00:00:06:06 - 00:00:07:05
Andrew
Welcome to Voluminous the letters of H.P. Lovecraft.

00:00:09:21 - 00:00:14:22
Sean
In addition to classic works of gothic horror fiction. HPL wrote thousands of fascinating letters.

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Andrew
In each episode. We'll read and discuss one of them.

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Andrew
I'm Andrew Leman, and.

00:00:18:24 - 00:00:22:20
Sean
And I'm Sean Branney. Together, we run the H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society.

00:00:23:02 - 00:00:35:13
Andrew
For today's letter, I chose Written in a couple of Installments starting on August 31st of 1921, and continuing in mid-September of the same year.

00:00:35:14 - 00:00:36:08
Sean
Who's a two?

00:00:36:09 - 00:00:38:22
Andrew
It's two  And with the Gallamo.

00:00:38:22 - 00:00:42:15
Andrew
His friends Mauresmo and Alfred Galpin.

00:00:42:21 - 00:00:45:18
Sean
Hmm. A long letter. Well, by God, we should get started on it.

00:00:45:24 - 00:00:49:24
Andrew
Here it comes. Wednesday, August 30.

00:00:49:24 - 00:30:13:13
Andrew
Wednesday, August 31 1921. 

Well, Gents, I can’t tell you how it delights yore Grandpa’s heart to get back to the old GALLOMO mode of expression! 
Nevermore let the thought of dissolution cross the threshold  of our minds, but let us remain for ever the Three Musketeers of amateur philosophy—one for all, and all for one!

Where shall I begin? I left Mocrates in the grey of the morning before I departed on that trip to Boston to meet Mrs. Renshaw, and Galba a few days later, just as I had received 
an urgent invitation to repeat my Hampstead- Haverhill visit. 
Verily, my mail records more of social activity than in the old days; though I shall soon plunge once more into the unbroken solitude of former years. 
It is strange to move among mankind—I smile sardonically as I mingle with the race of which I am only nominally and physically a part; for is not my spirit of the cold aether 
and the far spaces beyond the Milky Way?

And yet I shall open my missive with more social chronicles—beginning with a simple event which pleased me more than any elaborate convention, yet
which took me no more than twenty miles from home. I have frequently lamented in my accounts of travel, the absence of that carefree kind of activity to which I was accustomed in youth. Amidst the
formal and heterogeneous gatherings of amateurdom, I have longed for a return to boyish life; and for a mingling with crowds of youths only, bent on crude song and innocent merriment. You will recall 
that in describing my Allston-Boston walk of July 2, with Morton, Kleiner, and Dench, I compared its songful stagness with the atmosphere of those older, happier walks with
“the fellers” back in 1906, ’07, ’08, or ’09, when I was young and all the world was gay. And now I am able to record a brief return to just that youth, with promise of occasional repetitions in the future!
Truly, the hand of time is not proof against all the artifices of mankind!

On Monday, August 8, as I was splashing in the bathtub about 9 a.m., I was summoned on the telephone by my best of all boyhood friends—Harold Bateman Munroe, with whom I played joyously through long years of primary,
grammar, and high school experiences or their chronological equivalents.

Not for any mortal other than Harold, youse guys, and perhaps Klein, would I have stirred out of that refreshing thermal tide; but H. B. M. is H. B. M., 
so I made shift to conquer the difficulties of the situation as best I might.

Attaining the instrument at last, I was rewarded for my fraternal devotion; for what should Harold propose but a trip through our boyhood play-scenes—East Providence, 
Seekonk, and Rehoboth—in his camouflaged Ford! Was I on? I’ll enlighten the universe! 
In less than an hour we were spinning over the old Taunton Pike, drinking in the sights on which we had once gazed with the eyes of youth. Much was changed—green fields had here and there become
tainted with the sties of foreign canaille, white houses had turned red and red houses white, and one old mill through whose rotting timbers we had played had collapsed from sheer old age,—but the spirit of rock-ribbed and
immutable New-England was unconquered, and among remembered vistas we were boys once more. I had not been there for eight or nine years, and the happy sequence of old panoramas was paradise to me. There lay antique ReH.
hoboth Village beneath its centuried canopy of giant oak branches, dreaming stilly in the green twilight it has known since Queen Anne sate on the throne;
its simple houses ever the same, and its soul lingering in the past. There too lay the hills and the woods where Indians and Englishmen once fought, and where in our time we too fought showy frays; 
happy legions with the bloodthirstiness of boy-barbarians. 
Our ride took us to sleepy Taunton, a city unchanged since the forties, where a boy who had run away to Civil War might return and find nothing strange save the trolleys on the old horse cars.
And as we returned, we resolved to visit the most sacred shrine of all, that spot on Great Meadow Hill where we had made a clubhouse by enlarging an old wood-cutter’s shanty, 
and where we had for years assembled for rites of juvenile fellowship. 

At Wheeler’s Corner we turned from the level pike to enter the familiar rutted road and feel the familiar bumps—almost as bad in the Ford as on our boyhood wheels. 
Not a thing was changed—one might dream that scarce a leaf had fallen, and that the whole country had lain quiet under a spell until the coming of the old crowd to waken it. 
Up the long slope we jolted, past the last farmhouse—the mournful old Moore place where even the young children seemed old and wan with strange solitude—and finally
attained the entrance to the forest that marks the neighbourhood of the summit. 

Leaving the Ford, we plodded along the stony path between the oaks and maples, marvelling at the new growth of trees which had been cut down
in our time. The clubhouse, we soon realised, would no longer stand bleakly under the sun commanding a vast horizon; but would hide its old age in a
leavy covert of young saplings. We speculated on how much of the edifice we should still find—Harold believed that only the fireplace—built with the aid
of old James Kay the Civil War veteran—would be left standing. That was of great stones, and James Kay was a splendid mason who had worked on Carolina
fortifications during the war. He died long ago, God rest him, but we felt that his work would survive his body. 

I, on the other hand, maintained that we might find some of the newer walls; not indeed the original woodman’s hut, but the portion of new pine boards that we had added. And so, still
speculating, we rounded the bend in the path and prepared to see what the monster Time might have left for us—when behold! Our youth came again upon us a flame.
For there amidst the growing trees in awkward grace stood the symbol of our old days in wonted wholeness—the boyhood clubhouse, erect in its tar-papered grotesqueness, and intact in every part through all the years!! 
There was neither vandalism nor decay—the lock was gone, but that was all. 
Even the old pictures hung on the walls of this haunted place; this little world of the past, where even Time had eased his scourging in the absence of any human
audience. What shadowy companies, moreover, could we picture about the grey cement heart where the pebbled initials G. M. C. C. still lay fixed as we
had stamped them when it was new and wet! We seemed to see the old gang as it was—Ron, and Ken, and Stuart,2 with the fresh faces and clear eyes of
youth. They are not dead, but the boy in them is dead, so that their ghosts appear only in this silent and forgotten place. And as we gazed about, Harold
conceived the idea of regaining for brief snatches the youth that we have lost. If all goes well, we shall refit this house of miraculous preservation, and bring
back to it the men who were once the old gang; and perhaps on some nights in the golden autumn when the logs burn red in the stone fireplace the ghosts
may pass back into the aging bodies to which they belonged of old, and the gang will live once again. And perhaps we shall sing in the olden way, and
teach the birds of autumn the songs known to the birds of other autumns, and awake the old trees to memories of strains that stirred leaves now fallen.

