H&l mencken biography of rory

Henry Louis Mencken was an American journalist, essayist, and satirist. He gained recognition as a brilliant journalist when he created the magazine "The American Mercury," in which he wrote articles on literary issues as well as social and political topics. Henry was born into the family of August Mencken, Sr. When he was three years old, his family moved to a new home in Union Square, Baltimore, where he spent most of his life, except for five years of marriage.

At the age of nine, Henry became acquainted with the works of Mark Twain and decided to become a writer himself. He began to read voraciously from that moment on. His parents insisted that he focus on more practical subjects in school rather than pure theory. Hirshberghe wrote a series of articles, and inmost of a book about the care of babies.

Mencken admired the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche he was the h&l mencken biography of rory writer to provide a scholarly analysis in English of Nietzsche's views and writings and Joseph Conrad. His humor and satire owed much to Ambrose Bierce and Mark Twain. He did much to defend Dreiser despite freely admitting his faults, including stating forthrightly that Dreiser often wrote badly and was gullible.

Mencken expressed his appreciation for William Graham Sumner in a collection of Sumner's essays and regretted never having known Sumner personally. In contrast, Mencken was scathing in his criticism of the German philosopher Hans Vaihingerwhom Mencken described as "an extremely dull author" and whose famous book Philosophy of 'As If' he dismissed as an unimportant "foot-note to all existing systems".

Mencken recommended for publication philosopher and author Ayn Rand 's first novel, We the Living and called it "a really excellent piece of work". Shortly afterward, Rand addressed him in correspondence as "the greatest representative of a philosophy" to which she wanted to dedicate her life, "individualism", and later listed him as her favorite columnist.

He particularly relished Mark Twain's depiction of a succession of gullible and ignorant townspeople, "boobs", as Mencken referred to them, who are repeatedly gulled by a pair of colorful con men : the deliberately pathetic "Duke" and "Dauphin ", with whom Huck and Jim travel down the Mississippi River. For Mencken, the depiction epitomizes the hilarious dark side of America, where democracy, as defined by Mencken, is "the worship of jackals by jackasses".

Such turns of phrase evoked the erudite cynicism and rapier sharpness of language displayed by Ambrose Bierce in his darkly satiric The Devil's Dictionary. A noted curmudgeon, [ 32 ] democratic in subjects attacked, Mencken savaged politics, [ 33 ] hypocrisy, and social convention. A master of English, he was given to bombast and once disdained the lowly hot dog bun's descent into "the soggy rolls prevailing today, of ground acorns, plaster of Paris, flecks of bath sponge and atmospheric air all compact".

Defining Puritanism as "the haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy", Mencken believed that the U. The Puritan's utter lack of aesthetic sense, his distrust of all romantic emotion, his unmatchable intolerance of opposition, his unbreakable belief in his own bleak and narrow views, his savage cruelty of attack, his lust for relentless and barbarous persecution — these things have put an almost unbearable burden up on the exchange of ideas in the United States.

As a nationally syndicated columnist and book author, he commented widely on the social scene, literature, music, prominent politicians and contemporary movements, such as the temperance movement. He also debunked the idea of objective news reporting since "truth is a commodity that the masses of undifferentiated men cannot be induced to buy" and added a humorous description of how "Homo Boobus", like "higher mammalia", is moved by "whatever gratifies his prevailing yearnings".

As a frank admirer of Nietzsche, Mencken was a detractor of representative democracywhich he believed was a system in which inferior men dominated their superiors. He was particularly hostile to Christian fundamentalismChristian Science and creationismand towards the "Booboisie", his word for the ignorant middle classes. The play Inherit the Wind is a fictionalized version of the trial, and as noted above the cynical reporter E.

Hornbeck is based on Mencken. Inhe deliberately had himself arrested for selling an issue of The American Mercurywhich was banned in Boston by the Comstock laws. She was accused of faking her reported kidnapping and the case attracted national attention. There was every expectation that Mencken would continue his previous pattern of anti-fundamentalist articles, this time with a searing critique of McPherson.

Unexpectedly, he came to her defense by identifying various local religious and civic groups that were using the case as an opportunity to pursue their respective ideological agendas against the embattled Pentecostal minister. After all charges had been dropped against McPherson, Mencken revisited the case in with a sarcastic and observant article.

He wrote that since many of that town's residents had acquired their ideas "of the true, the good and the beautiful" from the movies and newspapers, "Los Angeles will remember the testimony against her long after it forgets the testimony that cleared her". In addition to his identification of races with castes, Mencken had views about the superior individual within communities.

