Judge, 1920-08-28 · page 11 of 36
Judge — August 28, 1920 — page 11: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
# "The Sad Old World" Analysis This is a humorous story illustrated by Ralph Barton satirizing pessimistic religious attitudes popular in early 20th-century America. The narrative, by Walt Mason, mocks people who constantly complain about life as a "vale of tears" while paradoxically desperately clinging to existence. The central joke appears in the illustration's caption: Uncle James, who spent his life denouncing this world as sinful and eagerly awaiting heaven, ironically "tries so hard to dodge the hearse"—he desperately seeks medical remedies and refuses to die despite his professed disdain for earthly life. The story's point: people who publicly condemn the world as wretched actually treasure life and fear death. The narrator himself admits he complains about modern inconveniences but won't "rush to reach the stars"—he prefers earthly existence, assuming heaven lacks "motor cars or movies." It's gentle satire of hypocrisy and the human contradiction between stated beliefs and actual behavior.
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“i | H | H | ) i r } f t i See a “ T NEVER SAW AN UNCLE TRY 50 HAKD TO DODGE THE HEARSE” - -_—— = a ee The Sad Old World By Warr Mason Illustrated by Seas Rateu Barton 4 OFTEN hear sad people “This world’s a vale of tears it’s getting punker every , it isn’t worth three cheers.” And all extremely pious folk denounce in seething terms this life as an unseemly joke, and say we all are worms. And now and then, when full of prunes, I crank up my old lyre, and spring a lot of doleful tunes which would your spirit tire. “It isa sickly vale of woe, a place of tears and toil,” I say, when I have stubbed my toe, or when I have a boil. The world’s in fact a pleasant sphere, and it has features sweet, and though we all abuse it here, we'd find it hard to beat. We all insist it is a frost, but when we're billed to leave, we would found he'd symptoms in his back of many deadly ills. Then all his money went for jugs of remedies for man; his weekly stock of helpful drugs would fill a moving van. He swallowed quarts of whiskers dye, and steadily grew worse; I never saav an uncle try so hard to dodge the hearse. And he wore belt and liver pad, and trusses three or four, and all the doctors in the grad came chugging to his door. And when the stern physician said, “You'll last two hours— no more,” my Uncle James sat up in bed and raised an awful roar. The world he had abused so long he knew was out of trim, but, though it still was full of wrong, it looked quite smooth hang on at any cost; departure makes us griev I well recall my Uncle James, who found this world a fake; he hated all its sinful games, which made his innards ache. He yearned to reach some golden shore where joy bells ever chime; there he'd sing hymns forevermore and have the derned- est time. He said he was a stranger here, and heaven was his home, and till he found that homeland near, no joy could fill his dome. You'd think to hear my uncle talk that he could hardly wait until he hit the jasper walk and passed the golden gate One day he read an almanac that boosted certain pills, and to him. I hear of better worlds than this, and wonder what they're like; men say they’re full of endless bliss, gold pavemenon the pike. And it is sweet to look ahead to countries so sublime, and feel that after we are dead we'll have a bully time. But I am in no cager sweat to reach another spher planet is my one best bet while I am living here. I still may roast the good old globe, and say it should be hung, when I go forth to buy a robe and find I have been stung; but I won't rush to reach the stars and shed all worldly care; I fear they won't motor cars or movies over there. 3 this ee