Then as we drive home in the late night the long road will echo as of old, and the voices of men shall sing the songs of boys—the songs of fifteen years
ago—“In the Golden Autumn Time, My Sweet Elaine”, “When the Mocking Bird is Singing in the Wildwood”, and all the others that we learned with such
care, and taught with such care to J——— S———, who was a trifle dull and who was our mascot. And perhaps we may some day have J——— with
us at a session, and chide him as we go back for his slovenly dress, and straighten his tie and re-crease his felt hat as we approach East Providence
Six Corners, where we are ashamed to be seen with him under the strong electric lights. Who the deuce says we are over thirty? He’s a liar! But we shall
be careful to include only such boys as have not imbibed too strongly the persistent delusion of having grown up. Only these shall gather as of old
around the hearth and plan for the still distant years of adulthood. 
To others we shall seem odd—but what the hell do we care? Who would not be odd, if he might thereby re-enter the sealed door of his youth? But I’d better turn off 
the wosh.

My next trip, that of Wednesday, August 17, was of prosaic modernness.
On account of the innumerable feuds amongst the Boston amateurs, Miss Hamlet insisted that I make a call at Dorchester separately from the main
event of meeting Mrs. Renshaw. I missed two trains through the delay of a beastly headache, arrived just as Miss H. had departed on a trip to see poor old
Mrs. Bell, and though I gave not a damn about it, was forced by an overhospitable family to promise to make a special trip another day, lest the disappointment
quite break their hearts! 
Gawd, what a lot of fuss over a poor old nobody—flattery is the universal order of things around Boston. What moved me to promise was the sight of my own work saved and pasted in a scrap
book. It is not everywhere that Grandpa can pose as a great man! 
After I broke away from the cordiality of Elsinore, I made for the Curry School of Expression, where Mrs. Renshaw was holding forth, and there found the great
leader, attended by her inseparable satellite Miss Crist. Mrs. R. was about as her pictures shew—stout and homely, but highly cultivated and as urbane an
arguer as James F. Morton Jr. We departed immediately for Newton Centre, where Mrs. R. is visiting a sister of Miss Crist, arguing violently on the way
about Haeckel, Hegel, Kant, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, cosmogony, and other pleasant things. Mrs. R. is still an idealist, but I think she is waking up gradually.

Geology has radically modified her formerly bland theism, and within a decade she ought to be a thorough materialist. She is not one to stand still—
the only trouble is that she may move in a circle like Morton. The argument was civil throughout, and interrupted only during the wait at Trinity Place Station,
where occasional passing trains would cut one or the other off just as the fate of the universe was being decided. 
At Newton Centre the first stop was made at the Wurtz household where Mrs. R. is visiting. Here Miss Crist was temporarily dropped, whilst the Renshaw-Theobald arguing team forged onward
to Mortonstrasse 53, where Mrs. McMullen had invited us to dinner.

Here came quite a surprise for me, for despite the new feuds I found Mrs. Miniter there! 
She was very cordial, and just as flattering as ever. At dinner were Mesdames Renshaw, Miniter, & McMullen, to say nothing of Grandpa. 
I had the honour of telling Mrs. McMullen of her new laureateship, and she was vastly pleased. 
Later there arrived the Crist-Wurtzes and the Aonian W. V. J., the latter having an interesting tilt with Mrs. Miniter in cattishly civil dialogue
whose iciness was delectably veiled with politeness. 
Afterward, I am told, Mrs. Miniter decided to introduce fiction into her account of the meeting; and has been telling the world that “W. V. J. did not speak to her for over an hour
after she arrived”. Hell, how the cats fight! 
But I am outside it all—a cosmic being apart, as ’twere. Although I am of course on the United or Jackson-McMullen side in any real warfare, I shall be civil to Mrs. Miniter as long as she
is civil to me, despite the view of W. V. J. that I ought to observe a more marked coolness as a mark of United loyalty. No mere poet can tell me anything
about United loyalty! Hell—who is the United anyway? (toot-toot!) But speaking of cats—the best one present was the real thing, a tiny grey kitten,
part Angora, that a neighbour brought in at Mrs. McM’s suggestion—Mrs.McM being aware of my predilection for the (genuine) feline species. 
He was a good double handful, with an inexpressibly pretty face and eyes, and a collar with tiny bells that tinkled as he cavorted with the innocent sprightliness of
youth. Most of the time he sat in his Grandpa Theobald’s lap, chewing either my waistcoat buttons or my fingers according to his juvenile taste. 
This neighbour also brought in twin collie dogs—an interesting pair, which completed rather a quaint menagerie. 
Conversation ranged from the grave and scholastic to the gay and humorous, and was diversified by songs by the two musical members—Mesdames McMullen and Renshaw. 
I was asked to sing, but knew enough to refuse. 
Among the subjects broached was a commercial arrangement whereby I might revise English themes for Mrs. R.’s classes at
Research University—by mail, of course. 
That would not, perhaps, be as bad as Bush work if the pay were adequate. A wilder suggestion of Mrs. R.’s was that I write a text-book of rhetoric!
The riot broke up at 11:10, and I departed for my usual night train. The next evening Mrs. R. was to meet the Hub Club (whom W. V. J. and Lilian
Middleton will no longer meet), and Mrs. Miniter invited me to stay over at 20 Webster, but I was wretchedly tired and decided to omit the sequel. 
I reached home at 1:20, drenched by a sudden shower which caught me just before I attained the portal. Mrs. R. later said she was surprised at my aspect. 
She had expected something conspicuously awkward, eccentric, and hermitish.

On the following Friday I received still another invitation, as Galba already knows. 
This time Hampstead and Haverhill again, by request of the super-
hospitable Littles,6 who so delightfully approximate the state of England’s rural gentry. 
It was for a longer time than the other visit, but I compromised
on two nights, and arranged to use the final evening on my homeward trip to discharge the debt of courtesy by calling at the Hamlet Castle. Leaving Providence
Thursday morning at 11:00, I arrived in Haverhill at 2:15, and was met with a horseless carriage containing Miss Little, her mother, and a bearded
and pleasant uncle whom I had not seen previously but whom I liked at once.

In describing these rural magnates I am happily able to discard that tone of sarcasm with which I describe certain more urban amateurs; for verily, they
are of the wholesome Saxon gentry that needs no apology or allowances. 
In a word, they are all right; of one’s own sort, as it were. We first proceeded to
408 Groveland, where we found no visible Smithy.7 We thought he was out, but later learned he was merely asleep. After that we visited picturesque Winnikenni
Castle, a mock-chateau of ivied stone that crowns a noble steep.
Here, in certain angles of the hoary wall, one’s mind is wafted magically back to the tenth or eleventh century; and it should not surprise one to behold the
wraith of some armoured knight or retainer pacing silently up and down the platform. Haverill is some town, we’ll tell the world! After a long drive over
gentle hill from parts of which spread wondrous panoramas of steeplestudded valley, we attained Little Manor once more, and I made at once for
the crowded library. 
Later I saw strawberries growing for the first time in my life, and even condescended to soil my hands by picking some. In the evening
I produced the binoculars, planisphere, and astronomical handbook I had brought with me, and sought by a flashlight’s aid to ascend the neighbouring
“Pinnacle” for purposes of celestial observation. 

