First Vintage Books Edition, May 1982
Copyright © 1916, 1918, 1919, 1920, 1921, 1922, 1924, 1926, 1927
1932, 1934, 1942, 1949 by Alfred A. Knopf, Inc.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American
Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by
Random House, Inc., New York, and simultaneously in Canada
by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto. Originally
published by Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., New York, in June 1949.
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Mencken, H. L. (Henry Louis), 1880-1956.
A Mencken chrestomathy.
Reprint. Originally published: New York: Knopf, 1949.
I. Title.
[PS3525.E43A6 1982] 818′.5209 81-52593
eISBN: 978-0-307-80887-5 AACR2
v3.1
PREFACE
IN my title I revive the word chrestomathy in its true sense of “a collection of choice passages from an author or authors,” and ignore the late addition of “especially one compiled to assist in the acquirement of a language.” In the latter significance the term is often used by linguists, and some of the chrestomathies issued by them in recent years—for example, Dr. Edgar H. Sturtevant’s “Hittite Chrestomathy” of 1935 – are works of capital importance. But I see no reason why they should have a monopoly on what is not, after all, their invention. Nor do I see why I should be deterred by the fact that, when this book was announced, a few newspaper smarties protested that the word would be unfamiliar to many readers, as it was to them. Thousands of excellent nouns, verbs and adjectives that have stood in every decent dictionary for years are still unfamiliar to such ignoramuses, and I do not solicit their patronage. Let them continue to recreate themselves with whodunits, and leave my vocabulary and me to my own customers, who have all been to school. Chrestomathy is actually more than a century old in English, which makes it quite as ancient as scientist, which was invented by William Whewell in 1840, or anesthetic, which was proposed by Oliver Wendell Holmes I in 1846. In Greek, where it was contrived by joining chrestos, meaning useful, and mathein, meaning to learn, it goes back to Proclus Disdochos, who used it in Athens in the year 450.
Whether anyone will find anything useful in what follows, or learn from it otherwise, is not for me to guess, but at all events I like the word better than the omnibus, reader, treasury, miscellany, panorama and portable that have been so horribly overworked of late. The aim of the volume is simply to present a selection from my out-of-print writings, many of them now almost unobtainable. They come mostly from books, but others are magazine or newspaper pieces that never got between covers, and a few of them are notes never previously published at all. I have an enormous collection of such notes, mainly accumulated for books that, after long struggles, failed to get themselves written, and some day I may gather them into a couple of volumes. The books levied on here are the six of the “Prejudices” series, “A Book of Burlesques,” “Damn: a Book of Calumny,” “In Defense of Women,” “Making a President,” “Notes on Democracy” and “Treatise on Right and Wrong.” All save two of these had fair successes in their day, and I still receive frequent correspondence about them, but they are so full of the discussion of matters now of only historical interest that I have hesitated to let them be reprinted in toto. It seemed to be much more rational to dig out of them the material that continues to be of more or less current interest, and to print all of it in one volume, at a price substantially less than the cost of a dozen. I have done my own editing, and the judicious may observe some evidence that I have occasionally allowed partiality to corrupt judgment, but I assume that any other editor would have been guilty of a similar softness. Some of the lesser pieces following—for example, “The Sahara of the Bozart,” my bathtub hoax and my translation of “The Declaration of Independence” into the American vulgate—have carried on a vigorous life for years, and I have therefore thought it worth while to give them one more embalming before consigning them to statistics and the devil.
In general, I have made few changes in the original texts, and in consequence several thumpingly false prophecies and other howlers are preserved. But when it seemed to make for clarity I have not hesitated to change the present tense into the past, and to omit repetitive and otherwise unnecessary passages. In all cases where I could determine it I have given the date and place of original publication. My later books—for example, “The American Language” and its Supplements and the three “Days” books—are not represented, for all of them are still in print. For the same reason I have passed over “The Artist,” “Christmas Story” and “Treatise on the Gods,” the last of which came out in a revised edition so recently as 1946. What the total of my published writings comes to I don’t know precisely, but certainly it must run well beyond 5,000,000 words. A good deal of it, of course, was journalism pure and simple—dead almost before the ink which printed it was dry. But I certainly do not regret that I gave so much of my time and energy, especially in my earlier years, to this journalism, for I had a swell time concocting it, and in its day it got some attention. Even in my later years, with wisdom radiating from me like heat from a stove, I have occasionally gone back to it, to my complete satisfaction and the apparent approval (or horror) of the customers. There is something delightful about getting an idea on paper while it is still hot and charming, and seeing it in print before it begins to pale and stale. My happiest days have been spent in crowded press-stands, recording and belaboring events that were portentous in their day, but are now forgotten. These recordings usually died with the events, but I am well aware, as an old book reviewer, that multitudes of books have died too, including many once gloated over as masterpieces.
