“To be an American is, unquestionably, to be the noblest, grandest, the proudest mammal that ever hoofed the verdure of God’s green footstool. Often, in the black abysm of the night, the thought that I am one awakens me with a blast of trumpets, and I am thrown into a cold sweat by contemplation of the fact. I shall cherish it on the scaffold; it will console me in Hell.
“But there is no perfection under Heaven, so even an American has his small blemishes, his scarcely discernible weaknesses, his minute traces of vice and depravity.”
—H.L. Mencken (1880-1956), columnist, author and iconoclast, “The Smart Set,” 1919.
Editorial Comment: What’s a little hubris?
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