Prejudices, second series

by H. L. Mencken

Bad Workmanship

The essential slackness and incompetence of women, their congenital incapacity for small expertness, already descanted upon at length in my psychological work, "In Defense of Women," is never more plainly revealed than in their manhandling of the primary business of their sex. If the average woman were as competent at her trade of getting a husband as the average car conductor is at his trade of robbing the fare-box, then a bachelor beyond the age of twenty-five would be so rare in the world that yokels would pay ten cents to gape at him. But women, in this fundamental industry, pursue a faulty technique and permit themselves to be led astray by unsound principles. The axioms into which they have precipitated their wisdom are nearly all untrue. For example, the axiom that the way to capture a man is through his stomach—which is to say, by feeding him lavishly. Nothing could be more absurd. The average man, at least in England and America, has such rudimentary tastes in victualry that he doesn't know good food from bad. He will eat anything set before him by a cook that he likes. The true way to fetch him is with drinks. A single bottle of drinkable wine will fill more men with the passion of love than ten sides of beef or a ton of potatoes. Even a Seidel of beer, deftly applied, is enough to mellow the hardest bachelor. If women really knew their business, they would have abandoned cooking centuries ago, and devoted themselves to brewing, distilling and bartending. It is a rare man who will walk five blocks for a first-rate meal. But it is equally a rare man who, even in the old days of freedom, would not walk five blocks for a first-rate cocktail. To-day he would walk five miles.

Another unsound feminine axiom is the one to the effect that the way to capture a man is to be distant—to throw all the burden of the courtship upon him. This is precisely the way to lose him. A man face to face with a girl who seems reserved and unapproachable is not inspired thereby to drag her off in the manner of a caveman; on the contrary, he is inspired to thank God that here, at last, is a girl with whom it is possible to have friendly doings without getting into trouble—that here is one not likely to grow mushy and make a mess. The average man does not marry because some marble fair one challenges his enterprise. He marries because chance throws into his way a fair one who repels him less actively than most, and because his delight in what he thus calls her charm is reënforced by a growing suspicion that she has fallen in love with him. In brief, it is chivalry that undoes him. The girl who infallibly gets a husband—in fact, any husband that she wants—is the one who tracks him boldly, fastens him with sad eyes, and then, when his conscience has begun to torture him, throws her arms around his neck, bursts into maidenly tears on his shoulder, and tells him that she fears her forwardness will destroy his respect for her. It is only a colossus who can resist such strategy. But it takes only a man of the intellectual grade of a Y. M. C. A. secretary to elude the girl who is afraid to take the offensive.

A third bogus axiom I have already discussed, to wit, the axiom that a man is repelled by palpable cosmetics—that the wise girl is the one who effectively conceals her sophistication of her complexion. What could be more untrue? The fact is that very few men are competent to distinguish between a layer of talc and the authentic epidermis, and that the few who have the gift are quite free from any notion that the latter is superior to the former. What a man seeks when he enters the society of women is something pleasing to the eye. That is all he asks. He does not waste any time upon a chemical or spectroscopic examination of the object observed; he simply determines whether it is beautiful or not beautiful. Has it so long escaped women that their husbands, when led astray, are usually led astray by women so vastly besmeared with cosmetics that they resemble barber-poles more than human beings? Are they yet blind to the superior pull of a French maid, a chorus girl, a stenographer begauded like a painter's palette? ... And still they go on rubbing off their varnish, brushing the lampblack from their eyelashes, seeking eternally the lip-stick that is so depressingly purple that it will deceive! Alas, what folly!

