Mere Opinion: Unjust Gods, or A Review of "The Constant Circle" by Sara Mayfield
In the second installment of 'Mere Opinion' review, R.C. Roberts reviews the biography of H.L. Mencken by Sara Mayfield, reflecting on the role of the sage in society
I have long believed that our gossip columnists, slaving away peering into the lives of lackluster media whores and our newest crop of 'get rich quick' TikTok stars could be put to better use. The best biographies I have ever read, I find, are written by those who have a knack for finding and repeating the stories, rumors, and lies of their fellow creatures; that is, the best biographers are gossip columnists. The reason is simple; as H.L. Mencken maintained, "...biographers are unjust gods", and no one is less concerned with the justice of their subject than a gossip. Gossips, consciously or not, realize that humans are made up just as much by the lies they tell, or others tell of them, as they are by the truths of their existence. They catch the human condition with its trousers down, surrounded by its secret indulges and shamefully dark corners; that is, they catch the human condition as it is: compromised.
There was something appealing, gossipy, about Sara Mayfield's biography of the journalist, polemicist, and literary critic H.L. Mencken. At the beginning, like most biographers, Mayfield makes bare her prejudices and biases; she was friends with H.L. Mencken and his late wife Sara Haardt-Mencken. In fact, she had grown up with Haardt, and both were introduced to Mencken when he came to give a speech at the Goucher Hall, a women's college in Alabama. From here, you are taken by the wrist and sped through many things; the nerves of a young writer meeting a famous writer and her idol, the troubles of romance between two friends and their literary endeavors, the glamour of being a part of a new literary movement and its eventually falling out, the sadness and loss of death and disease, and the circus-like excitement of politics. Or, to put it more concisely, you are led through a life--or lives--well lived.
The uniqueness of Mayfield's biography, to be expounded on later, is which of the 'Menckens' she captures in her work. Some, like Charles Angoff or Terry Teachout, capture a very distorted, almost mythical version of Mencken as an evil bully and miserable misanthrope. Such books are, most often, hack jobs that Mencken himself would have laughed at. I had the injustice of reading Terry Teachout's The Skeptic before I read much else of Mencken, and it almost stopped me from any more inquiries. Other biographies, like Marion Elizabeth Rodgers' The American Iconoclast or William Manchester's Disturber of the Peace, are meant to be painstaking chronicles of the life of Mencken with a sort of depth to get one past the many Mencken caricatures. These biographies show many different sides of Mencken; the critic, the polemicist, the misanthrope, the literary genius, the amateur scholar, the champion of liberty, or the defender of civil rights.
What Mayfield shows, however, is the part of Mencken that is referenced frequently but hardly delved into, often passed on the way of a writer towards one of his many other roles; Mencken the Sage. Many, from Edmund Wilson to Gore Vidal to Marion Rodgers will use the label of 'Sage' for Mencken, noting his continuation and membership in the line of Victorian sage writers like Matthew Arnold, Thomas Carlyle, John Ruskin, and the like. But, and not of their own fault as it was not their goal, they often only use it as a label, as a way to avoid writing 'Henry' or 'Mencken' more than they need to.
Mayfield, however, shows us that Mencken embodied the role of Sage, among his other roles. She shows us, brightly, the connection between the way Mencken wrote and the life he lived, contradictions and all. Most importantly, she showed us how Mencken fulfilled the role of Sage in a nation like America, who prefers the advice of business hacks, politicians, and preachers.
***
The first thing one might notice about Mayfield's biography is how incredibly, and delightfully, personal it is. It is written in a combination of research, gossip, and le vècu that is tied together with brilliant prose. Her writing is peppered with the use of French words that show an interesting handle on the language as a whole. The entire landscape of the narrative, and the experience of the reader themselves reflects when this book was written, in 1968, as well as the time period it was written about: from 1923 to Mencken's death in 1956.
