales. Of her stories, "The Picture," appearing in =Leaflets=for October, 1913, is an excellent example. More dramatic in quality is"Her Wish," in the August, 1914, =Olympian=. This brief tragedy of aSerbian and his bride is perhaps one of the very first tales writtenaround the World War.

  But it is in the domain of the literary essay that this authoress roseto loftiest altitude. Of wide and profound reading, and of keen anddiscriminating mind, Mrs. Cole presented in a style of admirable graceand lucidity her reactions to the best works of numerous standardauthors, ancient and modern, English and foreign. The value of such workin amateurdom, extending the cultural outlook and displaying the outsideworld as seen through the eyes of a gifted, respected, andrepresentative member, scarce needs the emphasis of the commentator. Hewho can link the amateur and larger spheres in a pleasing and acceptablefashion, deserves the highest approbation and panegyric that the Unitedcan bestow. Notable indeed are Mrs. Cole's sound reviews of Sir ThomasBrowne's "Hydriotaphia" in THE UNITED AMATEUR, of "Pelle, the Conqueror"in =The Tryout=, and of numerous South American works but little knownto Northern readers. Of equal merit are such terse and delightful essaysas "M. Tullius Cicero, Pater Patriae," where the essayist invests aclassical theme with all the living charm of well-restrainedsubjectivity. The style of these writings is in itself captivating; thevocabulary containing enough words of Latin derivation to rescue it fromthe Boeotian harshness typical of this age. All that has been said ofMrs. Cole's broader reviews may be said of her amateur criticism, muchof which graced the columns of =The Olympian= and other magazines.

  The exclusively journalistic skill of Mrs. Cole now remains to beconsidered, and this we find as brilliant as her other attainments. Asthe editor of numerous papers during every stage of her career, sheexhibited phenomenal taste and enterprise; never failing to createenthusiasm and evoke encomium with her ventures both individual andco-operative. Her gift for gathering, selecting and writing news wasquite unexampled. As the reporter =par excellence= of both associations,she was the main reliance of other editors for convention reports andgeneral items; all of which were phrased with an ease, urbanity, andpersonality that lent them distinctiveness. Not the least of herqualities was a gentle and unobtrusive humour which enlivened herlighter productions. Amateurdom will long remember the quaint piquancyof the issues of =The Martian= which she cleverly published in the nameof her infant son.

  During these latter days nearly every amateur has expressed a kind ofincredulity that Mrs. Cole can indeed be no more, and in this thepresent writer must needs share. To realise that her gifted pen hasceased to enrich our small literary world requires a painful effort onthe part of everyone who has followed her brilliant progress in thefield of letters. The United loses more by her sudden and untimelydemise than can well be reckoned at this moment.