Page:The Borzoi 1920.djvu/60

 ON H. L. MENCKEN

By George Jean Nathan

In the monthly department, "Répétition Générale," which we jointly conduct in The Smart Set Magazine, there was some months ago incorporated the following paragraph:

"'When one of us, in the course of his critical writings, indulges himself in polite words about the other, it is a common antic of the newspaper literary supplement professors to observe that this encomium is merely by way of mutual log-rolling, that it is based upon no sounder critical ground than our friendship for each other and our commercial alliance, and that it is perhaps not honestly believed in by either the one or the other. This, of course, is idiotic. We are friends and partners, not because we admire each other's beauty, or each other's conversation, or each other's waistcoats or wives, but because we respect each other professionally, because each to the other seems to know his work in the world, and how to do it, and how to do it—it may be—just a little bit better than the next nearest man. This, obviously, is the soundest of all bases for friendship. It is not friendship that makes men approve one another; it is mutual approval that makes them friends.'"

Let me add a word about Mencken in particular. I respect him, and am his friend, because he is one of the very few Americans I know who is entirely free of cheapness, toadyism 34