Life, 1887-07-21 · page 10 of 16
Life — July 21, 1887 — page 10: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
# "The End of the Yarn" - Life Magazine Page 38 The illustration depicts a storyteller seated outside a boathouse, entertaining a group of children and a dog. Based on the title "The End of the Yarn," this appears to be satirizing someone telling tall tales or exaggerated nautical stories to an credulous audience. The quoted passage above describes a ship battle with dramatic, embellished language ("Death was staring us all in the face"), typical of adventure fiction. The cartoon mocks both the storyteller's grandiose narrative style and the children's rapt attention to obviously fictional accounts. This reflects a broader 19th-century satirical tradition mocking excessive romanticism in literature and the gullibility of audiences who accepted implausible adventure narratives as entertainment.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
THE END OF THE YARN. —"' We had used up all our shot an’ the inim was astaring us all in the face, for in was abearin’ down upon us with every sail up. Death im days no quarter was given or taken: our decks was covered with dead, an’ we all felt as though our last moment was come. Suddenly the order come for to cut off the heads of the corpses on deck an’ use them for cannon-balls; an’ we done it, an’ in less time a'most than it has took for me to tell you, we sunk the inimy’s intire fleet, an’ come home with colors all aftying. FIVE O'CLOCK TEA. N my queer little den up three rickety flights (Rather snug in the winter and cool summer nights), With a pipe ‘twixt my lips, and a book on my knee, I dreamed of the past and that five o'clock tea. What dummies of fashion, what innocent looks ; What critics of dresses, of pictures, of books ; What excellent matter for verses you see, If you linger awhile at a five o'clock tea! What scandal, what gossip, what chatter, what noise Did I hear from a parcel of maidens and boys! How I longed to be home and evermore free From the dignified calm of that five o'clock tea! When Lord Tweedledum, by a tiger in drab, Was tooled to the curb in a. black-and-tan cab, What natural ripples of pleasure and glee Thrilled all of the "‘ buds” at that five o'clock tea! How Marguerite’s heart beat ; how Geraldine’s clear Faded eyes were thrown up to the great chandelier ! While Peg (fat thirty) vowed Margery D. ‘* Made eyes at my lord" at that five o'clock tea. When Peggy was younger what epigrams terse, What Byronic stanzas and love-freighted verse I wrote—‘* On Her Glances,” ‘* Is Love Fancy Free?" How I cursed them last week at that five o'clock tea! How heartstrings would tighten, how pulses would throb, When I helped her to mount on her Normandy cob! She blushed, then she laughed at my passionate plea Years ago, ere I dreamt of a five o'clock tea. She married Bob Brooks, of the Seventh, I think ; He tippled until he succumbed to his drink. Maud detailed his faults and condoned them to me In her womanly way at that five o'clock tea. They say she is wed to his memory now ; I protest that his loss has not furrowed her brow. Yet I fancied she thought the—er—feelings that she Awoke might live a/ter that five o'clock tea. The candles burn dimmer ; no longer my pipe ‘Mid its smoke forms a picture of feminine type; A muffin is done to a turn, and so we Kid farewell to the past and that five o'clock tea. DeWitt Sterry. “Pe Chinese always weep at their weddings. As usual, the Chinese are ahead. MERICAN flowers that are now blooming in Europe include the Roswell P, variety. apuose people whom coffee keeps awake should never drink it Sunday morning. comicbooks.com fa fr