The harsh, useful things of the world, from pulling teeth…

The harsh, useful things of the world, from pulling teeth to digging potatoes, are best done by men who are as starkly sober as so many convicts in the death-house, but the lovely and useless things, the charming and exhilarating things, are best done by men with, as the phrase is, a few sheets in the wind.

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H.L. Mencken, Prejudice’s, Fourth Series (1924).

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