It was a wild climb through the spectral wood in the dusk, the light gleaming fitfully, and the sentient boughs reaching out to claw at the faces of the travellers. And finally when
the summit was attained, fancy my curses at discovering that the god damn sky had clouded up too much to permit of observation! 
The descent was accomplished
by another route, including strange shadows where goblins danced in the shadow. Though the expedition was a failure, the climb itself
may perhaps furnish an idea or two for a story. 

Next day I read some of my new hideous yarns aloud at the hillside camp, and received one good suggestion from the audience regarding the improvement of “The Outsider”. 
Not that I hadn’t thought of the point before, but I was not sure. In the afternoon an Haverhill trip was planned. 

First came Smiffkins, who had received the
note I had put in his mail slot the day before, and who was ready and waiting under a gnarled tree. How I like that queer old cuss! He is in truth a wild
woodland thing—a real faun if there ever was one—and if I were an artist I would draw him with goat’s feet, or half merged into the trunk of some gigantic
and shadowy tree. Among other things, he told me of a coming split in the National, engineered by the vindictive Hyde-Outwater gang8 who were so
beautifully licked at the Boston convention. Not that I relish seeing the enemy suffer—but this thing will not hurt the United any! Now who will call us
the “Divided Amateur Press Association”!9 After Smithy came the big event—a trip through the museum of the Haverhill Historical Society. This is
not supposed to be open Fridays, but the influence of the Littles is far from Little, and it was opened for the special benefit of the present expedition! Of
all fascinating places, this comes near the top of the list. In its nucleus it is still a private Colonial mansion of brick, inhabited by the original family, whose
head is the director of the museum. This family dates from the early eighteenth century, and its natural accumulation of rare furniture is more vital and
time-annihilating than any formal collection in a more formal museum. 
Not least pleasing of the items is the lord of the manor himself, Leonard Smith, Gent., in whose blood is combined all the best strains of the land. 
In him we behold the true British Colonial—the purest of the ancient stock—and I found his conversation a delight; later telling the Littles that I like all
Haverhill Smiths, both patrician and plebeian. I took a picture of Mr. Smith in his entrancing old-fashioned garden, and will shew you a copy if it turns
out well. He is venerable, white-headed, and white-bearded, and a true artist in soul. His landscape gardens are a joy, and his interior decorations something
to admire. Annexed to the old mansion is the new museum building, where repose a multiplicity of Merrimack Valley antiquities. 
One could stay in this paradise indefinitely, but other attractions called. On the premises, not far from the main buildings, stands a small white house of one story and loft. 
This is the ancient Ward house, built in 1640, and the oldest edifice of any kind I have ever beheld. The musty odour of the place is appalling, but deters
no one from entering—for who would not like to stand within walls that were reared but a decade after the Massachusetts-Bay Colony was founded,
and but a score of years after the first white pilgrim landed at Plymouth? 
On the wall was a framed copy of the MERRIMACK ADVERTISER for some date in 1815. There is nothing new under the sun—I noted a poet’s corner
with verse almost as bad as some of the stuff I revise! But who could tell in one letter—even a GALLOMO—of all that such a museum contains? It
amused me to note that despite their influence none of the Littles had ever visited the place before. Only Miss M. A. Little made this trip, but now they
are all going! It was now evening, an after a detour to the business section to pick up the younger Little sister the party returned to Little Towers. After
dinner the family again demanded that Grandpa amuse them with some of his theatrical impersonations—and believe us, you’d never know the old man
in some of the things they made him put on! 

In my acting days I went in for the heavy villainous stuff; but the Hampsteaders seem partial to the Julian Entinge stuff, and could not be satisfied till they had Grandpa laced into a 
hoop-skirt outfit with bonnet and parasol to match! Though it was hard to think of dialogue for such a makeup, they seemed satisfied with my improvisations;
and compensated by prolonged applause for the injury inflicted upon my patriarchal dignity. The evening concluded with an attempt to solve a new
checkerboard puzzle of Mr. Little’s; and here I must confess that I failed as miserably as all the rest. I have asked them to let me know if they ever solve
it. On the next and final day there was a morning session at the camp, during which I used my binoculars to sweep the valley below—to sweep yet not
clean it, for what could need cleaning in a region like Hampstead?
Believe Grandpa, but that panorama of spires and roofs amidst foliage is Something which would make anyone but a hardened modern write heroick couplets indefinitely!
I was surprised to note that the Littles had no telescope or binoculars, and that the younger sister had never used any before—strange are the
lacunae of rural life. The noontide period was occupied in the construction of a cake by Miss Little for our friend Tryout—a masterpiece designed to outdo
the one sent him some time ago by honest old Mrs. K. Leyson Brown. 
There was a large cake for Smiffkins himself and several little cakes for his grandchildren;
and I am sure that poor Mrs. Brown’s eclipse was complete! 

We took it to him on the trip which carried me to my train, and I had the honour of carrying the main cake and handing it to Tryout, thus obtaining an infinitesimal
spark of reflected glory at the achievement. He seemed transported, and has evidently decided to immortalise the whole Little gens in his next
TRYOUT, for he has just written me asking the name of the father—which is Albert, as I shall presently tell him. After the presentation I was whirled to the
station and duly dumped, later puffing southward on the uncertain Boston & Maine amidst many courteous invitations to come again and often. Some
hospitality! I am convinced that I am by nature a simple rustic, whose genuine aesthetic sympathies are excited only by rural virtues and scenery, and to
whom the pastoral is therefore the only authentic medium of expression. 
My urbanism and sophistication are but an intellectual cloak assumed academically through philosophical conviction, and touching no spring of real creative
art. I shall never really care for modernistic expression, no matter how long I try, for I am of the old order, with every perceptive faculty attuned to
the old and simple images. After the country, the city seems cheap and tawdry to me—I can sneer loftily and intellectually at the ecstasy of a Nature-poet
over a sweep of hill, but damn it all, that same view will move me to admiration when the alleged emotional stimuli of the modern and disillusioned poet
leave me cold! I must stay in my room and keep my eyes from Nature if I expect to become truly sophisticated. Otherwise, I shall be strongly moved by
things which are too simple to move a true poet of today. But stay! I must not display prejudice—and after all, the rural landscape would probably bore me
to death after a week or two. Everything is a bore in the end.

And speaking of bores—as I puffed out of Haverhill the Hamlet call still lay ahead of me. I had given a forewarning that I might be “unavoidably” delayed
till evening, and hoped my prospective hosts would not do anything elaborate—but Gawd ’elp us! When I finally reached there via B. & M., elevated,
and surface car, I found that they had a near-convention staged for me! 