Mayfield's language might shock some: as in, those who have not read a text outside of a message on a social media or a book outside of a Stephen King or J.K. Rowling novel; Mayfield talks as a woman who was growing up in the 1920's. She talks about the South in kind terms, being from Alabama, declaring she is proudly a 'Confederate', calls people with land and money 'Junkers', refers to minorities as 'colored people' or 'Negro', and she mentions frequently what she believes the 'good woman' is meant to do. Oftentimes, in fact almost every time, the Confederacy or womanly etiquette is evoked so that Mayfield can subvert both, as when she notes of her friend Tallulah Bankhead:
"She and her contemporaries were all rebels, born in a smug time and an ultraconservative place in which revolt was long overdue." (p. 25)
She refers to things, like the use of whiskey and Coca-Cola in the doctor's office, as well as its role as a product of rebellion. Writing about Sara Haardt and her time at Goucher, Mayfield notes:
"In the absence of Anna's stepmother [designated chaperone], the Pearce house at 2105 North Charles offered a haven from the austerities of Goucher, a place where Sara. Louise, and other [female] members of the publications staffs could smoke and drink Coca-Cola while they read proof and made up dummies." (p. 27)
She also makes reference to some things Mencken says of women that read as misogynist. Mayfield maintains they are not, noting that often Mencken said shocking things around women to force them to confront or argue with him, or just to have a jab at the expense of his female company. Where this ranks on our current standards in the battle of the sexes is beyond me, although I can see, and believe Mayfield conveys well, the sarcasm and provocative nature of these utterances, as opposed to being his actual beliefs. You can read it and judge for yourself, but I have made my own judgment; Mencken is being sarcastic, albeit he does harbor many views of women that are particular to his era, something I forgive since we are all products of our era. I am not particularly concerned with holding up this book and seeing how it holds up to the weird, often puritanical standard of social properness that we have today.
Frankly, if you cannot handle a book that is a biography, written in the past, recounting history as it is, then you should stop reading completely. Then, since you won't be using your brain, offer it as an OPO, and see how far you get on the wrong side of the highway. Otherwise, steel yourself to a book that recounts that past in a way that is true, not the nostalgic nonsense you see from Hollywood. This book is such a book.
That aside, Mayfield's prose is brilliant, the subject notwithstanding. She writes in a way that makes you forget her mentioning the amount of research she had to do; the book feels like having a conversation with a friend over drinks, with a game on in the background, irrelevant to the masterful skill of Mayfield's storytelling. I have seen some attempt, and few succeed at, writing a biography about a life that incorporates the lives of their friends. Every tangent or deviation from Mencken comes back to Mencken, every aside clears up things that either Mencken, Haardt or Mayfield herself did not know. You learn a lot about the relationships Mencken established, his long and rocky courtship of Sara Haardt, and you are made privy to the rumors, lies, and misquotes that littered the yellow journalism of the 1920's that surrounded Mencken. And it is all told like a Greek epic; that is, it is a story of character flaws and the efforts of people to overcome them, and often ending with them succumbing to them.
Take, for example, Mayfield discussing a story of H.L. Mencken preparing for the opening of his one and only play, a satire called The Artist. She writes:
"In preparation for the opening, the Vagabond Players [Mencken's collaborators] decided to spruce up their makeshift theater by varnishing the seats. When Mencken arrived to watch the dress rehearsal, he had dressed for the occasion by putting on a starched shirt and his new pin-striped suit. The manager ushered the author of the play toward a newly varnished bench. Mencken thanked him and took a seat. A moment later, feeling something wet and sticky seeping through the seat of his pants, he let out a howl. When he tried to rise, he found himself firmly glued to the bench. After the rehearsal, having extricated the seat of his trousers from the seat of the theater by a series of contortions, he assured the Vagabond Players of his good will but did not show up for the opening the next evening." (p. 17)
From the beginning, revealing and discussing Mencken's one foray into playwriting, to segue waying into a story about Mencken sitting in varnish, to the use of it to reveal a small glimpse into the life of Mencken, the man who wears starched shirts and pin-striped suits, one is giving the perfect blend of fact, story, and imagery that biographies should aim for, but almost never achieve. And this is only one of the many, many examples of this. Consider, for a last example, a particularly interesting discussion of a meeting between Sara Haardt and a Frances Newman, during the time Mencken was courting Sara:
"A few minutes later, when Mencken brought Sara over to introduce her to Frances, Miss Newman appraised her at close range. 'Miss Haardt?' The serpentine curve of Miss Newman's mouth slithered into an ophidian smile. 'From all I've heard of you, I should not have thought you were so good looking,' she said in a tone that implied that she was disappointed not to find that Sara wore flat-heeled shoes and horn-rimmed glasses.
