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Mencken, H. L. (Henry Louis), 1880-1956

"A Book of Prefaces"

"
Of the actual contents of such books as "Egoists" and "Iconoclasts" it
is unnecessary to say anything. One no longer reads them for their
matter, but for their manner. Every flapper now knows all that is worth
knowing about Ibsen, Strindberg, Maeterlinck and Shaw, and a great deal
that is not worth knowing. We have disentangled Hauptmann from
Sudermann, and, thanks to Dr. Lewisohn, may read all his plays in
English. Even Henry Becque has got into the vulgate and is familiar to
the Drama League. As for Anatole France, his "Revolt of the Angels" is
on the shelves of the Carnegie Libraries, and the Comstocks have let it
pass. New gods whoop and rage in Valhalla: Verhaeren, Artzibashef,
Przybyszewski. Huneker, alas, seems to drop behind the procession. He
writes nothing about these second-hand third-raters. He has come to
Wedekind, Schnitzler, Schoenberg, Korngold and Moussorgsky, and he has
discharged a few rounds of shrapnel at the Gallo-Asiatic petti-coat
philosopher, Henri Bergson, but here he has stopped, as he has stopped
at Matisse, Picasso, Epstein and Augustus John in painting.


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