1920’s when he was in the prime of life,rnat the top of his form, and at the peak ofrnhis notoriety, he found himself in a positionrnto make the most romanticallv ofrnhis carefully cultivated celebrity—andrndid so. Even after his wife had died,rnleaving him a bachelor once more at thernage of ^5, he had many opportunitiesrnfor love—including, apparently, BlanchernKnopf and Marcella Du Pont—althoughrnhe rejected all of them.rnMore surprising and somewhat disconcertingrnis Hobson’s portrait of H.L.rnMencken as a man deeply concernedrnwith his own social standing. While thernMencken family had possessed intellectualrndistinction in Germany in the 17thrnand 18th centuries, the AmericanrnMenckens, established in the UnitedrnStates in 1848, occupied a modestrnenough position in the city of Baltimore,rnwhere they felt themselves superiorrnto their fellow German-Americans andrnindifferent to the Anglo-Saxon establishment.rnAs a young man, Menckenrnscorned—or professed to scorn—Baltimorernsociety; as an aging one, he joinedrnthe exclusive Maryland Club, wherernhe dined and drank with the flowerrnof Baltimore society. Most troubling,rnhoweer, is the reader’s growing awarenessrnof an ego of uncomfortable andrnfinallv truly alarming proportions.rnMencken’s egocentrieity was not of thernkind that obliterates kindness, generosity,rnthoughtfulness, and ordinary humanrndecencv, since Mencken was all his life arnloyal and dutiful son, a dedicated brother,rnand a man capable of deep friendshipsrn(although in these he could also berndistressingly unforgiving on occasion).rnNeither was it of the sort that creates anrnimpermeable aura of self-miportance.rnHobson comes closest to describing andrnidentifving it when he refers to Mencken’srnobsession with being at all times inrncontrol, and closer still when he remarksrnupon Mencken’s enormous pride—byrnwhich he does not mean vanity.rnIt was his colossal ego that drovernMencken to leave, as Charies Fecher (therneditor of the Diaries) has written, “thernmost complete collection of manuscripts,rnletters, miscellaneous papers, andrnother memorabilia of [almost] anyrnwriter in the English-speaking world.”rn”From his 50’s on,” Hobson adds, “hernwas actively engaged in the business ofrnposthumous image management”—arntask that occupied an increasing amountrnof his time at the expense not of his fanrilialrnobligations and social involvementsrnbut of the work itself. After hisrnmental incapacitation by stroke in 1948,rnMencken stated that his chief regret inrnlife was not having accomplished all thernwriting he had wanted to do, and in factrna number of long-planned works remainedrnincomplete. Yet, were it not forrnthe “Diaries” (begun at the age of 50),rnfor “My Life as Author and Editor” (arnmanuscript that was eventually editedrnand published by Jonathan Yardley), forrn”Thirty-Five Years of Newspaper Work,”rnand for other, similar, projects, many orrnall of the intended formal manuscriptsrnmight have been finished. The choicernwas his, and he decided in favor of preservingrnthe life rather than advancingrnthe work. It is not one that manv artistsrnwould be likely to make. I can recallrnwondering years ago, as a graduaternstudent blasting away through the immenserncollection of letters, mostly trivial,rnin the New York Public Librarv, whyrnMencken had thought that anyonernwould really care.rnPre’ious biographers have had little tornsay on the subject of Mencken’srnhealth prior to the catastrophic hemorrhagernof November 23, 1948. But Hobsonrnis careful to demonstrate how hisrnphysical deterioration, becoming apparentrnshortly after the trauma of Sararn1 laardt Mencken’s death at the age of 37rnin 1955, resulted three years later in a minorrnstroke that led him to conclude thatrnhe would not live long past 60. By 1940rnor thereabout his condition was “perilous”rnfrom arteriosclerosis, and Dr. BenrnBaker of Johns Hopkins warned him thatrna fatal stroke or coronary could fell himrnat anv time. Thereafter, though he wasrnto live for another 15 years, he did so inrnthe fear and later—after 1948—in thernhope that every day might be his last. Inrnthe autumn an agnostic’s fancy lightlyrnturns to thoughts of immortality, andrnsuch thoughts as these, more than anythingrnelse perhaps, were the impetus behindrnthe immense labor of self-preservation.rnFor vears I had suspected that H.L.rnMencken would have made a devoutrnCatholic, and Hobson’s careful and revealingrntreatment of Mencken’s exceedinglyrnambivalent attitude toward religionrn—Catholicism in particular—goesrnfar to justify that suspicion.rnBelieving that nothing is plainer thanrnthat the universe is grounded upon law,rnand that law is necessarily an expressionrnof will, Mencken regarded atheism asrnthe philosophy of fools. Yet while he remainedrnan unbeliever all his life, Menckenrnwas also a superstitious man—withrngood reason, as the aweful Friday thernThirteenth again and again brought disasterrnto himself and to close family members.rnIndeed, Hobson calls attention tornwhat he describes as “that same orderrnand harmony, a remarkable symmetry”rnto his life—a symmetry that pious commentators,rnoperating from a supernaturalrnperspective, would find intriguing.rnStrange as it may seem, the Hound ofrnHeaven appears to have dogged HenryrnMencken’s 75 years, from the timernwhen, as a small bov, he had looked westrnfrom his upstairs window into the conventrngarden of the House of the GoodrnShepherd and watched the nuns promenadingrnthere to the final days of his lifernwhen, from the same window, he observedrnanother generation of sisters. I lisrnfascination for religion was life-long,rnas was his sensitivity to its beautyrnand charm—again, primarily in theirrnCatholic manifestation. After readingrnHobson’s description of the seven terriblernlast years (seven, as with a biblicalrndrought or famine), when Menckenrncould neither read nor write and sometimesrnbarely even speak, any homilistrnworth his salt would conclude that hernwas being offered a final chance. Hernnever took it. Why not?rnThe answer, of course, is pride—pridernin the purely human as well as in therntheological sense. He was, after all, arnman who had always congratulated himselfrnon never having changed his mindrnon any matter of appreciable substance,rnand on no subject had he been morernnoisily dogmatic than on the “preposterousness”rnof Christianitv. But morernimportantly, the author who in his Treatisernon the Gods had described the Biblernas “probably the most beautiful book inrnthe world” found himself simply unablernto accede to a faith that for 2,000 yearsrnhad appealed to hundreds of millions ofrn”human blanks,” as well as to hundredsrnof thousands of the world’s greatestrnintellects. In regard to Christianity,rnMencken was less impressed bv LouisrnPasteur’s Catholicism than he was by arnTennessee yokel’s fundamentalism. Inrnthis crucial matter of Christianity, the intellectualrnand social pride of Henry L.rnMencken finally condemned him, morernthoroughly and terribly than any of hisrngreatest detractors, in his lifetime orrnsince, could possibly have contrived torndo.rnOCTOBER 1994/37rnrnrn