Judge, 1918-08-31 · page 5 of 32
Judge — August 31, 1918 — page 5: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
# Analysis of "The Back Way" from Judge This page contains a short story illustration rather than political satire. The image shows a man demonstrating something to a group of women who are begging him to reveal his "methods." The story's title and caption—"Clever Women and Shy Girls Beg Him for a Revelation of His Methods"—suggests romantic or social comedy. The narrative concerns a character named Blub Upperson, a struggling writer who finally achieved literary success after years of failure. The excerpt focuses on Upperson's newfound success and an apparent romantic entanglement, with a woman making elaborate promises to him. The humor appears to derive from social dynamics between ambitious men and women of the era, rather than political commentary.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
Pounded 1881 “THE HAPPY eMEDIUM” Crever Women ano Suny Girts Bec Him ror a Revetation or Hts Metuops The Back Way By Jean) E Dersy Illustrations by Avsert HencKe T was not by the front door that Blub Upperson found literary suce he arrived by the back way. He had discovered that he was artistic. His business failures had proved that. Then he had acquired a lameness which made him sensi- tive. It was this lameness that finally started him toward literature. For it is an axiom, if a man is lame and a failure in business, he’s marked to be a shining light in letters. Blub liked to sit under trees or live on a farm—places where stories exuberate, jump ripe-plotted, juicily cli- maxed into the open hand, and spurt Peni the soft pencil. He worked four years with all his artistry, and a good deal of spunk, and sold one story. Also he had four personal notes from editors. He knew his stuff was good —because—well, there was nothing else he could do so brilliantly. Four years he knocked at the front door of Literature. Four years! Then his heart broke and bit- terness filled him. He forsook Literature. He even shook his fist in her face, and prayed to his ancestors insistently, persecutingly, like this: “You have made a mere contrivance of me, oh Long Deads, for all your good-for-nothingness. You have made a peg of me, on which to hang all your disparage- ments and your discrepancies, your limpness and your lameness, till the peg is giving way. Now show some mercy, some decency! Pass around your skulls and take up a collection of amiable dust and bequeath to me, Blub Upperson, your scapegoat, one acre set in beautiful country where lusty green things are and where sing the brooks and the frogs and the birds; a place that shall be gracious with the shadows of trees and holy with the purple of everlasting hills. “And I will honor you. I will plant poppies and curly cabbages, dig me a deep cellar with enthusiasm, and put up solid walls with logs—train vines and plant fruit trees to the glory of all my forefathers. Literature, the hussy, can go to Sardinia. All my strength and my art I will devote to nourish your memory—for one green acre—one acre only—oh, my ancest if Now, in considering Blub’s case impartially, we must comicbooks.com