[solzhenitsyn]

You're surely welcome!

Another poster here called HLM's output "boring and almost incoherent". That has not been my experience; I can't help wondering how the critic's writing compares with Mencken's.

[Sundog]

I would be more willing to compare the Miscreant's life to Mencken's, since words alone could not compare.

Too many 'wannabe' writers in their 20s get jobs writing for Hollywood and their ilk, and it is painfully shallow -- akin to pond scum. I couldn't imagine his being above their category -- Life makes for the writing, not the other way around.

I sometimes play the waiting game with those fellows, remembering that someday, if all goes well, they will be in their fifties and have to deal with a painfully ignorant and inconsiderate upstart.

Mencken's ghost won't go away any time soon.