Judge — January 1937 — page 45: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

in for psychism, art & nature, kept being in (all too annoyingly) at the birth of any ism. Along the way, she had herself quite a number of love affairs and got married here and there. All this and plenty more dear, dear Mabel tells in 542 pages of the third instalment of her true confessions, called “Movers & Shakers.” Frankly, Mabel gives us a pain and not in the neck. She has a bad habit of wanting to horn in on the credit for discovering every liberal of her day. It’s as though Steffens, Van Vechten, Berkman, Tan- nenbaum, Stein and the rest were Mother Luhan's chickens to be pecked at, clucked over, and finally proudly fried for public consumption. Further- more when she gets art, psychism and love between her teeth, there's no stop- ping the gal. Especially is her love confession objectionable, laying out her intimate thoughts so frankly it hurts the reader. It's bad enough to be an Intel lectual who kisses and tells in a few million words but to be feminine to boot is a major literary crime. The enjoyment of laughter isn’t helped a hairbreadth of a whit by Max East- man’s book of essays called “The Enjoy- ment of Laughter.” Always we've opined that you can no more explain the mean- ing of a laugh than you can understand flowers better by putting them in a test- tube. And even if you could analyze humor, just how would it forward the increase of laughter? It's the very prime necessity of humor that it be freshlaid, untouched by human hand. But there we go analyzing and we sturdily refuse to fall into Prof. Max Eastman's pants. Frankly, if it weren't for the humorous samples Mr. Eastman nuts-and-raisins his doughy prose with, “The Enjoyment of Laughter” would be a big bore. There are two sides to Mr. Eastman. The professorial side which quotes Kant, Bergson, MacDougall and Aristotle and the editorial side which can wield a mean pair of joke clipping shears. It’s when Mr, Eastman doffs the cap and gown and picks up the shears he’s hot stuff. In fact, had Mr. E. stuck to joke collecting and laid off the dissection he'd have had a dandy joke anthology and not a phoney classic. But the joke samples are swell and worth the price of admission. Did you know that Artemus Ward said “It'd have been $20 in Jeff Davis’ pocket if he'd never of been born”? That Eugene Field spoke of an actor “who played the King as if someone else was about to play the ace"? That Fred Allen knew of a scarecrow so scary it scared the crows into bringing back corn they'd stolen 2 years before? That Mark Twain said: “Don't be too particular—it's bet- ter to have second hand diamonds than none at all!” while Kin Hubbard urged you to “Remember the poor—it costs nothing!” That Eastman fails to credit JupGe with the one about the parrot that laid square eggs—"Can she talk?” “Not much, just says ‘Ouch'!"’ “A COLD” Be doubly careful about the laxative you take! Or of the first questions the doctor asks when you have a cold is— “Are your bowels regular?” Doctors know how important a laxative is in the treatment of colds. They know also the importance of choosing the right laxative at this time. Before they will give any laxative their approval, doctors make doubly sure that it measures up to their own specifications. ~Read these specifica- tions. They are important—not only during the “cold season,” but all the year "round. . The doctor says that a laxative should be: Dependable... Mild... Thorough . . . Time-tested. The doctor says that a laxative should not: Over-act .. . Form a habit . .. Cause stomach pains... Nauseate, or upset the digestion. Ex-Lax meets every one of these demands so fairly that many doctors use it for their own families. And mil- lions of other families, too, trust it so completely that they have made Ex-Lax the most widely used laxative in the whole wide world. One trial of Ex-Lax will tell you why its use is so universal ...It is thor- ough. But it is gentle...It is effective. But it is mild... It brings welcome relief—without stomach pains or nausea. That’s why it’s such a favorite, not only of the grown-ups but of the youngsters, too. And, just to make it even more pleasant, Ex-Lax tastes exactly like delicious chocolate... At all drug stores in 10c and 25c sizes. When Nature forgets —remember EX-LAX THE ORIGINAL CHOCOLATED LAXATIVE comicbooks.com