Elmer Gantry (Unabridged). Sinclair Lewis
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to create congressmen, bishops, and sales-managers, Elmer had had to produce discourses on Taxation, the Purpose of God in History, Our Friend the Dog, and the Glory of the American Constitution. But his monthly orations had not been too arduous; no one had grieved if he stole all his ideas and most of his phrasing from the encyclopedia. The most important part of preparation had been the lubrication of his polished-mahogany voice with throat-lozenges after rather steady and totally forbidden smoking. He had learned nothing except the placing of his voice. It had never seemed momentous to impress the nineteen students of oratory and the instructor, an unordained licensed preacher who had formerly been a tax-assessor in Oklahoma. He had, in Public Speaking, never been a failure nor ever for one second interesting.
Now, sweating very much, he perceived that he was expected to think, to articulate the curious desires whereby Elmer Gantry was slightly different from any other human being, and to rivet together opinions which would not be floated on any tide of hallelujahs.
He tried to remember the sermons he had heard. But the preachers had been so easily convinced of their authority as prelates, so freighted with ponderous messages, while himself, he was not at the moment certain whether he was a missionary who had to pass his surprising new light on to the multitude, or just a sinner who —
Just a sinner! For keeps! Nothing else! Damned if he'd welsh on old Jim! No, sir! Or welsh on Juanita, who'd stood for him and merely kidded him, no matter how soused and rough and mouthy he might be!...Her hug. The way she'd get rid of that buttinsky aunt of Nell's; just wink at him and give Aunty some song and dance or other and send her out for chow —
God! If Juanita were only here! She'd give him the real dope. She'd advise him whether he ought to tell Prexy and the Y.M. to go to hell or grab this chance to show Eddie Fislinger and all those Y.M. highbrows that he wasn't such a bonehead —
No! Here Prexy had said he was the whole cheese: gotten up a big meeting for him. Prexy Quarles and Juanita! Aber nit! Never get them two together! And Prexy had called on him —
Suppose it got into the newspapers! How he'd saved a tough kid, just as good as Judson Roberts could do. Juanita — find skirts like her any place, but where could they find a guy that could start in and save souls right off the bat?
Chuck all these fool thoughts, now that Jim was asleep, and figure out this spiel. What was that about sweating in the vineyard? Something like that, anyway. In the Bible...However much they might rub it in — and no gink'd ever had a worse time, with that sneaking Eddie poking him on one side and Jim lambasting him on the other — whatever happened, he had to show those yahoos he could do just as good —
Hell! This wasn't buying the baby any shoes; this wasn't getting his spiel done. But —
What was the doggone thing to be about?
Let's see now. Gee, there was a bully thought! Tell 'em about how a strong husky guy, the huskier he was the more he could afford to admit that the power of the Holy Ghost had just laid him out cold —
No. Hell! That was what Old Jud had said. Must have something new — kinda new, anyway.
He shouldn't say "hell." Cut it out. Stay converted, no matter how hard it was. He wasn't afraid of — Him and Old Jud, they were husky enough to —
No, sir! It wasn't Old Jud; it was his mother. What'd she think if she ever saw him with Juanita? Juanita! That sloppy brat! No modesty!
Had to get down to brass tacks. Now!
Elmer grasped the edge of his work-table. The top cracked. His strength pleased him. He pulled up his dingy red sweater, smoothed his huge biceps, and again tackled his apostolic labors:
Let's see now: The fellow at the Y. would expect him to say —
He had it! Nobody ever amounted to a darn except as the — what was it? — as the inscrutable designs of Providence intended him to be.
Elmer was very busy making vast and unformed scrawls in a ten-cent-note-book hitherto devoted to German. He darted up, looking scholarly, and gathered his library about him: his Bible, given to him by his mother; his New Testament, given by a Sunday School teacher; his text-books in Weekly Bible and Church History; and one-fourteenth of a fourteen-volume set of Great Orations of the World which, in a rare and alcoholic moment of bibliomania, he had purchased in Cato for seventeen cents. He piled them and repiled them and tapped them with his fountain-pen.
His original stimulus had run out entirely.
Well, he'd get help from the Bible. It was all inspired, every word, no matter what scoffers like Jim said. He'd take the first text he turned to and talk on that.
He opened on: "Now therefore, Tatnai, governor beyond the river, Shethar-boznai, and your companions the Apharsachites, which are beyond the river, be ye far from thence," an injunction spirited but not at present helpful.
He returned to pulling his luxuriant hair and scratching.
Golly. Must be something.
The only way of putting it all over life was to understand these Forces that the scientists, with their laboratories and everything, couldn't savvy, but to a real Christian they were just as easy as rolling off a log —
No. He hadn't taken any lab courses except Chemistry I, so he couldn't show where all these physicists and biologists were boobs.
Elmer forlornly began to cross out the lovely scrawls he had made in his note-book.
He was irritably conscious that Jim was awake, and scoffing:
"Having quite a time being holy and informative, Hell-cat? Why don't you pinch your first sermon from the heathen? You won't be the first up-and-coming young messiah to do it!"
Jim shied a thin book at him, and sank again into infidel sleep. Elmer picked up the book. It was a selection from the writings of Robert G. Ingersoll.
Elmer was indignant.
Take his speech from Ingersoll, that rotten old atheist that said — well, anyway, he criticized the Bible and everything! Fellow that couldn't believe the Bible, least he could do was not to disturb the faith of others. Darn' rotten thing to do! Fat nerve of Jim to suggest his pinching anything from Ingersoll! He'd throw the book in the fire!
But — Anything was better than going on straining his brains. He forgot his woes by drugging himself with heedless reading. He drowsed through page on page of Ingersoll's rhetoric and jesting. Suddenly he sat up, looked suspiciously over at the silenced Jim, looked suspiciously at Heaven. He grunted, hesitated, and began rapidly to copy into the German notebook, from Ingersoll:
Love is the only bow on life's dark cloud. It is the Morning and the Evening Star. It shines upon the cradle of the babe, and sheds its radiance upon the quiet tomb. It is the mother of Art, inspirer of poet, patriot and philosopher. It is the air and light of every heart, builder of every home, kindler of every fire on every hearth. It was the first to dream of immortality. It fills the world with melody, for Music is the voice of Love. Love is the magician, the enchanter, that changes worthless things to joy, and makes right royal kings and queens of common clay. It is the perfume of the wondrous flower — the heart — and without that sacred passion, that divine swoon, we are less than beasts; but with it, earth is heaven and we are gods.
Only for a moment, while he was copying, did he look doubtful; then:
"Rats! Chances are nobody there tonight has ever read Ingersoll. Agin him. Besides I'll kind of change it around."
5
When President Quarles called for him, Elmer's exhortation was outlined, and he had changed to his Sunday-best blue serge double-breasted suit and sleeked his hair.
As they departed, Jim called Elmer back from the hall to whisper, "Say, Hell-cat, you won't forget to give credit to Ingersoll, and to me for tipping you off, will you?"
"You go to hell!" said Elmer.
6
There