Monday, August 26, 2019
Priestcraft
H.L. Mencken (1880-1956), Treatise on the Gods (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1930), pp. 23-24:
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[T]he new trade of priestcraft had attractions that were plainly visible to any bright and ambitious young man. It carried an air of pleasing novelty; there was daring in it, and thrills therewith; it made for popularity and a spacious and lazy life; dignity belonged to it; above all, it seemed easy. To be sure, we may assume that the first practitioner hastened to spread the word that there was vastly more to it than appeared on the surface — that under his facile whoops and gyrations glowed a peculiar inward illumination, highly refined in its nature and hard to achieve.
