Produced by Janet Blenkinship and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net DAMN! A BOOK OF CALUMNY BY H. L. MENCKEN _Third Printing_ PHILIP GOODMAN COMPANY NEW YORK NINETEEN EIGHTEEN COPYRIGHT 1918 BY PHILIP GOODMAN COMPANY CONTENTS I Pater Patriae 7 II The Reward of the Artist 9 III The Heroic Considered 10 IV The Burden of Humor 11 V The Saving Grace 13 VI Moral Indignation 14 VII Stable-Names 17 VIII The Jews 19 IX The Comstockian Premiss 22 X The Labial Infamy 23 XI A True Ascetic 28 XII On Lying 30 XIII History 32 XIV The Curse of Civilization 34 XV Eugenics 35 XVI The Jocose Gods 37 XVII War 38 XVIII Moralist and Artist 39 XIX Actors 40 XX The Crowd 45 XXI An American Philosopher 48 XXII Clubs 49 XXIII Fidelis ad Urnum 50 XXIV A Theological Mystery 52 XXV The Test of Truth 53 XXVI Literary Indecencies 54 XXVII Virtuous Vandalism 55 XXVIII A Footnote on the Duel of Sex 60 XXIX Alcohol 64 XXX Thoughts on the Voluptuous 67 XXXI The Holy Estate 69 XXXII Dichtung und Wahrheit 70 XXXIII Wild Shots 71 XXXIV Beethoven 73 XXXV The Tone Art 75 XXXVI Zoos 80