There was an ambitious dinner of lamb and sundry fixings, and many reproaches at my “unavoidable” tardiness. As a local delegate Miss Hamlet had
unearthed a literary protege of hers—the Mildred LaVoie whose name has lingered inactively on our lists since 1916, and who is a young person of undistinguished
aspect and ancestry; not uncomely, but more suggestive of the artless nymph than of the fictional titan. This quiet and unassuming individual
writes stories, but is afraid to send them anywhere—even to TRYOUT—for publication; hence has remained an amateur nonentity for five years despite
the efforts of Miss Hamlet to bring her genius to the world’s notice. I was not very enthusiastic about the process of LaVoian assimilation till after the maid
in question had departed, and Miss H. produced a story of hers which she had secured surreptitiously. Then I perceived that the work was not half bad
in its way—shewing at least clear observation, command of detail, and a keener picture of the subject matter than mere words. It is surely worth
printing, and I shall accomodate Miss Hamlet by placing it somewhere where its appearance will duly surprise its over-modest creator—Lawson’s WOLVERINE
ought to stand for it.10 But after all, I was paid for my politeness in making the Dorcastrian detour. Just before I beat it for the 11:45 I was given
the loan of a new book which I am told is the most horrible collection of short stories recently issued! It is called “The Song of the Sirens”, and is by
one Edward Lucas White, who claims he dreamed all the ghoulish things described.

I have not yet had a chance to peruse it, but am expecting a fine time when I get around to it. Returning to the trip—I returned to the South
Station via Andrews Sq. subway, and was home at the usual 1:20. I slept till the next evening, and am still drowsy from the three days unwonted exertion.
This ought to be enough of a social programme to hold me for a while—but Gawd ’elp us! when one gets to be a social butterfly the thing gets beyond
one’s control! Am now notified that I must act as an host next Saturday and Sunday or Sunday and Monday, when there will descend upon Providence no
less a whirlwind than Galba’s new friend and admirer, Mrs. Sonia H. Greene,the Champion Long-Distance talker of Muscovy and Lands Adjacent! What
can one do to entertain such a human dynamo and phonograph combined is beyond me, but I must think of something lest a $50.00 Fund contributor be
offended into financial sterility. 
Galba, yuh’d orta hear what she says about you in her latest 12-pager! If your ma don’t watch out, she’ll kidnap yuh! Galpinitis?
We’ll spill it to the solar system! I never before saw a nut quite like Mme. Greenevsky—it must be Slavonic blood! For pure hot air she may have
rivals, but the joke is that there is sound sense and profound literary erudition beneath all the nonsense. So she thinks Grandpa is egotistical? Hell! That’s
what she told me at the convention—and then added that she never would have wasted her valuable time in trying to convert me if I were not an unusual
specimen, or something like that. 
Her worst trouble is an absent sense of humour—the poor fish thought it was serious egotism when I told her
that I despise all mankind and consider myself a cosmic intelligence aloof from the race. In letters Mme. G. is not at all egotistical—I was surprised at
the Uriah-Heepness12 of her written as distinguished from oral arguments.
But Holy Yahveh, what floral rhetoric! However, let me not libel an honest and learned thinker, who is really the most remarkable accession which amateurdom
has had for some time. Klei likes her, and calls on her often, though that may be partly due to her possession of a beauteous daughter who scorns
the sedateness of our bookish Brooklyn bard, and who must therefore be a tantalising object to a professional heart-breaker like the rhythmic Rheinhart.
Mme. 
Greenevitch is nothing if not generous—Monday I received from her a present of a new book, Shaw’s latest emanation, yclept “Back to Methusalah”.
13 Surely gratitude will impel me to forget the charge of egotism and be as courteous an host as possible—besides, philosophy and its great
Appleton exponent will furnish an unlimited variety of topics for rational discussion.

And despite the surface, there is no denying that Mme. G. is rational and highly cultivated to boot. I have just read proofs of my RAINBOW article,
which consists of some cynical aphorisms culled from two letters of mine.14 I fear this stuff will shock friend Mocrates—but it may help prepare
him for the fuller shock of my “Confession of Unfaith” in Campbell’s next LIBERAL.

00:30:15:00 - 00:30:20:21
Sean
So Andrew. So tell me what what led you to this lengthy epistle to the Gallomo?

00:30:20:22 - 00:30:42:18
Andrew
Well, Lovecraft lived through the Spanish flu epidemic of 1918, and I found myself wondering what did Lovecraft have to say about it. 
So I went looking around for letters that specifically mentioned the flu epidemic of 1918. 
Our friend Donovan Loucks has prepared a list of those very letters, and this is one of the letters that was on that list.

00:30:42:19 - 00:30:58:10
Andrew
That's why I started reading it. Now it turns out that the mention of the flu in this particular meeting is it couldn't possibly be more fleeting, 
but the letter was itself so inherently full of interesting fun stuff, that I wanted to go ahead and read it for the show anyway.

00:30:58:11 - 00:31:15:03
Sean
Well, that's that's is one of the fun things about this project that sometimes you you approach a letter for one reason and yeah, that doesn't pan out. 
But I thought this was a actually really compelling letter and certainly a few really key and fascinating things in it of which the influenza is not one of us.

00:31:15:24 - 00:31:24:05
Andrew
And there are others where it is more relevant, and I will read some of those in future episodes. But but for now, this one is full of other cool stuff.

00:31:24:08 - 00:31:28:22
Sean
Well, why don't we give folks a reminder on just what the Gallomo is?

00:31:28:23 - 00:31:48:22
Andrew
Sure. The Gallomo was a a round robin type letter that Lovecraft had with his friends Alfred Galpin and Maurice Moe.
Galpin and Moe both lived in Wisconsin. Moe was an English teacher and Galpin had been one of his students, and all three of them were part of the amateur press movement.

00:31:48:23 - 00:32:04:15
Sean
Yeah, and certainly, you know, this this is back in 1921. So Lovecraft's a fairly young, young fellow, 31 years old, and at this point in his life, Galpin is probably his closest friend. Yeah. Has been for a long there.

00:32:04:21 - 00:32:25:08
Andrew
Moe was an older man, but Galpin was close to Lovecraft's own age, and they shared. They shared a lot of things. They were close buddies. 
He his nickname for Galpin, One of them is Galba. He he frequently referred to Galpin as Galvin. Galba was a Roman emperor. He was the one who came right after Nero, and he only ran for like seven months.

00:32:25:08 - 00:32:25:24
Andrew
And then he.

00:32:25:24 - 00:32:30:21
Sean
Was the one with a push broom, right? Right. Yeah. Yeah. Fire extinguisher. Push broom. Trying to clean.

00:32:31:07 - 00:32:42:12
Andrew
I don't know whether that's a complimentary nickname or not, but that was Lovecraft's nickname for Galpin was Galba. He refers. Lovecraft has more nicknames for people than Anton Chekhov. Did he?

00:32:42:12 - 00:32:43:09
Sean
Including himself?

00:32:43:10 - 00:33:03:11
Andrew
Yeah. So he. And of course, since all three of them were part of the amateur press, a lot of those guys used pseudonyms when they published articles, 
sometimes just for fun, sometimes deliberately to confuse people. 
So yeah, he even signed this letter with a fake name, which was one of his own amateur pseudonyms.