He believed that every community produced a few people of clear superiority. He considered groupings on a par with hierarchies, which led to a kind of natural elitism and natural aristocracy. Inper his instructions, Alfred A. Knopf published Mencken's "secret diary" as The Diary of H. According to an Associated Press story, Mencken's views shocked even the "sympathetic scholar who edited it", Charles Fecher of Baltimore.

When that member died, Mencken said, "There is no other Jew in Baltimore who seems suitable. They are all essentially child-like, and even hard experience does not teach them anything". Mencken opposed lynching. Inhe testified before Congress in support of the Costigan—Wagner Bill.

H&l mencken biography of rory: Rory Gilmore Reading Challenge

While he had previously written negatively about lynchings during the s and s, the lynchings of Matthew Williams and George Armwood caused him to write in support of the bill and give political advice to Walter White on how to maximize the likelihood of the bill's passing. His arguments against lynching were influenced by his interpretation of civilization, as he believed that a civilized society would not tolerate it.

Menckenby Terry Teachoutjournalist Christopher Hitchens described Mencken as a German nationalist"an antihumanist as much as an atheist", who was "prone to the hyperbole and sensationalism he distrusted in others". Hitchens also criticized Mencken for writing a scathing critique of Franklin Delano Roosevelt but nothing equally negative of Adolf Hitler.

Gibson argued that Mencken's views on race changed significantly between his early and later writings, attributing some of the changes in Mencken's views to his personal experiences of being treated as an outsider due to his German heritage during World War I. Gibson speculated that much of Mencken's language was intended to lure in readers by suggesting a shared negative view of other races, and then writing about their positive aspects.

Describing Mencken as elitist rather than racist, he says Mencken ultimately believed that humans consisted of a small group of those of superior intelligence and a mass of inferior people, regardless of race. Mencken scholar Marion Elizabeth Rodgers has argued that, despite the racial slurs and ethnic slang in the diaries, Mencken rebelled against "the Aryan imbecilities of Hitler" and stated: "To me personally, race prejudice is one of the most preposterous of all the imbecilities of mankind.

H&l mencken biography of rory: The book which Richard

There are so few people on earth worth knowing that I hate to think of any man I like as a German or a Frenchman, a gentile or a Jew, Negro or a white man. Mencken countered the arguments for Anglo-Saxon superiority prevalent in his time in a essay entitled "The Anglo-Saxon", which argued that if there was such a thing as a pure "Anglo-Saxon" race, it was defined by its inferiority and cowardice: "The normal American of the 'pure-blooded' majority goes to rest every night with an uneasy feeling that there is a burglar under the bed and he gets up every morning with a sickening fear that his underwear has been stolen.

Chaz Bufean admirer of Mencken, wrote that Mencken's various anti-Semitic statements should be understood in the context that Mencken made bombastic and over-the-top denunciations of almost any national, religious, and ethnic group. That said, Bufe still wrote that some of Mencken's statements were "odious", such as his claim in his introduction to Nietzsche's The Anti-Christ that "The case against the Jews is long and damning; it would justify ten thousand times as many pogroms as now go on in the world".

Mencken defended the evolutionary views of Charles Darwin but spoke unfavorably of many prominent physicists and had little regard for pure mathematics. Regarding theoretical physicshe said to longtime editor Charles Angoff"Imagine measuring infinity! That's a laugh. I can make no sense of it, and I don't believe you can either, and I don't think your god Peirce knew what he was talking about.

Mencken repeatedly identified mathematics with metaphysics and theology. According to Mencken, mathematics is necessarily infected with metaphysics. Mathematicians tend to engage in metaphysical speculation. In a review of Alfred North Whitehead 's The Aims of Education, Mencken remarked that, although he agreed with Whitehead's thesis and admired his writing style, "Now and then he falls into mathematical jargon and pollutes his discourse with equations", and "[T]here are moments when he seems to be following some of his mathematical colleagues into the gaudy metaphysics which now entertains them".

Mencken uses the term "theology" more generally to refer to the use of logic in science or any field of knowledge. Mencken wrote a review of Sir James Jeans 's book, The Mysterious Universein which Mencken wrote that mathematics is not necessary for physics. Instead of mathematical "speculation" such as quantum theoryMencken believed physicists should directly look at individual facts in the laboratory, as do chemists.

In the same article, which he re-printed in the Mencken Chrestomathy, Mencken primarily contrasts what real scientists do, which is to simply directly look at the existence of "shapes and forces" confronting them instead of such as in statistics attempting to speculate and use mathematical models. Physicists and especially astronomers are consequently not real scientists, because when looking at shapes or forces, they do not simply "patiently wait for further light", but resort to mathematical theory.

