ships among scholars and aspirants
capable of stimulating and aiding one another's efforts. It aims at the
revival of the uncommercial spirit; the real creative thought which
modern conditions have done their worst to suppress and eradicate. It
seeks to banish mediocrity as a goal and standard; to place before its
members the classical and the universal and to draw their minds from the
commonplace to the beautiful.

The United aims to assist those whom other forms of literary influence
cannot reach. The non-university man, the dwellers in distant places,
the recluse, the invalid, the very young, the elderly; all these are
included within our scope. And beside our novices stand persons of
mature cultivation and experience, ready to assist for the sheer joy of
assisting. In no other society does wealth or previous learning count
for so little. Merit and aspiration form the only criterion we apply to
our members, nor has poverty or primitive crudity ever retarded the
steady progress of any determined aspirant among us. We ask only that
the goal be high; that the souls of our band be seeking the antique
legacy of verdant Helicon.

Practically, we are aware of many obstacles; yet we think we are in the
main fulfilling our functions. Naturally, we do not expect to make a
Shelley or Swinburne of every rhymer who joins us, or a Poe or Dunsany
of every teller of tales; but if we enable these persons to appreciate
Shelley and Swinburne and Poe and Dunsany, and teach them how to shed
their dominant faults and use words correctly and expressively, we
cannot call ourselves unsuccessful and only genius can lead to the
heights; it is our province merely to point the way and assist on the
gentler, lower slopes.

The United, then, stands for education in the eternal truths of literary
art, and for personal aid in the realisation of its members' literary
potentialities. It is a university, stripped of every artificiality and
conventionality, and thrown open to all without distinction. Here may
every man shine according to his genius, and here may the small as well
as the great writer know the bliss of appreciation and the glory of
recognised achievement.

H. P. LOVECRAFT.

THE UNITED AMATEUR

Official Organ of the United Amateur Press Association

VOLUME XX ELROY, WIS., SEPTEMBER, 1920 NUMBER 1

Poetry and the Gods

ANNA HELEN CROFTS AND