Since the earthly career of a secluded and non-robust individual is seldom replete with exciting events, my readers must not expect the following chronicle to possess much which will hold their attention or awaken their interest. But for the mandate of a relentless editor, they would have been spared this affliction.

I was born in Providence, of unmixed English ancestry, on August 20, 1890. During the first few years of my existence, my mode of expression was more often oral than written; and my tastes much more modern than at present. It is indeed worthy of note, that my utterances prior to the summer of 1891 betray a marked kinship to the vers libre of today

In the year 1892, from which my first genuine recollections proceed, my literary career began in earnest. Having mastered the art of connected speech, and assimilated the alphabet, I was an inveterate reciter of poesy, delivering such pieces as “Sheridan’s Ride” and selections from “Mother Goose” with true declamatory finesse. I also dabbled in poetic imagism, with the aid of alphabetical blocks.

By the close of 1893, I had added another accomplishment to my catalogue—that of reading. My tastes ran to polysyllables, of whose pronunciation I was not always certain. About this period I began to supplement the fairy tales hitherto related to me, with individual research in the pictureful pages of Grimm, and developed a marked penchant for everything pertaining to myths and legends. The close of 1894 revealed still another accomplishment—that of writing.

The years 1895 and 1896 were uneventful, and although I was constantly scribbling both crude prose and crude rhymes, no specimen survives. The leading event of this era was my change of interest from Teutonic to Classical mythology, induced by perusal of Hawthorne’s “Wonder Book” and “Tanglewood Tales”.

In 1897 I composed my earliest surviving attempt at authorship, a “poem” in forty-four lines of internally rhyming iambic heptameter, entitled “The Poem of Ulysses; or, the New Odyssey”, whose opening four lines are as follows:

“The night was dark, O Reader, hark! and see Ulysses’ fleet;

All homeward bound, with vict’ry crown’d, he hopes his spouse to greet;

Long bath he fought, put Troy to naught, and levell’d down its walls;

But Neptune’s wrath obstructs his path, and into snares he falls.”

In 1898 I commenced a school career, much interrupted by ill health, and supplemented by home reading and private instruction. It was my favourite diversion to spend hours in the midst of the family library, browsing chiefly over books over a century old, and insensibly forming a taste for eighteenth-century style and thought which will never leave me.

In 1899 I became interested in the sciences, and established my first enduring amateur publication, The Scientific Gazette, which ran continuously until 1904. It was published successively by pencil, pen, and hectograph, and afforded me infinite pleasure and pride.

In 1903 astronomy became my chief interest, and I established the hectographed magazine, The Rhode Island Journal of Astronomy, which survived until 1907. All this time I knew nothing of organised Amateurdom, and the reams of old-fashioned miscellany j had been evolving remained mercifully unpublished till 1906, when I made my debut ill print by commencing a series of monthly astronomical articles in a local paper.

From 1906 to 1914 I was a contributor to sundry publications of no importance, veering about 1911 from pure science back to belles lettres. In March, 1914, I learned through Mr. Edward F. Daas of Amateurdom’s existence, and soon joined the United; a connexion likely to subsist till my death, since it has furnished me with more enjoyment than any other I have experienced.

In the United it has been my privilege to become a frequent contributor to the press, and to hold several offices, including the Presidency and the Chairmanship of the Department of Public Criticism. I have endeavoured to support the most purely literary and progressive elements in the Association, and to aid in a revival of that conservatism and classicism which modern literature seems dangerously prone to reject. To this purpose is my individual publication, The Conservative, devoted. These various activities have doubtless gained for me the reputation of being an insufferable old pedant; yet I cannot wholly complain of my fate, since Editor Samples deems it fit to waste good white paper upon these overlong annals of Boeotian mediocrity.