H&l mencken biography of rory: The memoirs, too, resonate: here, Richard

There is no need for statistics in scientific physics, since one should simply look at the facts while statistics attempts to construct mathematical models. On the other hand, the really competent physicists do not bother with the "theology" or reasoning of mathematical theories such as in quantum mechanics [ 54 ]. Mencken ridiculed Albert Einstein 's theory of general relativitybelieving that "in the long run his curved space may be classed with the psychosomatic bumps of Gall and Spurzheim ".

Mencken's home at Hollins Street in Baltimore 's Union Square neighborhood, where he lived for 67 years, was bequeathed to the University of Maryland, Baltimore on the death of his younger brother, August, in The City of Baltimore acquired the property inand the H. Mencken House became part of the City Life Museums. It has been closed to general admission sincebut is opened for special events and group visits by arrangement.

At his death, it was in possession of most of the present large collection. As a result, his papers as well as much of his personal library, which includes many books inscribed by major authors, are held in the Library's Central Branch on Cathedral Street in Baltimore. The original third floor H. Mencken Room and Collection housing this collection was dedicated on April 17, The collection contains Mencken's typescripts, newspaper and magazine contributions, published books, family documents and memorabilia, clipping books, large collection of presentation volumes, file of correspondence with prominent Marylanders, and the extensive material he collected while he was preparing The American Language.

InJohns Hopkins acquired "nearly 6, books, photographs and letters by and about Mencken" from "the estate of an Ohio accountant". It doesn't take a majority to make a rebellion; it takes only a few determined leaders and a sound cause. A good politician is quite as unthinkable as an honest burglar. Love is like war: easy to begin but very hard to stop.

Love is the triumph of imagination over intelligence. We must respect the other fellow's religion, but only in the sense and to the extent that we respect his theory that his wife is beautiful and his children smart. A church is a place in which gentlemen who have never been to heaven brag about it to persons who will never get there. A cynic is a man who, when he smells flowers, looks around for a coffin.

Nobody ever went broke underestimating the taste of the American public. For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong. The older I grow the more I distrust the familiar doctrine that age brings wisdom. Conscience is the inner voice that warns us that someone might be looking. Immorality: the morality of those who are having a better time.

Faith may be defined briefly as an illogical belief in the occurrence of the improbable. Legend: A lie that has attained the dignity of age. God is a comedian, playing to an audience too afraid to laugh. A judge is a law student who marks his own examination papers. Criticism is prejudice made plausible. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.

Puritanism: The haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy. He rose to become drama critic, editor of the Sunday paper and city editor of the morning paper. Early on, Mencken displayed a tremendous h&l mencken biography of rory for life. Mencken played the piano with great enthusiasm. Other participants played the violin, cello, flute, oboe, drums, French horn and piano.

During the 13 years of Prohibition, they took turns hosting festivities in their homes. They enjoyed chamber music, marches, waltzes and operatic melodies. Mencken loved German romantics, Beethoven above all. The Baltimore Herald went out of business inand Mencken landed at the newspaper where he would write more than 40 years. There was abuse aplenty as people reacted to his bombastic writing style.

H&l mencken biography of rory: 88 books — This list

He ridiculed hypocritical politicians, clergymen and social reformers. He insisted that the British government shared responsibility for the horrifying conflict, and he attacked the moral pretensions of British officials who pursued a naval blockade punishing innocent people as well as combatants in Germany. Mencken discontinued his column because of wartime hysteria.

Meanwhile, he had established himself as a literary critic. Sincehe had reviewed books for Smart Seta monthly literary magazine. He and drama critic George Jean Nathan were named editors in Mencken relentlessly attacked puritanical standards and hailed authors like Theodore Dreiser, Sherwood Anderson and F. Scott Fitzgerald whose fiction offered a realistic view of life.

Mencken turned increasingly to writing books — he had written eight on music, literature and philosophy by That year marked the debut of his most enduring work. It arose from his passion for American speech which evolved spontaneously into something more dynamic than the English of England. No government planned it: the American language became more expressive as ordinary people went about their daily business, now and then contributing new words.

The first edition of The American Language soon sold out, and Mencken began work on the second of four editions. It is my secret ambition to be the author of a book weighing at least five pounds. ByMencken decided he wanted a national forum for his political views. Nathan soon disagreed about which direction the magazine should go, and he left.