Sinclair Lewis, Our Own Diogenes, Issue 5 |
Other editions - View all
Common terms and phrases
Almus American Language Babbitt warren back-slappings banker bellies Billy Bryan Billy Sundays Bolshevic Book of Translations Brindle Bunk chewing Comfort and service creed critics current ideal democracy democratic Diogenes Lewis discovered disillusion drab earlier EDWARD WAGENKNECHT ethical values excellence faith of America feeding grounds fellow Foreword Four and Twenty gad-fly genus americanus George F GLENN HUGHES goodfellowship Gopher Prairie GOWEN greater cities Hellenism HERBERT H herd hocus pocus homo sapiens hope HUGHES AND YOZAN human nature Industrial Revolution IWASAKI Jeffer knight and artist learned Lewis's Main Street Martin Arrowsmith middle-class Modern Japan Mumbo Jumbo one's victim philosopher Plugson of Undershot Poets of Modern portrait priest and knight prosperity pudgy realtors red-blooded regnant Reverend Elmer Gantry RICHARD ALDINGTON Rotarians sacred Saint Francis satire Sinclair Lewis social soul technique test-tube things Translations By GLENN tury Twelve Woodcuts UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON Utopia vast VERNON LOUIS PARRINGTON WASHINGTON CHAPBOOKS western civilization zation Zenith
Popular passages
Page 19 - Such a country is past helping," retorts Sinclair Lewis. "God cannot help it, or the Devil. In the name of George F. Babbitt and Dr. Almus Pickerbaugh and the Reverend Elmer Gantry, what can be expected of such a country? A people that worships the great god Bunk shall have its reward!" To prove his amiable thesis Mr. Lewis has been at enormous pains to gather his materials at their sources. He has taken upon himself to become a specialist in depicting the genus Americanus. He has loafed along Main...
Page 26 - Hebraism — has been achieved in practice. A rich and abundant life, motivated by a fine sense of ethical responsibility and disciplined by a democratic public school, is, in sober fact, the distinguishing characteristic of America that sets our country apart from all other lands in western civilization. Call it a Babbitt warren if you will, nevertheless where else has the industrial revolution been brought so completely and happily under dominion to the democratic ideal, or been so ennobled by...
Page 22 - ... the greatest race in the world" — fruitful centers from which radiates the philosophy of pep, punch, and progress for the upbuilding and enlightenment of the world. Of these centers the hustling and mighty Zenith is the wonder and admiration of all right-minded citizens; it is the brightest and bloomiest sunflower of the great American garden. And in Zenith dwells George F. Babbitt, realtor, Sinclair Lewis's full-length portrait of a hero sprung from the loins of America, the completest embodiment...
Page 17 - ... noses point — a herd endowed with tremendous blind power, with big bull leaders, but with minds rarely above their bellies and their dams. In the mass and at their own romantic rating they are distinctly imposing — big-necked, red-blooded, lusty, with glossy coats got from rich feeding-grounds, and with a herd power that sweeps majestically onward in a cloud of dust of its own raising, veritable lords and masters of a continent. But considered more critically and resolved into individual...
Page 17 - Now what is the tremendous discovery that Sinclair Lewis makes so much of, and that we pay so great a price to learn ? It is no other than this: that the goodly United States of America are peopled by a mighty herd, which like those earlier herds that rumbled about the plains, drives foolishly in whatever direction their noses point — a herd endowed with tremendous blind power, with big bull leaders, but with minds rarely above their bellies and their dams.