Life, 1886-01-14 · page 3 of 16
Life — January 14, 1886 — page 3: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
# Analysis of Life Magazine Page 31 **"The Way of the World"** (top illustration) depicts a romantic scandal in Victorian style. A couple parts "with vows and sighs / At the end of the summer campaign," after which he returns to his wife while she's left with only memories. The circular vignettes show the man (top right, in top hat) and the woman (bottom) separately, illustrating their separation. The satire mocks the hypocrisy of upper-class affairs and their predictable, emotionally devastating conclusions. **"Diplomacy"** (bottom section) praises General Meredith Read's speech at a Philadelphia historical banquet, noting his profile resembles Benjamin Franklin's. The piece humorously celebrates his diplomatic skill while discussing his tenure as U.S. Minister to Greece, suggesting that good diplomacy can resolve even impossible situations.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
THE WAY OF THE WORLD. HEY parted with vows and sighs At the end of the summer campaign, She murmured, with tears in her eyes, She 'd never be happy again. He swore that in all of his life She was the first he had loved in that way, And then he went back to his wife, And the maid to her fiancé, DIPLOMACY. HAT marvel of diplomacy, General Meredith Read, made a speech at the recent banquet given in Phila- delphia by the Pennsylvania Historical Society. It was a very apt and judicious discourse, well adapted to please the company and to leave upon their minds a number 13 im- pression, that the footprints of Time and of General Read were practically identical. “I discovered many years ago,” said the General (alluding to the period when he was Minister Plenipotentiary of the United States to Greece): ‘While daily scanning the outlines of the ancient Acropolis, that the northwestern profile looking toward Mars Hill and the sea is as perfect a likeness of Franklin as the southeastern is of Washington. It is a happy and a striking coincidence that the father of our country and the man whose key unlocked the mysteries of the universe look down from that classic hill from whence flowed the influences which gave to mankind the sciences and the art of not governing too much.” Could there be a finer example than this of what an inborn gift for diplomacy will do for a man when he is in a tight place. Here General Read has pleased the Quakers to a miracle, and yet the recording angel has not taken down against him a hair’s-breadth of deviation from the truth. It is altogether credible that one Athenian profile is as perfect a likeness of Benjamin as the other is of George. Just about. N Alabama they chew the tassels of the fir trees as a substi- tute for tobacco, “which,” says a correspondent, “ reminds me of the adage, ‘ be fir-chewers and you will be happy. comicbooks.com