Life — October 11, 1883 — page 10: what you’re looking at

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

O#, J. Sullivan ! Oh, J. L. Sullivan ! Oh, John Lycurgus Sullivan, all hail !! Thou bottomless infinitude ! Thou god! Thou you! Thou Zeus with all-compelling hand! Thou glory of the mighty Occident! Thou Heaven- born ! Thou Athens-bred! Thou light of the Acropolis! Thou son of a gambolier ! 59 inches art thou round thy ribs ; twice twain knuckles hast thou ; and again twice twain. Thou scatterest men’s teeth like antelopes at play. Thou straightenest thine arm, and systems rock, and eye-balls change their hue. Oh, thou grim granulator! Thou soul-remover ! Thou lightsome, coy excoriator ! Thou cooing dove! Thou droll, droll John ! Thou buster ! Oh, you! Oh, me too! Oh, me some more! Oh, thunder!!! Wuatt Witman. (per J. P. L.) AMERICAN ARISTOCRACY. No. V. Touchstone, ‘*Why, if thou never wast at court, thou never saw'st manners ; if thou never saw’st good manners, then thy manners must be wicked ; and wickedness is sin, and sin is damnation. Thou art in a parlous state, shepherd."—4s You Like /t, //1., 2. Ov respected subscriber, ‘‘ K1Lt Von KuLt,” is angry. He declares that instead of replying “boldly and directly” to his letters upon American Aristocracy, Lire has brazenly and in altogether a shameless manner resorted to base “ subterfuge and sophistry,” and has, in other sinful ways, dodged the issue. Laying aside all questions of “ blood "—which he declares can “+ only be argued by orthodox believers,"—and utterly quitting the subject of evolution—to which he clung so tenaciously a fortnight ago,—he comes directly to war, saying that out of society man is “brutal and unrefined ;" hoists the black flag statement that ‘‘ Society supports, encourages and gives impetus to literature and the arts;"" and concludes by fiercely demanding to know “*where would Music and the Drama be,” were it not for ‘the millions devoted annually to their cause by Society.” Lire surrenders. It confesses to deep and measureless wrong. Out of society, man is “ brutal and unrefined.” Undoubtedly, So, too, for that matter, is woman. In society—how different ! Mrs. ELIzABETH KorKA-WALLOON, for example, is ‘‘in” -LIFE- society. Her pedigree, which extends back to her birth, is un- exceptionable, her wealth is boundless, and her social position as eminent and fixed as the PolarStar. Before she married she was a KorKa. There were pleasant rumors once afloat that in those happy days she was an expert on that detergent instrument familiarly known as the ‘‘ Irish Piano,” but the fact that PETER WALLOON engaged himself to her on the very steamer which was conveying home the body of his first wife is sufficient evidence to the contrary, and we are glad to state that as he was only sixty-four years of age at the time—while his bride was fully twenty-five—the marriage could not have been in the least degree mercenary. Now it was very unfortunate that Mr. WALLOon’s early and lamented demise left his grief-stricken widow a prey to misgivings on the subject of her enfrée into that First CiRcLE to which she aspired. Most fortunate too was it that at this most desolate juncture both Mrs. STiLTON and Mrs, DuNpER- TEUFEL SYMMONS, benevolent avant<ouriers of the First Cir- CLE, but not exactly First CrRcLERS, came to the rescue and undertook to pilot her in, Of course, this was disinterested work, for beyond a few hundred drives in the Park, a couple of dozen luncheons and a score of opera parties, -neither of these ladies received any material benefit from the acquaintance, other than the continued pleasure of Mrs, KORKA-WALLOON'’S society, which those alone who know her can appreciate. Well, to make a long story short, by skillful soundings and dead reckoning, or in other words, by judicious cultivation of firmly established First CircLers—not too forward a cultivation, but just a gentle and clinging one, you know—Mrs, KorKA-WALLOON was safely towed at last to placid harborage and anchored, celebrating the event by an elaborate and bewildering series of /étes, which must have caused the ghost of her late frugal and uxorious spouse unspeakable delight. Certainly this was all just as it should have been, But several comicbooks.com