---

INDEX

Abbott, Lawrence, [106] et seq.
Abbott, Lyman, [58]
Akins, Zoë, [26], [30]
Alcott, A. B., [63]
Allen, James Lane, [27]
Also sprach Zarathustra, [111]
American Painting and Its Tradition, [45]
American Scholar, The, [9], [12]
Amherst College, [48]
Anderson, Sherwood, [27], [55], [100]
Archer, William, [190]
Aspects of Death and Correlated Aspects of Life, [185] et seq.
Atlantic Monthly, [25], [27]
Authors' League Bulletin, [36]
Babbitt, Irving, [19], [21], [22], [26]
Backward Glance Along My Own Road, A, [64]
Backwash of War, The, [193]
Baker, George P., [30]
Bancroft, George, [44]
Barton, Wm. E., [104]
Baudelaire, Charles, [61]
Beach, Rex, [32], [37], [40], [50], [230]
Beethoven, Ludwig, [200], [203]
Bennett, Arnold, [56]
Benson, E. F., [38]
Bierce, Ambrose, [45], [60], [62]
Billroth, Theodor, [89]
Blasco, Ibáñez, V., [52]
Blue Hotel, The, [42]
Böhme, Jakob, [71]
Bonaparte, Charles J., [126]
Bookman, [27]
Boynton, P. H., [21], [24]
Brady, Cyrus Townsend, [32]
Brahms, Johannes, [89], [162], [200]
Brainard, J. G. C, [14]
Bright, John, [75]
Bronson-Howard, George, [34]
Brooks, Van Wyck, [12], [17], [23]
Brown, Alice, [19]
Browne, Porter Emerson, [32]
Brownell, W. C, [11], [19], [21], [90]
Bruce, Philip Alexander, [147]
Bryant, Wm. Cullen, [44], [63]
Burroughs, John, [64]
Burton, Richard, [21]
Butler, Fanny Kemble, [147]
Bynner, Witter, [30]
Cabell, James Branch, [27], [47], [52], [56], [57], [89], [100], [138], [139]
Cahan, Abraham, [56]
Caine, Hall, [35], [36]
Candler, Asa G., [152]
Carlyle, Thomas, [58]
Carnegie, Andrew, [74]
Carrel, Alexis, [48], [189]
Cather, Willa Sibert, [42], [56]
Chambers, Robert W., [32], [52]
Channing, Wm. Ellery, [11]
Chesterton, G. K., [93], [155]
Churchill, Winston, [22], [23]
Clemens, S. L., [33], [45], [52], [54], [63], [89], [98]
Cobb, Irvin, [32]
Cobden, Richard, [75]
Comfort, Will Levington, [33]
Comstockery, [55], [90]
Confessions of an Actress, The, [224]
Conrad, Joseph, [13], [41], [43], [53], [93], [230]
Coogler, J. Gordon, [136]
Cooper, J. Fenimore, [44], [58], [60], [97]
Corelli, Marie, [35]
Cosmopolitan, [34]
Crane, Frank, [32], [35], [225]
Crane, Stephen, [42]
Crile, George W., [162], [183], [191]
Crothers, Samuel MCC, [19], [22]
D'Annunzio, Gabriel, [35]
Dawson, Coningsby, [93]
Davis, Richard Harding, [18], [32], [43]
Debussy, Claude, [201]
Deland, Margaret, [27]
Democratic Vistas, [10]
Dickens, Charles, [59]
Die Meistersinger, [164], [203]
Dissertations on the English Language, [12]
Doyle, A. Conan, [93]
Dreiser Protest, [54]
Dreiser, Theodore, [23], [27], [35], [41], [45], [50], [51], [52], [55], [56], [57], [89], [90], [100], [206] et seq.
Eliot, T. S., [45]
Ellis, Havelock, [216]
Emerson, Ralph Waldo, [9] et seq., [17], [44], [57], [59], [63]
Ethan Frome, [42]
Evans, Caradoc, [146]
Fernald, Chester Bailey, [33]
Flexner, Simon, [48]
Frank, Waldo, [100]
Freneau, Philip, [44]
Freytag-Loringhoven, Elsa von, [46]
Fuller, Henry B., [45], [55]
