This is doubly true when the essays are coming from someone who earnestly name-drops the likes of Pericles, Thoreau, Flaubert, and Epicurus in rapid succession.

Now I read Flaubert’s letters, his other books.

Better still, Mencken was introducing the young writer to a new world: Spinoza, Gustave Flaubert, Tolstoy, Mark Twain, Thomas Hardy, TS Eliot, and many more.