Mencken Chrestomathy (Vintage)
Page 66
A door leads into the front parlor. It is open, and through it the flowers may be seen. They are banked about a long black box with huge nickel handles, resting upon two folding horses. Now and then a man comes into the front room from the street door, his shoes squeaking hideously. Each visitor approaches the long black box, looks into it with ill-concealed repugnance, snuffles softly, and then backs off toward the door. A clock on the mantel-piece ticks loudly.
In the back parlor six pallbearers sit upon chairs, all of them bolt upright, with their hands on their knees. They are in their Sunday clothes, and their hats are on the floor beside their chairs. Each wears upon his lapel the gilt badge of a fraternal order, with a crêpe rosette. In the gloom they are indistinguishable; all of them talk in the same strained, throaty whisper. Between their remarks they pause, clear their throats, blow their noses, and shuffle in their chairs. They are intensely uncomfortable. Tempo: Adagio lamentoso, with occasionally a rise to andante maesto. So:
First Pallbearer
Who woulda thought that he woulda been the next?
Second Pallbearer
Yes; you never can tell.
Third Pallbearer
An oldish voice, oracularly. We’re here today and gone tomorrow.
Fourth Pallbearer
I seen him no longer ago than Chewsday. He never looked no better. Nobody would have –
Fifth Pallbearer
I seen him Wednesday. We had a glass of beer together in the Huffbrow Kaif. He was laughing and cutting up like he always done.
Sixth Pallbearer
You never know who it’s gonna hit next. Him and me was pallbearers together for Hen Jackson no more than a month ago, or say five weeks.
First Pallbearer
Well, a man is lucky if he goes off quick. If I had my way I wouldn’t want no better way.
Second Pallbearer
My brother John went thataway. He dropped like a stone, settin’ there at the supper table. They had to take his knife outen his hand.
Third Pallbearer
I had an uncle to do the same thing, but without the knife. He had what they call appleplexy. It runs in my family.
Fourth Pallbearer
They say it’s in his’n, too.
Fifth Pallbearer
But he never looked it.
Sixth Pallbearer
No. Nobody woulda thought he woulda been the next.
First Pallbearer
Them are the things you never can tell anything about.
Second Pallbearer
Ain’t it true!
Third Pallbearer
We’re here today and gone tomorrow.
A pause. Feet are shuffled. Somewhere a door bangs.)
Fourth Pallbearer
(Brightly). He looks elegant. I hear he never suffered none.
Fifth Pallbearer
No; he went too quick. One minute he was alive and the next minute he was dead.
Sixth Pallbearer
Think of it: dead so quick!
First Pallbearer
Gone!
Second Pallbearer
Passed away!
Third Pallbearer
Well, we all have to go some time.
Fourth Pallbearer
Yes; a man never knows but what his turn’ll come next.
Fifth Pallbearer
You can’t tell nothing by looks. Them sickly fellows generally lives to be old.
Sixth Pallbearer
Yes; the doctors say it’s the big stout person that goes off the soonest. They say pneumoney never kills none but the healthy.
First Pallbearer
So I have heered it said. My wife’s youngest brother weighed 240 pounds. He was as strong as a mule. He could lift a whiskey-barrel, and then some. Once I seen him drink damn near a whole keg of beer. Yet it finished him in less’n a week—and he had it mild.
Second Pallbearer
It seems that there’s a lot of it this Winter.
Third Pallbearer
Yes; I hear of people taken with it every day. My brother Sam’s oldest is down with it.
Fourth Pallbearer
I had it myself once. I was out of my head for four weeks.
Fifth Pallbearer
That’s a good sign.
Sixth Pallbearer
Yes; you don’t die as long as you’re out of your head.
First Pallbearer
It seems to me that there is a lot of sickness around this year.
Second Pallbearer
I been to five funerals in six weeks.
Third Pallbearer
I beat you. I been to six in five weeks, not counting this one.
Fourth Pallbearer
A body don’t hardly know what to think of it scarcely.
Fifth Pallbearer
That’s what I always say: you can’t tell who’ll be next.
Sixth Pallbearer
Ain’t it true! Just think of him.
First Pallbearer
Yes; nobody woulda picked him out.
Second Pallbearer
Nor my brother John, neither.
Third Pallbearer
Well, what must be must be.
Fourth Pallbearer
Yes; it don’t do no good to kick. When a man’s time comes he’s got to go.
Fifth Pallbearer
We’re lucky if it ain’t us.
Sixth Pallbearer
So I always say. We ought to be thankful.
First Pallbearer
That’s the way I always feel about it.
Second Pallbearer
It wouldn’t do him no good, no matter what we done.
Third Pallbearer
We’re here today and gone tomorrow.
Fourth Pallbearer
But it’s hard all the same.
Fifth Pallbearer
It’s hard on her.
Sixth Pallbearer
Yes, it is. Why should he go?
First Pallbearer
It’s a question nobody ain’t ever answered.
