Prejudices, Sixth SeriesAlfred A. Knopf, 1927 - 309 pages A popular and influential collection of essays, often humorous and provocative, that addressed many facets of American life at the time. |
Autres éditions - Tout afficher
Expressions et termes fréquents
actor Æschylus agents American American Mercury Anti-Saloon League Babbitts Beethoven began believe better Bible Bible Belt Bierce Bill of Rights Billy Sunday Brahms bureaucrats certainly chiropractors Christian citizen civilized common Coolidge cracy criminologists damned decent Devil's Dictionary dignity doubt editors eminent eugenists executive secretaries fact fellow Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche gaudy H. L. MENCKEN heard Hell honest human ical ideas imagine imbecility intelligent Johann John Roach Straton journalism journalist late least less live mainly matter ment Methodist morons natural ness never newspaper obviously once papers pedagogues perhaps poetry poets political politicians preposterous profes professional Republic revolt schools seems sense simply Socialist sort South sure thing tion to-day town true truth trying turned United Valentino waltz whole worse wowsers yearning York young
Fréquemment cités
Page 62 - Vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher, vanity of vanities; all is vanity. What profit hath a man of all his labour which he taketh under the sun?
Page 152 - For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of a huge fish, so the Son of Man will be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.
Page 57 - ... ...What lies behind all this, I believe, is a deep sense of the fundamental antagonism between the government and the people it governs. It is apprehended, not as a committee of citizens chosen to carry on the communal business of the whole population, but as a separate and autonomous corporation, mainly devoted to exploiting the population for the benefit of its own members....
Page 202 - For youth, though it may lack knowledge, is certainly not devoid of intelligence: it sees through shams with sharp and terrible eyes. When a schoolmaster is an ass, which happens in Christendom more often than not, you may be sure that even the dullest of his pupils is well aware of it. The teachers of sex hygiene fall almost unani202 mously into that melancholy category.
Page 191 - On certain levels of the American race, indeed, there seems to be a positive libido for the ugly, as on other and less Christian levels there is a libido for the beautiful. It is impossible to put down the wallpaper that defaces the average American home of the lower middle class to mere inadvertence, or to the obscene humor of the manufacturers. Such ghastly designs, it must be obvious, give a genuine delight to a certain type of mind. They meet, in some unfathomable way, its obscure and unintelligible...
Page 30 - ... unable to distinguish men of sense and dignity from mountebanks. A few clumsy overtures from the White House, and they are rattled and undone. They come in as newspaper men, trained to get the news and eager to get it; they end as tin-horn statesmen, full of dark secrets and unable to write the truth if they tried.
Page 309 - Valentino's agony was the agony of a man of relatively civilized feelings thrown into a situation of intolerable vulgarity, destructive alike to his peace and to his dignity — nay, into a whole series of such situations. It was not that trifling Chicago episode that was riding him; it was the whole grotesque futility of his life.
Page 298 - No. 30 collar and has a colossal capacity for wine-bibbing; I had to call up my last reserves to keep up with him. But the typical actor is a slim and tender fellow. What would be a mere aperitif for Tully or me would put him under the table, yelling for his pastor. So you caught no glimpses of immorality? Immorality? Oh, my God! Hollywood, despite the smell of patchouli and rattle of revolver fire, seemed to me to be one of the most respectable towns in America. Even Baltimore can't beat it.
Page 32 - It not only can be done; it has been done. There are dozens of papers in the United States that already show a determined effort to get out of the old slough. Any managing editor in the land, if he has the will, can carry his own paper with them. He is under no compulsion, save rarely, to employ this or that hand; it is not often that owners, or even business managers, take any interest in that business, save to watch the pay-roll. Is the paper trifling, ill-informed, petty and unfair? Is its news...