Those who explore the ensuing pages will find them marked by a certain ribaldry, even when they discuss topics commonly regarded as grave. I do not apologize for this, for life in the Republic has always seemed to me to be far more comic than serious. We live in a land of abounding quackeries, and if we do not learn how to laugh we succumb to the melancholy disease which afflicts the race of viewers-with-alarm. I have had too good a time of it in this world to go down that chute. I have witnessed, in my day, the discovery, enthronement and subsequent collapse of a vast army of uplifters and world-savers, and am firmly convinced that all of them were mountebanks. We produce such mountebanks in greater number than any other country, and they climb to heights seldom equalled elsewhere. Nevertheless, we survive, and not only survive but also flourish. In no other country known to me is life as safe and agreeable, taking one day with another, as it is in These States. Even in a great Depression few if any starve, and even in a great war the number who suffer by it is vastly surpassed by the number who fatten on it and enjoy it. Thus my view of my country is predominantly tolerant and amiable. I do not believe in democracy, but I am perfectly willing to admit that it provides the only really amusing form of government ever endured by mankind.
Baltimore H. L. MENCKEN
CONTENTS
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Preface
I. Homo Sapiens
The Life of Man
Man’s Place in Nature
Meditation on Meditation
Coda
II. Types of Men
The Romantic
The Skeptic
The Believer
The Toiler
The Physician
The Scientist
The Business Man
The King
The Metaphysician
The Average Man
The Truth-Seeker
The Relative
; The Relative-in-Law
The Friend
The Philosopher
The Altruist
The Iconoclast
The Family Man
The Bachelor
The Good Man
The Eternal Male
The Slave
III. Women
The Feminine Mind
Women as Outlaws
The Cold Woman
Intermezzo on Monogamy
The Libertine
The Lure of Beauty
The Incomparable Buzz-Saw
The War Between Man and Woman
The Nature of Love
The Eternal Farce
The Helpmate
The Sex Uproar
Women as Christians
The Lady of Joy
A Loss to Romance
The Balance Sheet
Compulsory Marriage
Cavia Cobaya
Art and Sex
Offspring
Sex Hygiene
The Double Standard
The Supreme Comedy
Woman as Realpolitiker
After-Thoughts
Romantic Interlude
Apologia
IV. Religion
The Cosmic Secretariat
The Nature of Faith
The Restoration of Beauty
Holy Clerks
The Collapse of Protestantism
Immune
A New Use for Churches
Free Will
Sabbath Meditation
The Immortality of the Soul
Miracles
Quod est Veritas?
The Doubter’s Reward
Holy Writ
The Powers of the Air
Memorial Service
V. Morals
The Origin of Morality
The Good Citizen
Free Will Again
An Ethical Dilemma
Honor
VI. Crime and Punishment
The Criminal Law
The Penalty of Death
On Hanging a Man
Cops and Their Ways
VII. Death
On Suicide
Under the Elms
Exeunt Omnes
Clarion Call to Poets
VIII. Government
Its Inner Nature
More of the Same
The Politician
Governmental Theories
Note on a Cuff
IX. Democracy
Its Origins
A Glance Ahead
The Democratic Citizen
A Blind Spot
Rivals to Democracy
Last Words
X. Americans
The Anglo-Saxon
American Culture
XI. The South
The Sahara of the Bozart
The Confederate Mind
The Calamity of Appomattox
A Class A Blunder
XII. History
Historians
Forgotten Men
Revolution
New England
New Deal No. 1
The Greeks
War
A Bad Guess
Undying Glories
XIII. Statesmen
Pater Patriæ
Abraham Lincoln
Portrait of an Immortal
A Good Man in a Bad Trade
Roosevelt I
In Memoriam: W. J. B.
Coolidge
Imperial Purple
XIV. American Immortals
Mr. Justice Holmes
Professor Veblen
John D.
