Pen-Enemies

Few authors could call forth such an aggregation of literary ladies and gentlemen as greeted Sherwood Anderson recently in Manhattan. The editor of The Dial was seen hobnobbing with the editor of The Saturday Rveiew, Louis Untermeyer, William Rose Benet, Floyd Dell and Louis Bromfield found themselves at the same table. Yet of all the unusual happenings of an unusual gathering, perhaps the most appealing to the sense of incongruity was the meeting (they did not actually meet) of H. L. Mencken and Stuart Pratt Sherman. These pen-enemies were in the same room, guests of the same host. Within the space of ten minutes I had talked with them both and was struck with the fact that Mencken the writer corresponds to Sherman the man, and vice versa. Mencken has the almost perfect social sense. The editor of The American Mercury is stalwart, hearty, genial, lovable. He is so entirely forthright that one is immediately impressed with the fact that he is at heart a Puritan. He exudes stern morality. He is obviously a good mixer and not prejudiced at all. It is quite evident the moment one has shaken his hand, that what he says of a man in print means not one jot or tittle of what his eyes might say to that man when they meet. This was the first time I had shaken hands with Mr. Sherman, sage from the Middle West, now editor of Books. His philosophies I bow to. His essays seem to me sane and brilliant, while Mr. Menckan seems often to harp on the same rather frayed and always twanging string. Shy, slightly satirical in conversation, remote and difficult to know, Mr. Sherman possesses undoubted charm--but it is the charm of a wielder of intellectual hammerblows, the sly bearer of devastating epigrams and of violent discussions. Here are the two most interesting personalities in American criticism-- opposed to each other, both prejudiced and both, apparently, escaping from themselves, in public utterances absolutely giving the He to the faces which they have built around themselves, with which to greet their fellow men.