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Acolyte, v. 3, issue 1, whole no. 9, Winter 1945
Page 12
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E. HOFFMANN PRICE'S REMINISCENCE OF ROBERT E. HOWARD From a letter to H.P.Lovecraft June 25th 1936 LAST PAGE YOUR letter hit me between the eyes. I don't know what to say. Incredible about Howard. On June third he wrote me post card reporting prodigious bale of sales, for cash, to Argosy, Top-Notch, and Action Stories, in each case with an order for a series. Can you authenticate the story? It seems so damn outrageous I can't believe it. Or is that because I don't want to believe it--- just like hearing of Whitehead's death left me a bit numb, so I had to tell myself over and over that he really was dead, and wouldn't write the letter he promised in that last postal card. And now Howard's final postal card--- ye gods, what sinister fatality is there in postal cards? To hell with the blow to literature and/or fiction. I laugh that off. You see, I had twice halted my caravan at his door, and the loss of the man is so damned incomparably greater than the loss to anything as stupid as literature that I can hardly hold the two ideas in my mind simultaneously. Maybe, later, I'll acquire the mental agility. I appreciate your nomination for writing the obituary. Right now, I don't know what to say. Perhaps it might be easier for those who never met him at all. A complex and baffling personality one who can't--- couldn't--- get all at once. An overgrown boy--- a brooding anachronism--- a scholar--- a gripping, compelling writer--- a naive boy scout--- a man of great emotional depth, yet strangely self-conscious of any emotional phases which he unjustly claimed he could never put into writing fiction--- a burly, broad faced, not unduly schrewd looking fellow at first glance--- a courtly, gracious, kindly, hospitable person--- a hearty, rollicking, gusty, spacious personality loving tales and deeds that reeked of sweat and dust and dung of horses and sheep and camels--- a blustering, boyish, extravagantly-spoken boy who made up whopping stories about the country and the people and himself, not to deceive or fool you, but because he loved the sweep of the words and knew you liked to hear from him hold forth--- a fanciful, sensitive, imaginative soul, hidden in that big bluff hulk. A man of strange, whimsical, bitter and utterly illogical resentments and hatreds and enmities and grudges--- hell--- I can't begin to tell you what a man this Howard was. Not a thing I have said, understand, is really true--- merely as true as I can make it in my bungling attempt to describe so many facets. I'm baffled. Describing Howard is like trying to tell you, in words written or spoken, the difference between rye whiskey and bourbon whiskey--- only infinitely more difficult. Rye whiskey of course has the flavor of rye--- but what does that mean to a man who perchance has never tasted rye in distillation? I can describe it only in terms of itself--- and Howard only in terms of Howard. If you met Howard, I can not add; if you did not, I can not start. And the Howard I met may be a different Howard from the one you might have met had you enjoyed my opportunities. Right now, I feel sort of clubbed on the head. I asked Mashburn to let me monopolize your letter, in that your remarks were esoteric retorts to long bandied jests and "conversations" so that it would be to a degree unintelligible to him. So I read. We had just spoken of Howard, oddly enough. Then this--- His best works, for the past seven years, did not appear in -- 12 --
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E. HOFFMANN PRICE'S REMINISCENCE OF ROBERT E. HOWARD From a letter to H.P.Lovecraft June 25th 1936 LAST PAGE YOUR letter hit me between the eyes. I don't know what to say. Incredible about Howard. On June third he wrote me post card reporting prodigious bale of sales, for cash, to Argosy, Top-Notch, and Action Stories, in each case with an order for a series. Can you authenticate the story? It seems so damn outrageous I can't believe it. Or is that because I don't want to believe it--- just like hearing of Whitehead's death left me a bit numb, so I had to tell myself over and over that he really was dead, and wouldn't write the letter he promised in that last postal card. And now Howard's final postal card--- ye gods, what sinister fatality is there in postal cards? To hell with the blow to literature and/or fiction. I laugh that off. You see, I had twice halted my caravan at his door, and the loss of the man is so damned incomparably greater than the loss to anything as stupid as literature that I can hardly hold the two ideas in my mind simultaneously. Maybe, later, I'll acquire the mental agility. I appreciate your nomination for writing the obituary. Right now, I don't know what to say. Perhaps it might be easier for those who never met him at all. A complex and baffling personality one who can't--- couldn't--- get all at once. An overgrown boy--- a brooding anachronism--- a scholar--- a gripping, compelling writer--- a naive boy scout--- a man of great emotional depth, yet strangely self-conscious of any emotional phases which he unjustly claimed he could never put into writing fiction--- a burly, broad faced, not unduly schrewd looking fellow at first glance--- a courtly, gracious, kindly, hospitable person--- a hearty, rollicking, gusty, spacious personality loving tales and deeds that reeked of sweat and dust and dung of horses and sheep and camels--- a blustering, boyish, extravagantly-spoken boy who made up whopping stories about the country and the people and himself, not to deceive or fool you, but because he loved the sweep of the words and knew you liked to hear from him hold forth--- a fanciful, sensitive, imaginative soul, hidden in that big bluff hulk. A man of strange, whimsical, bitter and utterly illogical resentments and hatreds and enmities and grudges--- hell--- I can't begin to tell you what a man this Howard was. Not a thing I have said, understand, is really true--- merely as true as I can make it in my bungling attempt to describe so many facets. I'm baffled. Describing Howard is like trying to tell you, in words written or spoken, the difference between rye whiskey and bourbon whiskey--- only infinitely more difficult. Rye whiskey of course has the flavor of rye--- but what does that mean to a man who perchance has never tasted rye in distillation? I can describe it only in terms of itself--- and Howard only in terms of Howard. If you met Howard, I can not add; if you did not, I can not start. And the Howard I met may be a different Howard from the one you might have met had you enjoyed my opportunities. Right now, I feel sort of clubbed on the head. I asked Mashburn to let me monopolize your letter, in that your remarks were esoteric retorts to long bandied jests and "conversations" so that it would be to a degree unintelligible to him. So I read. We had just spoken of Howard, oddly enough. Then this--- His best works, for the past seven years, did not appear in -- 12 --
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