The Best of Connie Willis

Afterword for “Inside Job”

I really miss H. L. Mencken. I have spent the last forty years (since Nixon and Watergate) following politics, observing my fellow humans, and saying, “Where is Mencken when we need him?” And wishing desperately that he’d come back from the grave to say all those things that desperately need saying. Like:

“The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by an endless series of hobgoblins, most of them imaginary.”

And:

“In this world of sin and sorrow there is always something to be thankful for. As for me, I rejoice that I am not a Republican.”

And:

“It may be hard for the average man to believe he is descended from an ape… Nevertheless, it is even harder for the average ape to believe that he has descended from man.”

I also miss him because he loved language. His book The American Language is a masterpiece, and he was the first to document what Mark Twain had understood, that “American” is not “English” but a language all its own.

Most of all, I miss the Mencken who loved women and music and a good, stiff drink and who wrote: “Life may not be exactly pleasant, but it is at least not dull. Heave yourself into Hell today, and you may miss, tomorrow or next day, another Scopes trial, or another War to End War, or perchance a rich and buxom widow with all her first husband’s clothes. There are always more Hardings hatching. I advocate hanging on as long as possible.”

I wish he had hung on a bit longer.

But at least we still have his books. And the occasional not-quite-as-phony-as-she-thought channeler.