F Scott Fitzgerald

The Beautiful and Damned F Scott Fitzgerald

In 1913, when Anthony Patch was twenty-five, two years were already gone since irony, the Holy Ghost of this later day, had, theoretically at least, descended upon him. Irony wasthe final polish of the shoe, the ultimate dab of the clothes-brush, a sort of intellectual"There!"-yet at the brink of this story he has as yet gone no further than the consciousstage. As you first see him he wonders frequently whether he is not without honor andslightly mad, a shameful and obscene thinness glistening on the surface of the world like oilon a clean pond, these occasions being varied, of course, with those in which he thinkshimself rather an exceptional young man, thoroughly sophisticated, well adjusted to hisenvironment, and somewhat more significant than any one else he knows. This was his healthy state and it made him cheerful, pleasant, and very attractive tointelligent men and to all women. In this state he considered that he would one dayaccomplish some quiet subtle thing that the elect would deem worthy and, passing on, would join the dimmer stars in a nebulous, indeterminate heaven half-way between deathand immortality. Until the time came for this effort he would be Anthony Patch-not aportrait of a man but a distinct and dynamic personality, opinionated, contemptuous, functioning from within outward-a man who was aware that there could be no honor andyet had honor, who knew the sophistry of courage and yet was bra