00:33:03:12 - 00:33:20:05
Sean
Well, it's a a really interesting glimpse at his social life at the time. And if this podcast is done, nothing else, it should smash the notion of Lovecraft as
some lonely man locked up in his room because he's always going on outings. And this one is Howard, the ladies man.

00:33:20:06 - 00:33:45:06
Andrew
Oh, yeah. This letter is written just a few months after Lovecraft's mother died, and he clearly. Susie's death liberated people to get out there and see people and have fun and do things. 
Our our friend Donovan Loucks runs the H.P. Lovecraft Archive online, and it includes a photo gallery. And there are a number of photos from this summer of 1921 in which Lovecraft looks really happy.

00:33:45:13 - 00:34:07:05
Andrew
I mean, there are more photos of Lovecraft smiling in the summer of 1921 than any other period that has been captured on film because he he went and visited Boston that summer. 
He attended one of the amateur press conventions and he posed for photos with a bunch of his amateur press friends. And he looks delighted in most of these photos.

00:34:07:06 - 00:34:33:18
Sean
Yeah, I think I think there's something at this juncture in time, and it's a confluence of two effects, and that's the death of his mother. 
And that's, you know, people have all kinds of opinions about just how much of an inhibiting influence she was on his life. 
Yeah, but the second thing was the sort of blossoming of his role in the Amateur Press Association, where he went from being the kind of sickly indoor, much more isolated.

00:34:33:18 - 00:34:48:20
Sean
You know, first he had his sort of raucous boyhood adventures, but then that sort of, you know, shut down. 
And there's the period, you know, where I call it a nervous breakdown or whatever happened to him that removed him from high school, finishing high school and not being able to go 
to college and not being able to go to the military.

00:34:48:20 - 00:35:18:15
Sean
And then comes that the confluence of the death of his mother and the his his really finding a meaningful place for himself in the world of amateur journalism. 
Yeah. Talking about young Lovecraft, too, there's this great early in the letter this this recapitulation of of him having met up with his old buddy Harold Munroe. 
Yeah. And then the two of them as these guys in their early thirties going back out to their old, you know, teenage haunts which yeah it's a pretty great thing.

00:35:18:15 - 00:35:33:09
Sean
And again, it really to me stripped away that notion of this this isolated this isolated man because it's like he not only is he going out, having fun with his friends, 
but he's going out with his friend to relive the glory days of them and their other friends and the way it happened.

00:35:33:09 - 00:35:41:19
Andrew
You know, he's he's in the middle. He's having a bath and the phone rings and it's Harold Munroe and says, Come on, go with me. We're going to go revisit our youth. And Lovecraft says:"Yeah!"

00:35:41:22 - 00:35:43:03
Sean
Yeah, he's in. Absolutely.

00:35:43:03 - 00:35:52:16
Andrew
And they drive. You know, they go to this clubhouse, which they're not expecting to find. You know, they expect what will they find? They'll find a ruin is what they expect. Yeah.

00:35:52:16 - 00:36:15:06
Sean
Because it was even back in their, their teenage days. It was a it was a tar paper shack. Right. 
And then they got help from apparently this mysterious figure, either Mr. K or Donovan. I was talking to him about it. 
And another source calls him Mr. Mike. But regardless, no one's really been able to find he Lovecraft refers to him as a Civil War vet.

00:36:15:12 - 00:36:29:09
Sean
But there's no no one's ever been able to figure out quite who he was or where he served or any of that side of it. But Lovecraft doesn't tend to get that stuff wrong.
So I suspect maybe the the facts haven't all come out. But anyway, well.

00:36:29:14 - 00:36:37:23
Andrew
He describes Kay or McKay as having been on the Confederate side. Yeah, but if he lived in, you know, western Massachusetts, that would.

00:36:37:23 - 00:36:39:03
Sean
Be give that on the down.

00:36:39:03 - 00:36:58:09
Andrew
that would be interesting. And apparently when Lovecraft in Munroe were boys and they wanted to play Civil War, they they played like they were on the Confederate side of things. 
So you know, maybe they made friends with old veteran McKay when they were boys and maybe that's how they knew him and got access to this shack or what.

00:36:58:09 - 00:37:18:00
Sean
Yeah, there's a there's something cool about the the these kids out in the woods with their shack and finding the old war veteran who's a mason, who helps them build a fireplace in
which they poured concrete and then laid in a sense set of pebbles spelling out the letters. G.M.C.C., which is the Great Meadow Country Club. Yeah.

00:37:18:00 - 00:37:50:20
Sean
And the whereabouts of the shack were not clearly known. And then people went looking for it. And a fellow named Otis Dyer wrote a book back in the seventies called Swamp Yankee, 
which is an awesome title anyway, but felt like pretty sure that he had located this actual shack. 
And Donovan's been there and taken photos. It's actually on private property, and now it's the sort of thing that's pretty awkward 
to go visit because I guess it's really not at all Far from the front door of a house.

00:37:50:20 - 00:38:00:07
Sean
The front door points towards where the shack is and the shack isn't there anymore.
 All that exists is the chimney, but apparently the family has barbecues and stuff out at this old shack.

00:38:00:07 - 00:38:19:21
Andrew
The chimney of the Great Meadow Country clubhouse still stands. And Donovan very kindly shared a a photo of it that he took with us. 
We're going to put that photo on our website.
 We also found some recordings of the songs that Lovecraft mentions. So be sure to check out the web page for this episode for a lot of fun, extra bonus stuff.

00:38:20:17 - 00:38:38:00
Andrew
And I looked on the map and Great Meadow is still a place, and it's about 12 and a half miles from from Providence. So I guess when they were it's just on the other side of the state line. 
So it's in Massachusetts and I guess Lovecraft in his boyhood friends just rode their bikes there.

00:38:38:05 - 00:38:59:19
Sean
Yeah, we Donovan and I were going over that and apparently to to take those roads to drive there now and a car would take about 21 minutes from his old house right to do 
it on a bike. Google at least gives it as an hour and seven minute ride to get out there. 
And if you're going to walk it, it's almost, I think, 4 hours and 20 minutes to get out there.

00:38:59:19 - 00:39:01:10
Sean
But it does, you know, sure.

00:39:01:19 - 00:39:03:23
Andrew
Lovecraft was not against a four hour walk.

00:39:03:23 - 00:39:11:16
Sean
Yeah. Or hopped on his bike and doing an hour bike ride, you know, and that he's a hardy, playful kid out doing stuff with his buddies and his.

00:39:11:16 - 00:39:16:06
Andrew
Buddies, too. And he had he had two friends named Harold Munroe when he was.

00:39:16:06 - 00:39:17:16
Sean
There are two different two.

00:39:17:16 - 00:39:18:19
Andrew
Different Harold Munroe.

00:39:18:19 - 00:39:19:20
Sean
Man. Now, that's too many.

