Today is the Birthday of H. L. Mencken: Alan Purves HLM and the Art of Fine Writing

The writings of H. L. Mencken (September 12, 1880-January 29, 1956) are dear to me.

In my Freshman English Course at Columbia (designed to turn us into competent writers at the tender age of 18), we had to read a Mencken essay about mediocrity.

As much as I would like to forget this required course because of its seeming roteness, it would be impossible to repress the angular tweed jacketed Professor Purves (probably a PHD candidate), nor his monotonous discussion of the fundaments of good essay writing.

Well, in the essay in question, which I have searched for in vain , the sage of Baltimore waxes on end about the endless mediocrity in life and writing; many examples are given and somewhere in the fine flow of Mencken's own exemplary writing, the essayist portrays the detested prose as a sea of detritus overflowing his work area; and not being able to take it any longer-- with the detested prose rising higher and higher-- he is forced to climb up on his desk to avoid drowning in the torrents.

You get the picture.

What is amazing is that 52 years later, I still visualize Professor Purves at the head of the class.

What's more amazing is that Menckens' prodigious output of essays have survived the test of time . A total of 92 books have been written by and about the Sage of Baltimore.

Here is a sampling of his fine prose.

On Harry Hopkins and his aides formulating the New Deal:

Four preposterous nonentities, all of them professional uplifters, returning from a junket at the taxpayer's expense, sit in a smoking car munching peanuts and talking shop. Their sole business in life is spending other people's money. In the past they have always had to put four-fifths of their time cadging it, but now the New Deal has admitted them to the vast vaults of the public treasury, and just beyond the public treasury, shackled in a gigantic lemon-squeezer worked by steam , groans the taxpayer.

I particularly like this quote for its succinct wit: "Every normal man must be tempted at times to spit on his hands, hoist the flag and begin to slit throats."

Finally his epitaph reads: "If after I depart this vale, you ever remember me and have thought to please my ghost, forgive some sinner and wink your eye at some homely girl."

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