Home  

AJ History

In the Beginning—Burton J. Smith

Flashbacks

The Next Hundred—Harold Segal

The Moving Finger

This book distributed to members
of the
National Amateur Press Association
in convention assembled
as a souvenir
of its centennial anniversary
by
Harold Segal

"The first 100 years are the hardest..."

TO THOSE
who practice this pursuit with spirit and devotion,
to those who did practice it with spirit and devotion,
and to those who will practice it with spirit and devotion,
THIS BOOK IS GREATFULLY DEDICATED

The word amateur has come by the thousand oddities of language to convey an idea of tepidity; whereas the word itself has the meaning of passion. Nor is this peculiarity confined to the mere form of the word; the actual characteristic of these nameless dilettanti is a genuine fire and reality. A man must love a thing very much if he not only practices it without any hope of fame or money, but even practice it without any hope of doing it well. Such a man must love the toils of the work more than any other man can love the rewards of it.

—G. K. Chesterton