H. L. Mencken is gone, and heaven only knows when we’ll see the like of him again. God, I suspect, broods a long, long time before deciding to loose a Mencken upon the world. Too many of them would soon spoil everything; but a world devoid of them would spoil, egg-fashion, even sooner.
The Age of Mencken passed many years ago, long ere Mencken himself entered his final, or what history, thinking to please his ghost, may call his “Bring on the angels!” phase. That Age was, indeed, a great age, though when it began, exactly, and when it ended, exactly, are matters for the future to determine. But that it started off with a bang (one of Mencken’s) and ended with a whimper (which Mencken had no part of) is clearly beyond dispute.
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