00:39:19:20 - 00:39:39:19
Andrew
Harold Munroe one spelled his last name with an E at the end, and the other did not. 
And the one that they're we're talking about in this letter is the one who spelled it with an E, who at the age of 31, when Lovecraft written this letter, Harold had become a successful businessman and a 
deputy sheriff. So his old buddy, Harold Munroe, was, you know, now a respectable grown up.

00:39:39:22 - 00:39:41:01
Sean
Who's the other Harold Monroe?

00:39:41:02 - 00:39:55:16
Andrew
The other Harold Munroe was a kid that he knew at Hope Street High School. Oh, so he was another kid in He came after the first Harold Bateman. Munroe, 
who's the one in this letter. And then there's another Harold Monroe that Lovecraft knew in high school.

00:39:55:22 - 00:40:03:00
Sean
Well, interesting. Yeah. Yeah. But I thought the whole thing with the, the, the just recapturing their youth and going out to the.

00:40:03:00 - 00:40:24:06
Andrew
And just like that, he obviously experienced it. You know, they went there not knowing what they would find, assuming it would be a ruin. 
And it was like except that the lock was gone. It was it was like being in a time machine. 
They went right back to exactly the clubhouse that they had as boys. 
And it was it it was delightful to read the description.

00:40:24:06 - 00:40:42:07
Andrew
I can only imagine what a thrill Lovecraft had on that afternoon with surrounded by his old friends and in their old clubhouse and and he said they 
all we make we made a plan. We're going to we're going to bring the boy. We're going to get the band back together. We're going to have monthly meetings here again. And of course, none of that ever happened.

00:40:42:13 - 00:41:08:19
Sean
But I loved his sentence to others. We shall seem odd, but what the hell do we care? I was great. Yeah. 
And then we move into Howard, the social butterfly. Yeah. It really did strike me in this point in his life that I think there's almost a I was picking up a whisper of kind of pride at the these, 
all these ladies kind of fawning on it and he's, he's sorry fawning on him.

00:41:08:22 - 00:41:28:15
Andrew
I'm sorry. I don't mean to derail the conversation. I just there's a couple there's one little thing I want to just mention. 
You know, there's a couple words that Lovecraft uses repeatedly in this letter. 
One of them is Wosh, and he spells it w0sh Right. And because when you hear me read it out loud, it will sound exactly like WASC.

00:41:28:15 - 00:41:48:18
Andrew
H I just wanted to point it out because it's a piece of slang apparently, that I don't know if Lovecraft personally invented it or what because I have not been able to find 
I mean, you can tell from context that it just sort of means emotional, gushy ness or, you know, something like that. He describes he uses Wosh and Woshi in this letter like three or four times.

00:41:48:21 - 00:41:49:02
Andrew
Yeah.

00:41:49:02 - 00:42:11:06
Sean
He's his use of the sort of odd vernacular dialect in this shows up in a bunch of places that does make it tricky to read and sometimes tricky to to parse out what exactly
he means and when is he trying to sound funny and what does he mean? Because I think he again, he's trying to write in dialect and it's supposed to sound 
a certain way and it's not always clear to me what his intent was.

00:42:11:06 - 00:42:11:11
Sean
Yeah.

00:42:11:11 - 00:42:36:07
Andrew
And there's another phrase that he uses variations of repeatedly in this letter. 
There was a common saying in the twenties, I'll tell the world it was just like a phrase that people used. 
And in this letter he has Island Light in the universe and we'll spill it to the solar system. 
He uses different variations on that same common slangy phrase I'll Tell the World, which was later the title of a movie in the thirties.

00:42:36:07 - 00:42:43:09
Andrew
It's just interesting. This is one of those letters where Lovecraft sort of regresses to his boyhood language.

00:42:43:09 - 00:42:45:16
Sean
But it's really chummy with figure skating.

00:42:45:19 - 00:42:58:11
Andrew
It's just fun to hear him use these. The slang and and and riffing on slang. It's just an interesting word usage in this particular letter that I just wanted to mention it. Yeah, sure. Okay. So yeah.

00:42:58:12 - 00:43:18:21
Sean
Yeah. So it struck me that there's I think a certain in talking to the guys that, you know, we don't see Lovecraft as the the Don Juan the romantic hero in any way, shape or form. 
And yet I felt like there was more of it in this letter than I ever have seen anywhere else. 
That is like I went to this social outing where these ladies fawned over me and I went over here and these ladies fawned over me.

00:43:18:21 - 00:43:29:14
Sean
And then they wanted me to spend the night and cook food for me and have me read my poems. 
And that there's that I think a little subtle boasting about how popular he is.

00:43:29:18 - 00:43:30:18
Andrew
And some of them, you.

00:43:30:18 - 00:43:44:06
Andrew
Know, like, like and Hilary Renshaw, you know, are older, frumpy, matronly women. But some of them like Winifred Jackson and Alice Hamlett Yeah, we're apparently a little bit smitten with old HPL and.

00:43:44:07 - 00:44:00:06
Sean
Yeah, it feels that way and or at least seems he's representing that way and seems to enjoy it. And, and it's interesting because he's sort of dismissive of, you know, oh,
 they find on me or, you know, he doesn't make a big deal about it, but he does explicate, you know, all the the ways in which they were showering him with attention.

00:44:00:07 - 00:44:02:01
Sean
And I found it rather delightful. Yeah.

00:44:02:13 - 00:44:21:16
Andrew
I thought this would be we've we've often mentioned the amateur press movement and a great many of the correspondents whose letters we have, 
you know, read so far are friends of his from amateur press. 
But we've never really talked specifically about the amateur press movement and the specific organizations. And I thought this letter might be a good opportunity for us to.

00:44:21:24 - 00:44:23:19
Sean
Dip our toes. And I want to tell people.

00:44:23:19 - 00:44:27:09
Andrew
What what all this amateur journalism stuff was about.

00:44:27:09 - 00:44:28:18
Sean
Well, by God, how about it?

00:44:28:24 - 00:45:06:03
Andrew
Well, the there there were two main amateur press associations. 
One was the first one founded was the National Amateur Press Association, founded in 1876. 
And then there was one called the United Amateur Press Association that was founded in 1895. 
And these were you know, they were not large organizations and they were just groups of people. Many of them, at least in the earliest days, were printers 
who were just looking for ways to practice their art, and they'd produce their own homemade journals, and they invited other amateur writers to contribute to them.

00:45:06:08 - 00:45:33:23
Andrew
And this, you know, grew and grew. And even at its biggest, it was never terribly big.
And many of the many of the people who were involved were younger people. There was a apparently there was they were very hierarchical and structured.
There were lots of official positions, right. In both organizations. And because were so hierarchical, they often got very heavily political and people vying for power.

00:45:34:03 - 00:46:03:05
Andrew
And that was just it just sort of went with territory. Lovecraft first joined the United Amateur Press Association in 1914 when a member of that organization named Edward Doss had noticed the letters 
to the editor that Lovecraft was sending to the Argosy magazine. 
Lovecraft was he liked to stir the pot, and he sent a lot of inflammatory letters to the Argosy complaining about various stories that had been published in that magazine.

