by H.L. Mencken from A Book of Burlesques
For Americanos
FROM scented hotel soap, and from the Boy Scouts; from home cooking, and from pianos with mandolin attachments; from prohibition, and from Odd Fellows' funerals; from Key West cigars, and from cold dinner plates; from transcendentalism, and from the New Freedom; from fat women in straight-front corsets, and from Philadelphia cream cheese; from The Star-Spangled Banner, and from the International Sunday-school Lessons; from rubber heels, and from the college spirit; from sulphate of quinine, and from Boston baked beans; from chivalry, and from laparotomy; from the dithyrambs of Herbert Kaufman, and from sport in all its hideous forms; from women with pointed fingernails, and from men with messianic delusions; from the retailers of smutty anecdotes about the Jews, and from the Lake Mohonk Conference; from Congressmen, vice crusaders, and the heresies of Henry Van Dyke; from jokes in the Ladies' Home Journal, and from the Revised Statutes of the United States; from Colonial Dames, and from men who boast that they take cold shower-baths every morning; from the Drama League, and from malicious animal magnetism; from ham and eggs, and from the weltanschauung of Kansas; from the theory that a dark cigar is always a strong one, and from the theory that a horse-hair put into a bottle of water will turn into a snake; from campaigns against profanity, and from the Pentateuch; from anti-vivisection, and from women who do not smoke; from wine-openers, and from Methodists; from Armageddon, and from the belief that a bloodhound never makes a mistake; from sarcerdotal moving-pictures, and from virtuous chorus girls; from bungalows, and from cornets in B flat; from canned soups, and from women who leave everything to one's honor; from detachable cuffs, and from Lohengrin; from unwilling motherhood, and from canary birds—good Lord, deliver us!
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