'And from all that I've heard of you, Miss Newman, I should have thought that you were,' Sara replied suavely." (p. 115)
***
Sara Mayfield is very honest about her angle in this biography; friends with Mencken, best friends with Sara Haardt, a literary writer herself. Her admiration of Mencken is not withheld, but she does a great deal to explain the admiration. You get a sense that Mayfield may not have agreed with, for example, Mencken's trashing of the Confederacy and the South at large or his womanizing, but that these were outweighed by Mencken's writings and personality.
But she does not make the substantiations of most biographers, listing out these or that bias or prejudice, noting who she knew or how personal or intimate her position is. She leaps off the plane without warning and takes you all the way down. She begins her book on the exact moment she and Sara Haardt see Mencken give his speech. You eventually learn that she was asked to meet him, and was told to bring a chaperone. Her decision to bring Sara Haardt is mentioned in a casual way, only because it is the squashing of a butterfly that eventually brings about beautiful chaos.
Her personal angle, even without considering the brilliant narrative style, allows her to seamlessly jump from Mencken to talking about his friends and people he associated with, which is the stated goal of the biography. She is able to discuss how Mencken met these writers, but then give a view into what happened with those writers and what they thought of Mencken himself. Oftentimes, the stories and asides Mayfield brings up seem to have little connection to Mencken, but ultimately illuminate what affected their relationship. It also illuminates aspects of Mencken that otherwise would not, and could not, be discussed purely from the perspective of only writing about Mencken.
The brilliance of this is the way Mayfield builds, expands, and contracts an ecosystem that is Mencken's circle of friends. She is able to expand it as Mencken met more people, contract it when he lost friends or, as he aged, became infirm, and she was able to show each person affect the ecosystem; some friends make everything out of balance, some friends restore the balance, and no friend is ever innocent of having done both. You are not only told about a life being lived, you get to see it. And Mayfield's personal style makes this revealed perfectly, without any hang ups or junky writing.
Her promise, to write about Mencken, with and through his friends, is satisfied both in the dull manner of having actually done so, and in the lively and narrative manner of making it a story worth reading.
***
Mayfield organizes her biography on a generally chronological trajectory. That is, she follows H.L. Mencken from 1923 to 1956, while making her Appendix function in the way epilogues do. There are fourteen chapters, if you do not include the appendix, in which Mayfield divides up about 33 years of a life well lived. This clear progression is beset by side stories, anecdotes, and interesting points of view that tend to illuminate whatever event is being considered. Every exit comes back to the same highway, and so this book is never boring, but neither is it postmodern because it maintains the integrity of time.
Mayfield's organization of her biography seems to emphasize that while, yes, the book is about H.L. Mencken, the second major focus is Mencken's late wife and Mayfield's best friend, Sara Haardt. For example, the title of the first chapter is "Baltimore Days", but the second chapter is titled "Montgomery Days"; when one is reading Mayfield, you find yourself blending the lives of a Southern femme savante and an East Coast enfant terrible because this biography has two beginnings; meeting Mencken and the childhood of Sara Haardt.
This blended organization is carried on throughout the biography: the book seems to oscillate between Mencken's present and Haardt's past until these threads meet and are intertwined by their romance. It is a creative way to go about writing this, as it establishes the author as something of an expert without the need to flash any credentials; she may not have been friends with Mencken before 1923, but she has known his wife all her life, and through her Mayfield finds footing to talk about, and reveal, Mencken himself.