Second Pallbearer
Nor never won’t.
Third Pallbearer
You’re right there. I talked to a preacher about it once, and even he couldn’t give no answer to it.
Fourth Pallbearer
The more you think about it the less you can make it out.
Fifth Pallbearer
When I seen him last Wednesday he had no more ideer of it than what you had.
Sixth Pallbearer
Well, if I had my choice, that’s the way I would always want to die.
First Pallbearer
Yes; that’s what I say. I am with you there.
Second Pallbearer
Yes; you’re right, bothen you. It don’t do no good to lay sick for months, with doctors’ bills eatin’ you up, and then have to go anyhow.
Third Pallbearer
No; when a thing has to be done, the best thing to do is to get it done and over with.
Fourth Pallbearer
That’s just what I said to my wife when I heerd.
Fifth Pallbearer
But nobody hardly thought that he woulda been the next.
Sixth Pallbearer
No; but that’s one of them things you can’t tell.
First Pallbearer
You never know who’ll be the next.
Second Pallbearer
It’s lucky you don’t
Third Pallbearer
I guess you’re right.
Fourth Pallbearer
That’s what my grandfather used to say: you never know what is coming.
Fifth Pallbearer
Yes; that’s the way it goes.
Sixth Pallbearer
First one, and then somebody else.
First Pallbearer
Who it’ll be you can’t say.
Second Pallbearer
I always say the same: we’re here today –
Third Pallbearer
(Cutting in jea
lously and humorously). And tomorrow we ain’t here.
(A subdued and sinister snicker. It is followed by sudden silence. There is a shuffling of feet in the front room, and whispers. Necks are craned. The pallbearers straighten their backs, and hitch their coat collars. The clergyman has arrived. From above comes the sound of weeping.)
The Declaration of Independence in American
From THE AMERICAN LANGUAGE, THIRD EDITION, 1923, pp. 398–402. First printed, as Essay in American, in the Baltimore Evening Sun, Nov. 7, 1921. Reprinted in THE AMERICAN LANGUAGE, SECOND EDITION, 1921, pp. 388–92. From the preface thereof: “It must be obvious that more than one section of the original is now quite unintelligible to the average American of the sort using the Common Speech. What would he make, for example, of such a sentence as this one: ‘He has called together bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures’? Or of this: ‘He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected, whereby the legislative powers, incapable of annihilation, have returned to the people at large for their exercise.’ Such Johnsonian periods are quite beyond his comprehension, and no doubt the fact is at least partly to blame for the neglect upon which the Declaration has fallen in recent years. When, during the Wilson-Palmer saturnalia of oppressions [1918–20], specialists in liberty began protesting that the Declaration plainly gave the people the right to alter the government under which they lived and even to abolish it altogether, they encountered the utmost incredulity. On more than one occasion, in fact, such an exegete was tarred and feathered by shocked members of the American Legion, even after the Declaration had been read to them. What ailed them was simply that they could not understand its Eighteenth Century English.” This jocosity was denounced as seditious by various patriotic Americans, and in England it was accepted gravely and deplored sadly as a specimen of current Standard American
WHEN things get so balled up that the people of a country got to cut loose from some other country, and go it on their own hook, without asking no permission from nobody, excepting maybe God Almighty, then they ought to let everybody know why they done it, so that everybody can see they are not trying to put nothing over on nobody.
All we got to say on this proposition is this: first, me and you is as good as anybody else, and maybe a damn sight better; second, nobody ain’t got no right to take away none of our rights; third, every man has got a right to live, to come and go as he pleases, and to have a good time whichever way he likes, so long as he don’t interfere with nobody else. That any government that don’t give a man them rights ain’t worth a damn; also, people ought to choose the kind of government they want themselves, and nobody else ought to have no say in the matter. That whenever any government don’t do this, then the people have got a right to give it the bum’s rush and put in one that will take care of their interests. Of course, that don’t mean having a revolution every day like them South American yellowbellies, or every time some jobholder goes to work and does something he ain’t got no business to do. It is better to stand a little graft, etc., than to have revolutions all the time, like them coons, and any man that wasn’t a anarchist or one of them I. W. W.’s would say the same. But when things get so bad that a man ain’t hardly got no rights at all no more, but you might almost call him a slave, then everybody ought to get together and throw the grafters out, and put in new ones who won’t carry on so high and steal so much, and then watch them. This is the proposition the people of these Colonies is up against, and they have got tired of it, and won’t stand it no more. The administration of the present King, George III, has been rotten from the start, and when anybody kicked about it he always tried to get away with it by strong-arm work. Here is some of the rough stuff he has pulled:
He vetoed bills in the Legislature that everybody was in favor of, and hardly nobody was against.
He wouldn’t allow no law to be passed without it was first put up to him, and then he stuck it in his pocket and let on he forgot about it, and didn’t pay no attention to no kicks.