Gale, Zona, [33]
Garland, Hamlin, [27], [33]
Geddes, Auckland, [93]
"Genius;" The, [50], [90]
Georgia, [141] et seq.
Gilman, Daniel Coit, [49], [103]
Glasgow, Ellen, [27]
Glass, Montague, [33], [35]
Glyn, Elinor, [35]
Good Girl, A., [56]
Gorky, Maxim, [54]
Gosse, Edmund, [190]
Grant, Robert, [19]
Graves, John Temple, [145]
Greenwich Village, [25] et seq.
Griswold, Rufus W., [57]
Grote, George, [75]
Hadley, Herbert K., [206]
Hamilton, Clayton, [24]
Harris, Corra, [33]
Harris, Frank, [45], [51], [54], [56]
Harrison, Henry Sydnor, [27], [32]
Harte, Bret, [34], [42], [45], [59]
Haweis, H. R., [44]
Hawthorne, Hildegarde, [58]
Hawthorne, Julian, [58]
Hawthorne, Nathaniel, [44], [54], [57], [58], [59]
Hay, Ian, [93]
Haydn, Josef, [187], [200]
Heart of Darkness, [43]
Hearst's, [34]
Hecht, Ben, [46]
Hedda Gabier,[190]
Henry, O., [18], [32], [33], [43]
Hergesheimer, Joseph, [35], [42], [45]
Hillis, Newell Dwight, [32], [35]
Holmes, Oliver Wendell, [9], [63]
Hooker, Brian, [27]
Hopper, James, [34]
Hough, Emerson, [32]
Howe, E. W., [35]
Howells, Wm. Dean, [15], [19], [23], [27], [45], [53], [54], [63]
Hubbard, Elbert, [34]
Huneker, James, [64]
Impressions of Theodore Roosevelt, [106]
In Defense of Women, [246]
Industrial History of Virginia in the Seventeenth Century, [147]
Irving, Henry, [209]
Irving, Washington, [15], [44], [51], [60]
Iveagh, Lord, [66]
James, Henry, [45], [51], [54], [97]
Jenseits von Gut und Böse, [111]
Johns Hopkins University, [48], [49]
Johnson, Owen, [32], [33]
Johnson, Robert U., [19], [27]
Johnston, Mary, [27]
Kellner, Leon, [53]
Kilmer, Joyce, [52]
Kipling, Rudyard, [93]
Knapp, Samuel Lorenzo, [11]
La Motte, Ellen, [193]
Lardner, Ring W., [33], [35]
Last of the Mohicans, The, [44]
Lay Anthony, The,[42]
Leaves of Grass,[65]
Lectures on American Literature, [11]
Lee, Gerald Stanley, [32]
Le Quex, William, [35]
Letters and Leadership, [12]
Lincoln, Abraham, [103] et seq.
Lindsay, Vachel, [26], [57]
Little Review, [46]
Loeb, Jacques, [48], [171]
London, Jack, [33]
Longfellow, H. W., [23], [26], [44], [60], [63]
Lowell, Amy, [26], [30], [45], [52], [57]
Lowell, James Russell, [15], [44], [60], [63]
Loveman, Robert, [30], [138]
Mabie, Hamilton Wright, [11], [18]
McClure, John, [30], [138]
McClure's, [34]
MacGrath, Harold, [33]
Maeterlinck, Maurice, [35]
Mallarmé, Stephen, [61]
Man: An Adaptive Mechanism, [162], [183]
Mansfield, Richard, [209], [210]
Marden, Orison Swett, [32]
Markham, Edwin, [52]
Martin, E. S., [32]
Mason, Walt, [52]
Matthews, Brander, [11]
Mechanistic View of War and Peace, A, [191]
Merrill, Stuart, [46]
Metropolitan, [34]
Mitchell, Donald G., [23]
Moore, George, [38], [93]
More, Paul Elmer, [11], [19], [21], [22], [26]
Morris, Gouverneur, [33], [34], [43]
My Antonia, [42]
My Book and I, [64]
My Neighbors, [147]
Mysterious Stranger, The, [53]
Nation, [23], [27], [121]
Nietzsche, F. W., [81], [111], [240]
Night Life in Chicago, [224]
