Flotsam & Jetsam

“Every reader of the Dreiser novels must cherish astounding specimens—of awkward, platitudinous marginalia, of whole scenes spoiled by bad writing, of phrases so brackish as so many lumps of sodium hyposulfite. Here and there, as in parts of The Titan and again in parts of A Hoosier Holiday, an evil conscience seems to haunt him and he gives hard striving to his manner, and more than once there emerges something that is almost graceful. But a backsliding always follows this phosphoresce of reform.”

– H. L. Mencken,

A Book of Prefaces (1917)

–=≈=–

 “It is ridiculous to seek to excuse Robert [E.] Lee as the most formidable agency this nation ever raised to make four million human beings goods instead of men. Either he knew what slavery meant when he helped maim and murder thousands in its defense, or he did not. If he did not he was a fool. If he did, Robert [E.] Lee was a traitor and a rebel–not indeed to his country, but to humanity and humanity’s God.”

– W. E. B. Du Bois

Leave a Comment