Thursday, October 25, 2007

the mob

These are some of D.H. Lawrence's words from Studies in Classic American Literature:

Freedom...? The land of the free! This the land of the free! Why, If I say anything that displeases them, the free mob will lynch me, and that's my freedom. Free? Why, I have never been in any country where the individual has such an abject fear of his fellow countrymen. Because, as I say, they are free to lynch him the moment he shows he is not one of them.

I haven't actually read his book. I found this quote in a short piece by Joyce Carol Oates in the Atlantic Monthly. But it looks promising.