Throughout, the biography seems to be string together anecdotes, stories, rumors, and gossip with solid, concrete, thumbtack-like dinners that took place between Mayfield and Mencken. For example, during Mencken's long and contentious courting of Sara Haardt, and during some of his most constant publicity, Mayfield writes the following:
"On Saturday, when I met Mr. Mencken at Macaroni's, he looked as if he'd been put through the mangle and all the bounce and gusto wrung out of him. He was, I gathered, even more unhappy about the turn matters had taken between him and Sara [Haardt] than she was. By the time he'd finished his brandy and cigar, his praises of her and her novel had become truly eloquent. 'She is a wonderful girl,' he said, giving me a bottle of his best Moselle to take her. 'Try this soothing syrup on her and persuade her to continue to be polite to all Christian men, of which I have the honor to be one. Tell her I kiss her hand.'" (p. 113)
This dinner, as all the dinners do, seem to happen at just the right time, where Mayfield uses it to confirm or reject the various stories, anecdotes or gossip she had been telling the reader about. She meets with Mencken when she has dragged the reader so far out into the depth of gossip, lie, and rumor that the reader almost cannot touch the bottom. And then she takes you back to the shallow end. It is, to me, brilliant. Had Solo-Cohen, for example, gone with this style in her Jean Paul Sartre: A Life, instead of a 'generative grammatical approach', many of the things she speculated on might have been confirmed or denied. But, alas, not all biographies are the same.
I must add a tinge of admiration for this style of organization; chronological, united by the appearance of dinners that tie it all together, the use of research in the first-person point of view, the use of a personal relationship to organize events...I returned to Mayfield's biography many times, just to learn more about what had come to be. I knew Haardt and Mencken ended up together, and yet I was enticed by the humanity and messy realism Mayfield gave to their courting. And this was extended to all aspects of this biography.
The Appendix, at the end, serves the biography very well. You continue to get the stories and the conversations without the dinners, as Mayfield shows how the world kept moving after losing Mencken, and how he has come to influence that movement, in one way or another.
***
There is a great deal to appreciate in Mayfield's book, The Constant Circle. But I think the best thing about her book was her ability to reveal Mencken as a 'sage'. Now, I must add this, as I know a lot of people who will try to turn this admittance into a discussion of semi-mystical quackery: when I say 'sage' I am referring to the tradition of writers out of the Victorian era who have posthumously been considered 'sages' and their writing given the genre of 'sage writing'. They are secular, they are not pedagogues, and they are above all writers. They are not wearing robes, sitting atop of a cliff and giving advice to the gullible and undisciplined; they are observing society and noting the things it has either forgotten or denied, and lambasting them for their nonsense.
Mayfield begins this excavation of Mencken as a Sage when she speaks of their first meeting. She is nervous, and expects to see a 'gray-bearded pundit'. She is surprised by what she ends up seeing, writing:
"At forty-two, Henry Mencken looked no more like the Bad Boy of Baltimore than the gray-bearded pundit I had imagined him to be. His neat blue serge suit, stiff collar, and hightop shoes gave him the appearance of a professor from John Hopkins rather than a high-flying, hard-hitting idol smasher." (p. 2)
Following this, and Mayfield's surprise at Mencken's appearance as well as his manners, Mayfield recalls the following situation:
"As we waited on the corner for a cab, I asked, 'What's your advice to a young writer, Mr. Mencken?'
He looked down at me with amusement in his eyes. 'Wait until you are old enough to know something to write about,' he replied. Then, reaching over, he turned my coat collar up against the raw wind whipping off the Chesapeake and added gently, 'And wear warm clothes so you'll live to do it.'" (p.4)
From here onwards, Mencken's is not talked about via his writing or bombastic interviews (although both are mentioned from time to time), but through his sage-like aphorisms and his offhanded bits of advice. Often, his answers to questions reveal something of a hard-boiled cynic willing to poke fun at things as they are, without distorting them into something bigger or better. When lightning hits Mencken, he absorbs it and brings it down to earth. At a dinner a little later in the earlier quote, Mayfield writes:
"Once, when he paused to light an 'Uncle Willie,' his favorite brand of cigars, I edged in an ingenuous question. 'Mr. Mencken, what do authors talk to editors about?'