00:46:03:05 - 00:46:25:11
Andrew
And the Argosy was a pulp, you know, dime Adventure Story magazine that Lovecraft read when he was a boy.
Anyway, I saw these letters and thought, that kid is going places. So he invited Lovecraft to join the United and within just a year or two, 
Lovecraft started publishing his own amateur journal, the Conservative. He became the chairman of the Department of Public Criticism for the United Amateur.

00:46:25:11 - 00:46:36:12
Andrew
That was the that was the board of people who made it their job to publish feedback on the stuff that was published in the various amateur journals, their professional complainers.

00:46:36:12 - 00:46:39:00
Sean
The professional complainers. Yeah, it's.

00:46:39:21 - 00:46:48:14
Andrew
It's Lovecraft's dream job. Yeah. He's a lovely. And eventually Lovecraft. He became the first vice president.

00:46:48:14 - 00:46:50:19
Andrew
Of the United in 1915. He became.

00:46:50:19 - 00:46:51:14
Andrew
The president.

00:46:51:14 - 00:46:54:15
Andrew
In 1917 to 1918, and then he was the

00:46:54:15 - 00:47:13:10
Andrew
Official from 1922, 1922, and again from 24 to 25. 
So when he's writing this letter, Lovecraft is the official editor of the official Journal of the United Amateur Press Association, 
which was called the United Amateur, which was a high powered position in this organization.

00:47:13:10 - 00:47:45:06
Sean
Sure. And for a guy rising from, you know, not not being college educated, not being a professional writer and really sort of only coming out of his shell in the years, 
you know, through the the teens in the era of World War One. 
Yeah. And really seemed to just thrive. And it also really lays the groundwork him as a correspondent because he's making connections with all these people and he's writing to them all the time and they're writing back and, you know, Lovecraft Does the Huber correspond?

00:47:45:06 - 00:47:52:22
Sean
And as we know him, I think it was really the amateur press world that paved the way for that and some of his most lasting friendships, too.

00:47:52:24 - 00:47:54:03
Andrew
I just wanted to read this.

00:47:54:06 - 00:47:55:05
Andrew
Little thing that.

00:47:55:05 - 00:48:19:14
Andrew
Lovecraft wrote about how he felt about amateur journalism.  
He wrote this in 1921, the same year he wrote this letter. He wrote : "Amateur journalism has provided me with the very world in which I live of a nervous and reserved temperament and curse with an 
aspiration which far exceeds my endowments. I am a typical misfit in the larger world of endeavor and singularly unable to derive enjoyment from ordinary miscellaneous activities.

In 1914, when the kindly hand of amateur dumb was first extended to me, I was as close to the state of vegetation as any animal well can be. 
Perhaps I might best have been compared to the lowly potato in its secluded and subterranean quiescence. 
With the advent of the United, I obtained a renewed will to live a renewed.
Sense of existence as other than a superfluous weight, and found a sphere in which I could feel that my efforts were not wholly futile. 
For the first time, I could imagine that my clumsy groping after art were little more than faint cries lost in the unlistening void."

00:48:55:13 - 00:48:57:09
Sean
Wow. Well, where did he write that?

00:48:58:02 - 00:49:00:17
Andrew
That was published in an essay in the United Amateur.

00:49:00:18 - 00:49:05:02
Sean
Wow. Tell the group sort of what is involved, what being part of it had meant to him. Right.

00:49:05:02 - 00:49:16:00
Andrew
And the title of the essay was " what Amateur ???? and I have done for each other". 
Yeah. So Lovecraft, amateur journalism saved his life. Yeah, in a way, yeah.

00:49:16:01 - 00:49:32:16
Sean
And certainly was the sort of the catalyst to help him become who he became and have the confidence to write and publish and submit things 
and to give this fairly isolated young man, uh, a egress into a world of other thinkers and writers.

00:49:32:16 - 00:49:56:14
Andrew
Yeah. So he takes this trip to Boston and Dorchester and Haverhill to meet. This is the very first time he ever actually met Anne Tillery Renshaw, right. 
With whom he later became a big correspondent. And it was just really fun reading his his detailed description of his trip and all the people and the various feuds. There were so many feuds, Yeah.

00:49:56:17 - 00:49:59:23
Andrew
That the people from the National Amateur Press Association.

00:49:59:23 - 00:50:01:13
Andrew
Hated the people from the United.

00:50:01:13 - 00:50:24:00
Andrew
Amateur Press Association and many of the people within the United hated each other and they didn't even want to be in the same room with each other, 
which is why Lovecraft had to pay separate visits to different factions.
 Lovecraft, having joined originally the United in 1917, also joined the National just in hopes of, you know, bridging all these feuds and getting everybody together.

00:50:24:00 - 00:50:28:23
Andrew
It didn't work, but that was, you know, Lovecraft was doing his best to sort of make peace with.

00:50:29:03 - 00:50:53:09
Sean
The aspirational peacemaker. Yeah. So, yeah, it was an it's just a fun, you know, walk through all the different things he did and his visit with the littles and yeah, 
I thought it there are a couple of references in there too that just drove home what a city boy he is as he's looking at the country life which he finds, you know, 
both delightful and apparently a little tedious when he's lamenting how, you know, how boring it would be here.

00:50:53:09 - 00:50:58:00
Sean
But I laughed when he he saw a strawberry being grown, you know, and.

00:50:58:02 - 00:51:00:23
Andrew
Condescended to dirty his hands by picking one.

00:51:00:23 - 00:51:10:03
Sean
Yeah, but it really does show you the the my the world from which he comes as he's he's visiting all these other people.

00:51:10:03 - 00:51:32:21
Andrew
So and his description of their, their climb up that wild hill so he could take his telescope and get some good viewing and you know how amazed he was that these women had never, 
never used binoculars, never used a telescope. And and yeah, he this meeting at the Hub Club, the Hub Club was itself a smaller, 
self-contained group of amateur journalists.

00:51:33:02 - 00:51:38:22
Andrew
Most of them belong to the national right. So his going there was like entering enemy territory.

00:51:38:22 - 00:51:44:22
Sean
Isn't he bad? Well, yeah. Again, that's the peacemaker at work. They're trying to help Worlds join together.

00:51:45:00 - 00:52:04:08
Andrew
And then he describes his wonderful visit with the with the Littles to the Haverhill Historical Society, 
which I'm very pleased to say is still going strong. 
Is now called the Button Woods Museum. Yeah. And the places that Lovecraft visited when you can well, not today, but hopefully in the very near future we can all go visit it ourselves.

00:52:04:08 - 00:52:16:16
Andrew
Because the ward house that he describes, which in this letter in 1921, he hadn't yet been to the the Fairbanks house in Dedham, which is older. 
But at this point the ward house was the oldest one he had ever been in.

00:52:17:02 - 00:52:39:15
Sean
Now, this is not to pick too many nits, but I was struck by this that according to the Haverhill Historical Society, that house was built in 1710, the Lovecraft say, 
and it's built in 1640. To add to the confusion too, there's also multiple John Ward houses because there's the John Ward house is a famous house up in Salem, which was built in 1684.

00:52:40:04 - 00:52:50:05
Sean
So I didn't know if Lovecraft's doing a little historical inflation, making the the house older than it was, but you would think the Admiral Historical Society would know how old their house is.