Nordfeldt, Bror, [206] et seq.
Norris, Charles G., [55]
Norris, Frank, [34], [42], [55]
Norris, Kathleen, [56]
Northcliffe, Lord, [66]
Noyes, Alfred, [93], [175]
O'Brien, Edward J., [43]
O'Neill, Eugene, [30]
Oppenheim, E. Phillips, [35]
Oppenheim, James, [52]
O'Sullivan, Vincent, [45], [51], [56]
Parmelee, Maurice, [216]
Parsifal, [187]
Perry, Bliss, [21]
Personality and Conduct, [216]
Phelps, Wm. Lyon, [11], [21], [23]
Phillips, David Graham, [34]
Poe, Edgar Allan, [14], [18], [44], [45], [53], [57], [59] et seq., [60], [91], [96] et seq., [162]
Poetic Principle, The, [61]
Poetry: a Magazine of Verse, [26], [29]
Porter, Eleanor H., [32]
Pound, Ezra, [45]
Prescott, W. H., [44], [91]
Puritanism, [20], [24], [27]
Ransome, Arthur, [63]
Rathenau, Walther von, [75]
Reading, Lord, [66], [93]
Reese, Lizette Woodworth, [30]
Repplier, Agnes, [19], [30]
Ricardo, David, [75]
Ride of the Valkyrie, The, [198]
Rideout, Henry Milner, [33]
Riley, James Whitcomb, [32]
Rinehart, Mary Roberts, [32], [33]
Rockefeller, John D., [74]
Rolland, Romain, [52], [56]
Roosevelt, Theodore, [102] et seq.
Rossetti, Christina, [180]
Saintsbury, George, [60]
Sandburg, Carl, [52]
Sargent, John, [207]
Saturday Evening Post, [18], [34] et seq.
Scheffauer, Herman George, [45]
Schubert, Franz, [200]
Schumann, Robert, [89], [165], [241]
Shakespeare, Wm, [21], [101], [241]
Shaw, George Bernard, [52], [55]
Shelburne Essays, [23]
Sherman, S. P., [22], [24], [27], [110] et seq.
Sisson documents, [85], [105]
Spingarn, J. E., [23]
Stanton, Frank L., [145], [152]
Stearns, Harold, [100]
Sterbelied, Das, [43]
Sterling, George, [27]
Stratton-Porter, Gene, [33]
Strauss, Johann, [205]
Strauss, Richard, [199], [201], [203]
Strawinsky, Igor, [201]
Sudermann, Hermann, [41], [43]
Sumner, William Graham, [103]
Sunday, Billy, [102]
Tarkington, Booth, [33]
Teasdale, Sara, [30]
Tendencies in Modern American Poetry, [45]
Thayer, William Roscoe, [27], [106] et seq.
Theodore Roosevelt, [106]
Thomas, Augustus, [27], [32]
Thoreau, Henry David, [63]
Times Book Review, New York, [27], [58], [98]
Townsend, E. W., [27]
Vance, Louis Joseph, [34]
Vandover and the Brute, [42]
Van Dyke, Henry, [21], [22]
van Dyke, John C, [45]
Van Vechten, Carl, [201]
Veblen, Thorstein, [91]
Virginia, [139] et seq.
Wagner, Richard, [21], [163], [187], [199], [203], [241]
Walpole, Hugh, [38], [56]
Weber, F. Parkes, [185] et seq.
Webster, Noah, [12]
Wellman, Rita, [30]
Wells, H. G., [52]
Wendell, Barrett, [13]
Wharton, Edith, [23], [42], [45], [46]
What Every Young Husband Should Know, [224]
What is Man?, [53], [89], [98]
Whitman, Stephen French, [34]
Whitman, Walt, [10] et seq., [17], [53], [56], [57], [59], [64], [96] et seq.
Whittier, J. G., [63]
Wilcox, Ella Wheeler, [32], [35]
Willis, N. P., [60]
Wilson, Harry Leon, [34]
Wilson, Woodrow, [92], [102], [108] et seq., [145]
Wister, Owen, [27]
Woodberry, George, E., [19], [27]
Wright, Harold Bell, [32]
Zangwill, Israel, [93]