'Money,' he grinned, amused at the naïve query. He sat back and rolled his cigar from one corner of his mouth to the other as he studied Sara and me, half smiling, one brow lifted, his eyes popping in an expression of fascinated incredulity." (p.5)
Or consider some of his throwaway lines, which Mayfield often notes seem to contradict his own actions. For example:
"As a friend, [Mencken] was thoughtful, generous, devoted, and loyal--despite his epigram 'Loyalty is the virtue of a dog.'" (p. 61)
Enough with the examples, I think you see the point; Mayfield's Mencken is a sage, offering advice, witty quips, and a grounded view of the world that linger; and as Alfred, Lord Tennyson once said, knowledge comes but wisdom lingers. The role of Mencken as a sage is an interesting one, given his joking misanthropy, his jolly cynicism, and his tendency to dismiss and growl at people who he considered 'up-lifters' and 'do-gooders'. Mencken is also an interesting sort of sage, because--as Mayfield reveals in her book--he was a sage who did not live by his own advice. He was not his own best, most dutiful apostle, but his worst and most consistent apostate.
The view of Mencken as a 'sage writer' is one that I find illuminating; not only does it put a notoriously hard-to-pin-down writer into at least one solid category, but it gives his work, his writing, and his goals a historical sense they often lack; Mencken belongs to the tradition of Voltaire and Matthew Arnold, but he also seems to have continued a tradition that has not made it into our new century. One can trace from Mencken towards the likes of Joan Didion, Gore Vidal, and maybe Norman Mailer. But, since then, the role of sage writer has either been completely ignored or mishandled; one shudders to think that people believe Jordan Peterson is a 'sage', as they claim. Sage writing is a type of writing we certainly need, nowadays, while we are drowning in the midst of charlatans, critical theorists, and influencers. Not a mystic or spiritualist, frauds of the most annoying orders, but someone willing to question the profundities and wisdoms of today, and to warn us about the influence of bad ideas on the world.
Mayfield's account of Mencken reveals the role of the sage writing in a personal, meaningful manner. She shows that the sage writer does not have to be their own disciple, they need to be willing to speak. She shows that a sage has to be someone who knows they are a human being before they are anything else. The sage is not in search of grand, mystical 'truths'--as they do today--but always on the lookout for errors that inform our current opinions, accepting the fact that life got to where it is not by grasping the truth but through its own errors. The sage gives warnings even when society would rather not be disturbed by them. The sage is no one's friend and is never converted to anything, even their own arguments. They are, to borrow from Mencken himself, willing to be tolerant and admit at any point that 'I am not too sure.' They are to try, with all the knowledge of the errors that got us, to see the world from eye-level, to bring the reader back to the surface, dragged from their illusions and created 'depth' to see things as they are.
Mayfield's Sage of Baltimore is a man who, even as she is given to try to recruit his legacy for the Confederacy--seeing his 'Confederate sympathies' the same way palm readers see your future in the lines of your hand--resists and invites all of her speculations on his beliefs, his ideas, and what he truly desired, is a Sage we could use nowadays. Not particularly for his beliefs as they were stated; Upton Sinclair, Mayfield notes, called him a 'rock-ribbed Tory', and the only accurate description given of his politics is some balance between being a radical Tory and a Jeffersonian Democrat. These are, truly, not the ideas that could meet the postmodern world head on; it would break, and continues to break, into a rabid, anti-intellectual populism based on a sense of narcissism. But the role of Sage, itself, one burned by and within the world we live in, willing to grasp it with sharp, cold, and unflinching words and give us the warnings we refuse to hear, that is what we need.
Mencken was written to, Mayfield noted, by everyone from Richard Wright and W.E.B. DuBois to F. Scott Fitzgerald and Theodore Dreiser. Mencken, who loathed Communism and socialism, was even written to by Leon Trotsky; something Mayfield does not delve into much, but the Trotsky-Mencken relationship is an interesting one, for another essay perhaps. That said, the wide correspondence that goes beyond ideological stances and charades, the very shadows and falseness that currently imprisons us now, shows us the role of the Sage, one people like Mencken carried out, and which is missing today. And it is a role that Mayfield captures beautifully.
Sage or no, Mencken turns out to be wrong on one count, thanks to Mayfield.
Not all biographers are unjust Gods, after all.