Like Norman Cousins, H.L. Mencken is responding here to a request for an expression of his personal beliefs on the meaning of life. He opens with a statement that reflects his assignment and indicates his purpose in writing; he then considers the satisfactions that life offers him, and in doing so he touches on the importance of work, on mans relationship to man and to God, and on mans fate.
In considering the rhetorical aspects of this essay, note the authors broad purpose and then observe what effect this has in terms of thesis and structure.
(1) You ask me, in brief, what satisfaction I get out of life, and why I go on working. I go on working for the same reason that a hen goes on laying eggs. There is in every living creature an obscure but powerful impulse to active functioning. Life demands to be lived. Inaction, save as a measure of recuperation between bursts of activity, is painful and dangerous to the healthy organism in fact, it is almost impossible. Only the dying can be really idle.
(2) The precise form of an individuals activity is determined, of course, by the equipment with which he came into the world. In other words, it is determined by his heredity. I do not lay eggs, as a hen does, because I was born without any equipment for it. For the same reason I do not get myself elected to Congress, or play the violoncello, or teach metaphysics in a college, or work in a steel mill. What I do is simply what lies easiest to my hand. It happens that I was born with an intense and insatiable interest in ideas, and thus to play with them. It happens also that I was born with rather more than the average facility for putting them into words. In consequence, I am a writer and editor, which is to say, a dealer in them and concocter of them.
(3) There is very little conscious volition in all this. What I do was ordained by the inscrutable fates, not chosen by me. In my boyhood, yielding to a powerful but still subordinate interest in exact facts, I wanted to be a chemist, and at the same time my poor father tried to make me a business man. At other times, like any other relatively poor man, I have longed to make a lot of money by some easy swindle. But I became a writer all the same, and shall remain one until the end of the chapter, just as a cow goes on giving milk all life, even though what appears to be her self-interest urges her to give gin.
(4) I am far luckier than most men, for I have been able since boyhood to make a good living doing precisely what I have wanted to do what I would have done for nothing, and very gladly, if there had been no reward for it. Not many men, I believe, are so fortunate. Millions of them have to make their livings at tasks which really do not interest them. As for me, I have an extraordinary pleasant life despite the fact that I have had the usual share of woes. For in the midst of those woes I still enjoyed the immense satisfaction which goes with free activity. I have done, in the main, exactly what I wanted to do. Its possible effects upon other people have interested me very little. I have not written and published to please other people, but to satisfy myself, just as a cow gives milk, not to profit the dairyman, but to satisfy herself. I like to think that most of my ideas have been sound ones, but I really dont care. The world may take them or leave them. I have had my fun watching them.
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(5) Next to agreeable work as a means of attaining happiness I put what Huxley called the domestic affections the day to day intercourse with family and friends. My home has seen bitter sorrow, but it has never seen any serious disputes, and it has never seen poverty. I was completely happy with my mother and sister, and I am completely happy with my wife. Most of the men I commonly associate with are friends of very old standing. I have known some of them for more than thirty years. I seldom see anyone, intimately, whom I have known for less than ten years. These friends delight me. I turn to them when work is done with unfailing eagerness. We have the same general tastes, and see the world much alike. Most of them are interested in music, as I am. It has given me more pleasure in this life than any other external thing. I love it more every year.
(6) As for religion, I am quite devoid of it. Never in my adult life have I experienced anything that could be plausibly called a religious impulse. My father and grandfather were agnostics before me, and though I was sent to Sunday-school as a boy and exposed to the Christian theology I was never taught to believe it. My father thought that I should learn what it was, but it apparently never occurred to him that I would accept it. He was a good psychologist What I got in Sunday-school beside a wide acquaintance with Christian hymnology was simply a firm conviction that the Christian faith was full of palpable absurdities, and the Christian God preposterous. Since that time I have read a great deal in theology perhaps much more than the average clergyman but I have never discovered any reason to change my mind.
(7) The act of worship, as carried on by Christians, seems to me to be debasing rather than ennobling. It involves groveling before a Being who, if He really exists, deserves to be denounced instead of respected. I see little evidence in this world of the so-called goodness of God. On the contrary, it seems to me, that, on the strength of His daily acts, He must be set down a most stupid, cruel and villainous fellow. I can say this with a clear conscience, for He has treated me very well in fact, with vast politeness. But I cant help thinking of his barbaric torture of most of the rest of humanity. I simply cant imagine revering the God of war and politics, theology and cancer.
(8) I do not believe in immortality and have no desire for it. The belief in it issues the puerile egos of inferior men. In its Christian form it is little more than a device for getting revenge upon those who are having a better time on this earth. What the meaning of human life may be I dont know: I incline to suspect that it has none. All I know about it is that, to me at least, it is very amusing while it lasts. Even its troubles, indeed, can be amusing. Moreover, they tend to foster human qualities that I admire most courage and its analogues. The noblest man, I think, is that one who fights God, and triumphs over Him. I have had little of this to do. When I die I shall be content to vanish into nothingness. No show, however good, could conceivably be good forever.
