Life, 1885-08-20 · page 7 of 16
Life — August 20, 1885 — page 7: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
# Combination No. 14: "A Big Diamond" This page contains two satirical cartoons about artists struggling with their craft. The left panel shows an artist at work on a small canvas, standing on a stool. The right panel depicts another artist in an exaggerated pose, apparently wrestling with or being overwhelmed by a large, irregular shape (labeled "a thumb-tack" and "a diamond"). The title "A Big Diamond" appears to mock artistic pretension—suggesting artists tackle ambitious projects they're unprepared for, or that they struggle to execute even simple subjects convincingly. The cartoons satirize both the difficulty of artistic work and perhaps the gap between artists' ambitions and their actual abilities. The exaggerated poses emphasize the physical and mental strain involved.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
~LIPE™ HERE are many pages of tediously minute dialogue, which, however, have generally an important bearing on the plot, and are legally essential to its development. The love-making is entirely subordinated to the solution of the mysterious crime. And yet Miss Cary Maurice it a very lovable Southern girl, and does much to relieve the pervading gloom. Like most lovable Southern girls she seldom says anything worth remembering. Even that is a relief from the affected smart- ness of many Northern heroines. The decline in the rate of matrimony at the North can probably, in the last analysis, be traced to the ideas of feminine volubility and sarcasm, which our young men absorb from Boston novels. They do not want anybody as a perpetual companion who can talk back in that way. * * * OTES.—“ The Rise of Silas Lapham” has been sub- stantially printed in a volume of 500 pages, by Ticknor & Co. This new firm announces a fine list of American works for publication, and certainly deserves an honorable success. , Droch. 105 HE August number of the Century Magazine is one of the most interesting issues we have had for some time. Mr. Howells, in addition to his charming Florentine sketches, gives us the concluding chapters of “ Silas Lapham’s Rise.” Silas manages to get there in better style, perhaps, than his brothers and sisters in the author's fancy, so charm- ingly depicted in the Elevator sketch. The war articles, in spite of the fact that they become more and more prolific every month, are as interesting as ever. In this connection we may say that the readers of the enterprising New York daily papers must not lend too ready a belief to the slurs upon the Century in regard to its rela- tions with General Grant, which, even under the most trying circumstances, were of the pleasantest. We assume, however, that regular readers of the papers above referred to are aware that their mean spirited para- graphs, concerning a flourishing institution, are as often ac- tuated by malicious envy as their pleasant paragraphs are actuated by the comforting presence of patronage, either in money or business. A Bic DiaMOND—The base-ball field. COMBINATION No. comicbooks.com