The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1916-1920, 1918-10-20

The search for sex truth, unless under
taken by Balzac, a Stendhal, Bourget,
a Havelock Ellis, is an attribute of the
middle class mind. 1t is generally the re-
action Of an essentially Puritan mind,
and Mr.. Mencken is a Puritan of Puri-
tans. Extremes breed opposites. Only
born pagan can assassinate hypocrisy,
and pagans are no more.
We recall that sublime ass, Gregers
Werle, in Ibsen's Wild Duck, who went
from flat to flat, ringing bells, peddling
out "truths" for married people only. The
same fascinating and tragic huckstering is
going on in this country. But these
Werles are, like Werle himself, in pima
flores, amateurs, mere Smart Alecs.
1t never occurs to these boisterous and
comic Prometheuses that a lie has more
value than the truth; that it is lies that
are beautiful; that lies make life fascinat-
ing; that only lies become dazzling Chi
meras; that it is the Lie Beautiful that is
the one thing needful; that lies make us
free-and that, in a word, mankind does
not really care tinker's dam about the
truth, and that in this attitude Man en-
bodies his eternal wisdom. Give us this
day our illusion. Truths are for mathe-
maticians, plumbers, business men and
carpenters.
Hypocrisy is the greatest of the arts
vital, life creating, and the mother of art
No great artist ever held the mirror up to
nature; he holds it up to his own brain,
which is the thesaurus of lies and hypoc-
risies. Tartuffe is the human race-and
II the race were not tartuffian it could not
survive. He, with Don Juan, is our IA
vorite character in fiction, and all of Mr..
Mencken's evangelistic and quaint fulmi-
nations against him cannot persuade us
that Joseph Surface was not Sheridan's
finest creation.
We need these social drainmen, Of
course; these brilliant second story souls,
these paradoxical "inside job men. The
greatest of them all was the late Octave
Mirbeau-but he was Swift, Juvenal,
Hugo-and he wore the clothes of lit
erary Marat. He never astounded; he
slew in the public streets.
In Mr.. Mencken's --latest" las the jacket
on the book has it,, In Defence of
Woman, we have the author at his very
best, which is always his very worst. This
book should have been called The Second
Fail of Man.
Do you recall the fable in Genesis of
the first Fall Of Man? 1t is the original
triangle "movie" Adam was a sort of
garden lounge lizard and Eve premiere
danseuse to the animal world. One day
she sat under big tree, tree done a Ia
Matisse. A long, bad, sibilant mencken
peeped cut Of its LEAKAGE and urged her to
pick the apple, take bite out of it and
pass it on to Adam. All of which Eve
eternally wise Eve!did. The meneken
retired to its carefully camoufaged Bal
timore stove in the tree top; and for that
are we thus.
Man has never received such an utter
lambasting as he gets in this first sus-
tanned effort of Mr. Mencken's. The book
has 21S pages, divided into thirty-seven
sections. The Lord of Creation is canned,
sealed and showed into the muff of woman
kind, where he suffocates with powder
puffs, smelling salts md Thrift Stamps.
We, Natures wonderful Rolls-Royce, have
become Fords sans gear box, seat, wind
shield, tonneau, hood. Nothing remains
but the exposed plumbing of our souls.
It's raw psychic deal.
Here is the pontifcal introduction:
"a mans women folk, whatever their
outward show of respect for his merit and
authority, always regard him secretly as
an ass, and with something akin to pity.
The appearance, in the normal
family circle, is a hero, a magnifeo,
demigod. The substance is poor mounte-
bank"
Again, Mr.. Mencken can't "recall a
single masculine figure created by a