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NOTES
1. save as
2. Christian theology -
3. Christian hymnology -
4. Being ,
5. on the strength of ; ;
6. set down ,
ACTIVE VOCABULARY
1. premise (n) ; ;
(based) on the ~ that - , ; ,
false ~ -
basic / major ~ -
proceed from the ~ that - ,
take as a ~ -
premise (v) ,
to be ~d on/upon sth -
2. to occur (v) - ; ; ; ;
~ to smb - -
~ due to - ;
~ in / at / between ;
events ~ at random -
be about to ~ - ;
occurrence (n) , , ;
a rare / common / regular / everyday ~ - / / /
3. convention (n) ,
by ~ - ,
social ~ - ,
a hedge of ~ -
to be a slave to ~ - , ,
conventional (adj) , , , ;
~ border -
~ thinking - ,
~ wisdom - ,
non-~ - ,
without ~ niceties -
4. to assume (v) (that) , ; ;
~ the worst -
it would be naive to ~ -
let us ~ that - ,
assumption (n) , ;
admit an ~
based on the ~ -
logical ~ -
long-held ~ -
make / put forward an ~ -
5. to prevail (v) , ,
~ over -
~ on / upon ,
~ against overwhelming odds -
~ing attitudes -
prevalence (n) - ,
high ~ -
prevalent (adj) , ,
be ~ ,
~ practice -
6. to relate (v) (to, with) - ,
curious / strange to ~ -
~ theory to practice -
relation (n) , ,
bear (no) a ~ () (-)
co-relation
in ~ to -
in ~ to the latter -
make ~ to
with ~ to - , , ,
7. to determine (v) ,
as they ~ -
~ a problem -
~ effects of -
~ fate -
determination (n) ;
keep to ~ -
lack of ~ -
unfaltering ~ -
8. to attain (v) , ,
~ a goal / aim -
~ immortality -
~ perfection -
attainment (n) ,
above / beyond ~ ,
~ of excellence -
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~ of truth -
man of varied ~s -
9. to expose (v) , ;
~ ignorance -
~ imperfections -
~ to danger -
exposure (n) - ;
~ to -
media ~ - ,
10. to conceive (v) ,
~ of ,
~ a distaste for -
~ an affection for -
ill-~d -
conceivable (adj) , , ;
~ problem -
take every ~ precaution -
conceivably (adv) - , ;
11. to foster (v) , ; ; ; ; ;
~ a hope / awareness of smth / culture / hatred / skills - / / / /
~ a desire for revenge -
~the growth of confidence -
foster (adj) -
~ parents - ,
I. GRAMMAR EXERCISES
Task 1. a) Identify which part of speech the ing forms belong to, their functions in the sentences below and give them correct descriptions.
| 1. yet most people have very little understanding of the nature of love. 2. the first chapter from Dr. Fromms book The Art of Loving, considers the premises underlying most popular attitudes about love and urges that love be approached in the same searching spirit 3. the essay is noteworthy for its coherence, which is achieved in part by a careful enumeration of points in part by effectively tying one paragraph to another. 4. Most people see the problem of love primarily as that of being loved, rather than that of loving, of ones capacity to love. 5. Another, used especially by women, is to make oneself attractive, by cultivating ones body, dress, etc. 6. what most people in our culture mean by being lovable is essentially a mixture between being popular and having sex appeal. 7. Our whole culture is based on the appetite for buying, on the idea of a mutually favourable exchange. 8. Most mans happiness consists in the thrill of looking at the shop windows, and in buying all that he can afford to buy. 9. During the twentieths, a drinking and smoking girl, tough and sexy, was attractive; today the fashion demands more domesticity and coyness. 10. At the end of the nineteenth and the beginning of this century, a man had to be aggressive and ambitious 11. Often, as in buying real estate the hidden potentialities, which can be developed, play a considerable role in this bargain. 12. In a culture in which the marketing orientation prevails, and in which material success is the outstanding value, 13. The third error leading to the assumption that there is nothing to be learnt about love lies in the confusion between the initial experience of falling in love, and the permanen t state of being in love, or as we might better say, of standing in love. 14. If two people who have been strangers, as all of us are, suddenly let the wall break down, and feel close, feel one, this moment of oneness is one of the most exhilarating, most exciting experiences in life. 15. But, aside from learning the theory and practice, there is a third factor necessary to becoming a master in any art the mastery of the art must be a matter of ultimate concern | a. b. c. d. e. f. g. h. i. j. k. l. m. n. o. |
b) Find other examples of ing form in the texts A and B and analyse their usage.
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Task 2
