"Divine Afflatus" (1917) (LONG-delete if necessary)

[Fred Shapiro]

On Wed, 27 Apr 2005 bapopik at AOL.COM wrote:

> I say rationally, for a plain reason, for explanations of another sort
> are very plentiful. THe ancients threw responsibility directly on the
> gods one day they were kind and the next day they were the reverse.

Thanks again to Barry for his work on this.  Above (from Barry's
transcription of the 1917 newspaper article) is the place where the
"neat, plausible and wrong" sentence appears in the 1920 version of "The
Divine Afflatus."  It appears that Mencken revised this essay for the 1920
book publication and introduced "neat, plausible and wrong" at that point.

Fred Shapiro


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Fred R. Shapiro                             Editor
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