When people went to work and gone to him and asked him to put through a law about this or that, he give them their choice: either they had to shut down the Legislature and let him pass it all by himself, or they couldn’t have it at all.
He made the Legislature meet at one-horse tank-towns, so that hardly nobody could get there and most of the leaders would stay home and let him go to work and do things like he wanted.
He give the Legislature the air, and sent the members home every time they stood up to him and give him a call-down or bawled him out.
When a Legislature was busted up he wouldn’t allow no new one to be elected, so that there wasn’t nobody left to run things, but anybody could walk in and do whatever they pleased.
He tried to scare people outen moving into these States, and made it so hard for a wop or one of these here kikes to get his papers that he would rather stay home and not try it, and then, when he come in, he wouldn’t let him have no land, and so he either went home again or never come.
He monkeyed with the courts, and didn’t hire enough judges to do the work, and so a person had to wait so long for his case to come up that he got sick of waiting, and went home, and so never got what was coming to him.
He got the judges under his thumb by turning them out when they done anything he didn’t like, or by holding up their salaries, so that they had to knuckle down or not get no money.
He made a lot of new jobs, and give them to loafers that nobody knowed nothing about, and the poor people had to pay the bill, whether they could or not.
Without no war going on, he kept an army loafing around the country, no matter how much people kicked about it.
He let the army run things to suit theirself and never paid no attention whatsoever to nobody which didn’t wear no uniform.
He let grafters run loose, from God knows where, and give them the say in everything, and let them put over such things as the following:
Making poor people board and lodge a lot of soldiers they ain’t got no use for, and don’t want to see loafing around.
When the soldiers kill a man, framing it up so that they would get off.
Interfering with business.
Making us pay taxes without asking us whether we thought the things we had to pay taxes for was something that was worth paying taxes for or not.
When a man was arrested and asked for a jury trial, not letting him have no jury trial.
Chasing men out of the country, without being guilty of nothing, and trying them somewheres else for what they done here.
In countries that border on us, he put in bum governments, and then tried to spread them out, so that by and by they would take in this country too, or make our own government as bum as they was.
He never paid no attention whatever to the Constitution, but he went to work and repealed laws that everybody was satisfied with and hardly nobody was against, and tried to fix the government so that he could do whatever he pleased.
He busted up the Legislatures and let on he could do all the work better by himself.
Now he washes his hands of us and even goes to work and declares war on us, so we don’t owe him nothing, and whatever authority he ever had he ain’t got no more.
He has burned down towns, shot down people like dogs, and raised hell against us out on the ocean.
He hired whole regiments of Dutch, etc., to fight us, and told them they could have anything they wanted if they could take it away from us, and sicked these Dutch, etc., on us.
He grabbed our own people when he found them in ships on the ocean, and shoved guns into their hands, and made them fight against us, no matter how much they didn’t want to.
He stirred up the Indians, and give them arms and ammunition, and told them to go to it, and they have killed men, women and children, and don’t care which.
Every time
he has went to work and pulled any of these things, we have went to work and put in a kick, but every time we have went to work and put in a kick he has went to work and did it again. When a man keeps on handing out such rough stuff all the time, all you can say is that he ain’t got no class and ain’t fitten to have no authority over people who have got any rights, and he ought to be kicked out.
When we complained to the English we didn’t get no more satisfaction. Almost every day we give them plenty of warning that the politicians over there was doing things to us that they didn’t have no right to do. We kept on reminding them who we was, and what we was doing here, and how we come to come here. We asked them to get us a square deal, and told them that if this thing kept on we’d have to do something about it and maybe they wouldn’t like it. But the more we talked, the more they didn’t pay no attention to us. Therefore, if they ain’t for us they must be agin us, and we are ready to give them the fight of their lives, or to shake hands when it is over.
Therefore be it resolved, That we, the representatives of the people of the United States of America, in Congress assembled, hereby declare as follows: That the United States, which was the United Colonies in former times, is now a free country, and ought to be; that we have throwed out the English King and don’t want to have nothing to do with him no more, and are not taking no more English orders no more; and that, being as we are now a free country, we can do anything that free countries can do, especially declare war, make peace, sign treaties, go into business, etc. And we swear on the Bible on this proposition, one and all, and agree to stick to it no matter what happens, whether we win or we lose, and whether we get away with it or get the worst of it, no matter whether we lose all our property by it or even get hung for it.
The Visionary
From A BOOK OF BURLESQUES, 1916, pp. 71–79.
First printed in the Smart Set, Dec., 1914, pp. 276–78
“YES,” said Cheops, helping his guest over a ticklish place, “I daresay this pile of rocks will last. It has cost me a pretty penny, believe me. I made up my mind at the start that it would be built of honest stone, or not at all. No cheap and shoddy brickwork for me! Look at Babylon. It’s all brick, and it’s always tumbling down. My ambassador there tells me that it costs a million a year to keep up the walls alone—mind you, the walls alone! What must it cost to keep up the palace, with all that fancy work!