The United Amateur/May 1919/Helene Hoffman Cole—Litterateur
Helene Hoffman Cole—Litterateur
Howard Phillips Lovecraft
Of the various authors who have contributed to the fame of our Association, few can be compared in sustained ability and breadth of interests to the late Helene Hoffman Cole. Represented in the press as a poet, critic, essayist, and fiction-writer, Mrs. Cole achieved distinction in all of these departments; rising during recent years to an almost unique prominence in the field of book-reviewing. Her compositions display a diversity of attainments and catholicity of taste highly remarkable in one of so relatively alight an age, familiar knowledge of foreign and archaic literature supplying a mature background too seldom possessed by amateur authors.
It is as a poet that Mrs. Cole has been least known, since her verse was not of frequent occurrence in the amateur press. A glance at the few existing specimens, however, demonstrate conclusively that her poetical gifts were by no means inconsiderable; and that had she chosen such a course, she might easily have become one of the leading bards of the United. Verse like the unnamed autumn pieces in Leaflets and The Hellenian possess an aptness and cleverness of fancy which bespeak the true 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 and fluency. Her plots were for the most part light and popular in nature, and would have reflected credit on any professional writer of modern magazine 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 a Serbian and his bride is perhaps one of the very first tales written around the World War.
But it is in the domain of the literary essay that this authoress rose to loftiest altitude. Of wide and profound reading, and of keen and discriminating mind, Mrs. Colo presented in a style of admirable grace and lucidity her reactions to the best works of numerous standard authors, ancient and modern, English and foreign. The value of such work in amateurdom, extending the cultural outlook and displaying the outside world as seen through the eyes of a gifted, respected, and representative member, scarce needs the emphasis of the commentator. He who can link the amateur and larger spheres in a pleasing and acceptable fashion, deserves the highest approbation and panegyric that the United can bestow. Notable indeed are Mrs. Cole’s sound reviews of Sir Thomas Browne's “Hydriotaphia” in The United Amateur, of “Pelle, the Conqueror” in The Tryout, and of numerous South American works but little known to Northern readers. Of equal merit are such terse and delightful essays as “M. Tullius Cicero, Pater Patriae,” where the essayist invests a classical theme with all the living charm of well-restrained subjectivity. The style of these writings is in itself captivating; the vocabulary containing enough words of Latin derivation to rescue it from the Boeotian harshness typical of this age. All that has been said of Mrs. Cole’s broader reviews may be said of her amateur criticism, much of which graced the columns of The Olympian and other magazines.
The exclusively journalistic skill of Mrs. Cole now remains to be considered, and this we find as brilliant as her other attainments. As the editor of numerous papers during every stage of her career, she exhibited phenomenal taste and enterprise; never failing to create enthusiasm and evoke econium with her ventures both individual and co-operative. Her gift for gathering, selecting and writing news was quite unexampled. As the reporter par excellence of both associations, she was the main reliance of other editors for convention reports and general items; all of which were phrased with an ease, urbanity, and personality that lent them distinctiveness. Not the least of her qualities was a gentle and unobtrusive humour which enlivened her lighter productions. Amateurdom will long remember the quaint piquancy of the issues of The Martian which she cleverly published in the name of her infant son.
During these latter days nearly every amateur has expressed a kind of incredulity that Mrs. Cole can indeed be no more, and in this the present writer must needs share. To realise that her gifted pen has ceased to enrich our small literary world requires a painful effort on the part of everyone who has followed her brilliant progress in the field of letters. The United loses more by her sudden and untimely demise than can well be reckoned at this moment.