XV. Odd Fish
A Good Man Gone Wrong
Valentino
An American Bonaparte
Sister Aimée
XVI. Economics
To Him That Hath
Capitalism
On Getting a Living
Personal Note
XVII. Pedagogy
The Educational Process
Travail
Classical Learning
The Boon of Culture
Bearers of the Torch
XVIII. Psychology
Psychologists in a Fog
The Mind of the Slave
The Crowd
The Art Eternal
XIX. Science
Hypothesis
Darwin
Caveat Against Science
The Eternal Conundrum
The Universe
The Boons of Civilization
XX. Quackery
Christian Science
Chiropractic
The Fruits of Comstockery
The Foundations of Quackery
Hooey from the Orient
The Executive Secretary
The Husbandman
Zoos
XXI. The Human Body
Pathological Note
The Striated Muscle Fetish
Moral Tale
Comfort for the Ailing
Eugenic Note
XXII. Utopian Flights
A Purge for Legislatures
A Chance for Millionaires
The Malevolent Jobholder
Portrait of an Ideal World
XXIII. Souvenirs of a Journalist
The Hills of Zion
Dempsey vs. Carpentier
How Legends are Made
Lodge
The Perihelion of Prohibition
The End of Prohibition
The New Deal
XXIV. Criticism
The Critical Process
Examination for Critics
XXV. Literature
The Divine Afflatus
The Poet and His Art
The New Poetry
On Style
Authorship as a Trade
The Author at Work
Foreign Poisons
The Blue-Nose
Folk-Literature
The Literary Amenities
The Author’s League
The Moonstruck Pastor
Aristotelian Obsequies
Poe
Whitman
Memorial Service
Footnote
Credo
The Man Within
The Dean
Ambrose Bierce
Stephen Crane
Hamlin Garland
Henry James
Dreiser
Ring Lardner
Huneker: a Memory
Joseph Conrad
XXVII. Music
Beethoven
Schubert
Brahms
Wagner
More of the Same
Johann Strauss
Tempo di Valse
Richard Strauss
Bach at Bethlehem
Opera
Music as a Trade
The Music-Lover
The Reward of the Artist
Masters of Tone
XXVIII. The Lesser Arts
Hand-Painted Oil Paintings
Art Critics
The New Architecture
Art Galleries
Art and Nature
The Artist
The Greenwich Village Complex
Reflection on the Drama
Actors
The Comedian
Arrière-pensée
Oratory
The Libido for the Ugly
XXIX. Buffooneries
Death: a Philosophical Discussion
The Declaration of Independence in American
The Visionary
A Neglected Anniversary
Star-Spangled Men
The Incomparable Physician
A Smart Set Circular
Suite Américaine
People and Things
XXX. Sententiæ
The Mind of Man
Masculum et Feminam Creavit Eos
The Citizen and the State
Arcan
a Cœlestia
This and That
XXXI. Appendix
Catechism
Epitaph
About the Author
I. HOMO SAPIENS
The Life of Man
From PREJUDICES: THIRD SERIES, 1922, pp. 120–32.
First printed in the Smart Set, Oct., 1918, pp. 80–81
THE OLD anthropomorphic notion that the life of the whole universe centers in the life of man—that human existence is the supreme expression of the cosmic process—this notion seems to be happily on its way toward the Sheol of exploded delusions. The fact is that the life of man, as it is more and more studied in the light of general biology, appears to be more and more empty of significance. Once apparently the chief concern and masterpiece of the gods, the human race now begins to bear the aspect of an accidental by-product of their vast, inscrutable and probably nonsensical operations. A blacksmith making a horse-shoe produces something almost as brilliant and mysterious—the shower of sparks. But his eye and thought, as we know, are not on the sparks, but on the horse-shoe. The sparks, indeed, constitute a sort of disease of the horse-shoe; their existence depends upon a wasting of its tissue. In the same way, perhaps, man is a local disease of the cosmos—a kind of pestiferous eczema or urethritis. There are, of course, different grades of eczema, and so are there different grades of men. No doubt a cosmos afflicted with nothing worse than an infection of Beethovens would not think it worth while to send for the doctor. But a cosmos infested by Socialists, Scotsmen and stockbrokers must suffer damnably. No wonder the sun is so hot and the moon is so diabetically green.
Man’s Place in Nature
From the same. First printed in the Smart Set, Aug., 1919, pp. 61–62
As I say, the anthropomorphic theory of the world is made absurd by modern biology—but that is not saying, of course, that it will ever be abandoned by the generality of men. To the contrary, they will cherish it in proportion as it becomes more and more dubious. Today, indeed, it is cherished as it was never cherished in the Ages of Faith, when the doctrine that man was god-like was at least ameliorated by the doctrine that woman was vile. What else is behind charity, philanthropy, pacifism, the uplift, all the rest of the current sentimentalities? One and all, these sentimentalities are based upon the notion that man is a glorious and ineffable animal, and that his continued existence in the world ought to be facilitated and insured. But this notion is obviously full of fatuity. As animals go, even in so limited a space as our world, man is botched and ridiculous. Few other brutes are so stupid or so cowardly. The commonest yellow dog has far sharper senses and is infinitely more courageous, not to say more honest and dependable. The ants and the bees are, in many ways, far more intelligent and ingenious; they manage their government with vastly less quarreling, wastefulness and imbecility. The lion is more beautiful, more dignified, more majestic. The antelope is swifter and more graceful. The ordinary house-cat is cleaner. The horse, foamed by labor, has a better smell. The gorilla is kinder to his children and more faithful to his wife. The ox and the ass are more industrious and serene. But most of all, man is deficient in courage, perhaps the noblest quality of them all. He is not only mortally afraid of all other animals of his own weight or half his weight—save a few that he has debased by artificial inbreeding –; he is even mortally afraid of his own kind—and not only of their fists and hooves, but even of their sniggers.