[Ed: originally written by Steven Harris (kayven@aol.com) and posted to
alt.horror.cthulhu in April. Reprinted with his permission]

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Dear Editor-
I am 8 years old. Some of my little friends say there is no Great
Cthulhu. Papa says, If you see it on Alt.Horror.Cthulhu, its so,
Please tell me the truth, is there a Great Cthulhu who will rise from the
watery depth of the Pacific to clear the Earth of all living things?
——Virgina Marsh

Virgina, your little friends are wrong. They have been affected by the
fever of enlightenment given to them by a so-called enlightened age.
They do not believe in anything unless it carries the weight of scientific
authority. They think that nothing can be which is not comprehensible by
their little minds. Reality is that which can be cataloged and measured,
to be spooned out in rational doses to the common people. All minds,
Virgina, whether they be adults or childrens, are little. In this vast
chaos we laughingly call the universe, man is a mere insect, a bug, whose
intellect has as much chance of grasping the whole truth, as an ant has of
understanding non-Euclidian geometry.

Yes, Virgina, there is a Great Cthulhu. He exists as certainly as the
cold unfeelingness of the cosmos exits, and you know that this
meaninglessness abounds and gives to your life its highest absurdity.
Alas! how comfortable would be the world if there were no Cthulhu! It
would be as comforting as if a Santa Claus truly did care and reward
children for doing good. There would be childlike faith then, a world of
sweet believable poetry and romance to make existence idyllic and
appealing. The external light with which childhood fills the world would
never end.

Not believe in the Great Cthulhu! You might as well not believe in Hastur
or the Necronomicon. You might get your papas science books and
Skeptical Inquirers to see if Cthulhu is mentioned in any historical
contexts or if Rlyeh truly does rest under the Pacific Ocean, but even if
you did not find either mentioned in your holy books, what would that
prove? Nobody sees or knows of Cthulhu, but that is no sign that there is
no Great Cthulhu. The most real things in the world are those that we can
not know through the senses. Can the headache of your friend be felt by
you? No, but his pain affects your life regardless. Do you feel the
angst of living a life you never wanted through any of your five senses?
No, yet the despair remains. Yet if such realities are known but are never
seen, then why should others ignorance of the unseen lead us to share in
their blindness. By what right have they earned your obedience? Nobody
can conceive of the inconceivable, including your leaders of thought.

You tear apart the rattle of a baby to see what lies inside to make such
noise, but the tiny balls there can not explain or illustrate the fear of
a hostile world, that makes that baby clutch and shake that rattle so.
Only reaching for insanity can push aside the curtain of our hopes and
view with stark madness the emptiness that lies beyond. Is that reality?
Is that the truth? To give an answer is to replace the curtain with but
one more. And it is this, that makes the Great Cthulhu as true and as
real as any veil we place on the chaos beyond. If one must create a
meaning, why not the Great Cthulhu. At least the choice is free.

Thank Azathoth! The Great Cthulhu lives and lives forever. A thousand
years from now, Virgina, nay 10 times 10,000 years from now, he will
continue to await the time when the stars are right again. For with those
which eternal lie, with strange eons even death may die.

(From Editorial Page, Arkham Advertiser, 1928)

—Steven Harris
http://oak.cats.ohiou.edu/~sh323089