00:52:50:05 - 00:52:53:07
Andrew
So I guess we'll have to take their word for it. I certainly Don't know.

00:52:53:07 - 00:52:58:20
Sean
But yeah, I don't know either. But I just thought that was curious. Yeah, but it is cool that it's still standing there and.

00:52:59:11 - 00:53:18:03
Andrew
Yeah, next time we're in the New England region, you know, we, we go every other year for Necronomicon and yeah, seldom have a chance to do much sightseeing outside the con itself. 
But I'm going to try next time to really take some detours and see some of these now that we've been reading the letters and I'm much more aware of all these sites.

00:53:18:03 - 00:53:19:11
Andrew
Right. I think it'll be a lot of fun.

00:53:19:11 - 00:53:20:05
Sean
Yeah, no, I agree.

00:53:20:05 - 00:53:24:23
Andrew
I think go and check out the button Woods Museum and the Fairbanks house and some of these other places.

00:53:24:23 - 00:53:25:21
Sean
Yeah, sounds good.

00:53:26:04 - 00:53:43:17
Andrew
And then. And then you just drives that evening of amateur theatricals that they that they put him through. Yeah. 
This is the first I'd ever times, first I'd ever heard of anything like that. The thought of him dressing up in women's clothing and prancing around and singing songs and doing. Yeah, it's.

00:53:44:00 - 00:54:09:02
Sean
It's a whole other Howard. Yeah, a whole other. And that's kind of what took me back to that notion of him. 
You know, it's this social butterfly in this letter and, and doing things that, you know, one would think are outside well outside his comfort zone. 
Yeah. And I don't know if it's, you know, in deference to the ladies or a deference to the other amateur press members or just just plain old having fun.

00:54:09:02 - 00:54:39:23
Sean
But, you know, fun is not always a word one associate with Lovecraft. And clearly at at this juncture, there's there's a there's that's Howard the fun start. 
Yeah we come out of that section then into there are two great introductions in this letter. Yeah that is introduction of Sonia Haft Green. 
Yeah. And and what fascinating language he uses to describe this woman and his perceptions of her and apparently hers of him.	

00:54:39:23 - 00:54:42:03
Sean
And yeah, it's, it's, it's really great.

00:54:42:06 - 00:55:02:24
Andrew
Now, they had first met just a few months prior just a coupleof months prior to the writing of this letter at the National Amateur Press Association Convention in Boston in July. 
Right. And he had met her then. And she had she had apparently heard of him before and had a few opinions of him in advance.

00:55:02:24 - 00:55:10:17
Andrew
But that didn't stop her from contributing $50, which is a lot of money. Sure. And made a big impression on on Lovecraft.

00:55:10:17 - 00:55:26:03
Sean
Clearly, Lovecraft has a lot of respect for powerful thinkers. And even if she apparently talks too much, but she's got the you know, she's apparently, you know, 
very bright and willing to call him out for his ego. And maybe he doesn't have as much a sense humorous . She ought to.

00:55:26:03 - 00:55:47:20
Andrew
But I did find that comment super interesting when he says the poor fish thought it was serious egotism. When I told her that I despise all mankind and consider myself a cosmic intelligence 
aloof from the race, implying that he doesn't mean those things when he says them, that you, you know, it's it's easy for people who are rude to say.

00:55:47:20 - 00:55:48:23
Andrew
Why can't you take a joke?

00:55:48:23 - 00:56:05:18
Andrew
You know, it's like and maybe that's what this is, you know, I hurt you and then blame you for not having a sense of humor. 
Yeah, you know, that might be all that's going on. But it was super interesting to hear him imply that he doesn't mean it when he says he's aloof from all mankind. That's just.

00:56:05:19 - 00:56:14:21
Sean
And that describing himself as aloof from all mankind is his way of picking up girls. Well, yeah. Oh, Howard, you know, but yet it worked.

00:56:14:21 - 00:56:16:15
Andrew
Apparently it did, because she.

00:56:16:15 - 00:56:17:18
Andrew
Knew something about him.

00:56:18:02 - 00:56:19:16
Andrew
She found very interesting and.

00:56:19:16 - 00:56:38:15
Sean
Clearly vice versa. And seven months after this, they're Mr. and Mrs. Lovecraft, You know, so this really is a a fascinating time in his life, 
in this, you know, go from, you know, his mother dying three months before and, you know, seven months after this, he's getting married. And but yeah, what a really compelling description.

00:56:38:15 - 00:56:39:22
Andrew
It's also interesting, the future.

00:56:39:22 - 00:56:40:04
Sean
Mrs..

00:56:40:04 - 00:57:01:20
Andrew
Lovecraft. You know, he was introduced to to Sonia by his other great friend, Reinhardt Kleiner right of the day. 
But it's interesting in this letter how Lovecraft is teasing Galpin and saying, oh, she might come after you.
 And I think Kleiner likes her because of her daughter. But, you know, clearly Sonya is, you know, a bit of a cougar or something.

00:57:01:20 - 00:57:06:16
Andrew
I don't know. But Lovecraft is even teasing Galpin that Sonia might come after him.

00:57:06:17 - 00:57:08:22
Sean
Yeah, Howard doth protest too much, methinks.

00:57:10:11 - 00:57:34:23
Andrew
And then he says, I have just read proofs of my rainbow article. 
And the rainbow was the journal that Sonia published, and it was lavishly produced because Sonia had money and a lot of people were impressed by the Rainbow and 
Lovecraft production value. Yeah, it was one of the very early contributors to Sonia's journal. Well, Sean, this is a long letter, so maybe this is a good place to stop it, and we'll pick up the second half next time.

00:57:34:23 - 00:57:36:18
Sean
A superb idea. All right.

00:57:36:24 - 00:57:46:05
Andrew
Well, our thanks today to our good friend Donovan Loucks at the H.P. Lovecraft Archive for making his great list of letters that mention the Spanish flu.

00:57:46:08 - 00:57:56:11
Sean
He is also got a collection of photographs there, the text of all Lovecraft stories. 
If you haven't been to hplovecraft.com, it's well worth taking a moment to prowl around there because he's put together a lot of great stuff.

00:57:56:14 - 00:58:01:22
Andrew
Also to our friends at Hippocampus Press for publishing this letter in their book Letters to Alfred Galpin.

00:58:02:04 - 00:58:07:04
Sean
Along with many other collections of Lovecraft letters. You can find them all at hippocampusPress.com.

00:58:07:20 - 00:58:09:19
Andrew
I'm your obedient servant, Andrew Leman.

00:58:09:19 - 00:58:12:23
Sean
and I am cordially and respectfully yours. Sean Branney.

00:58:13:11 - 00:58:15:14
Andrew
You've been listening to Voluminous the.

00:58:15:14 - 00:58:17:05
Andrew
Letters of H.P. Lovecraft.

00:58:17:05 - 00:58:23:19
Sean
If you've enjoyed the show, we'd appreciate it. If you take a moment to post a review or drop us a note to Voluminous@HPLHS.org

00:58:24:02 - 00:58:30:14
Andrew
That's the H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society. Come check out all we have to offer at HPLHS.org