Life — October 27, 1887 — page 6: what you’re looking at

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

230 A MAN OF NERVE. H IS nerves were weak—a clergyman, sad, Whom every sound would annoy ; He came for rest, but it drove him mad— The shrieks of the whistling buoy. “The mountain air is better for me; I must flee this dizzy whirl."— He is settled now, away from the sea, But he married a whistling girl. Arthur Penfield. THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. UMLEY (Sunday evening): Hello, Featherly, which way ? FEATHERLY (¢” haste): Don't detain me, old man; I'm going to church, and it’s nearly eight o'clock now. DUMLEY (astonished): Wha-a-at! You going to church? What do you expect to do there? FEATHERLY : Helpa pretty little eighteen- year-old girl hold up a hymn book. Ta-ta, Dumley. T is pleasant to reflect that the Chicago Anarchists will shortly get to the end of their rope. A WICKED PASTIME. LD LADY (very much shocked): Little boys, what are you playing “ Shinny ” for on the Sabbath day ? LittLe Boys: We're playin’ fer fi’ cents a game, A MISUNDERSTANDING. R. HENDRICKS had just informed the minister, who was enjoying a Sunday dinner with the family, that he rarely drank coffee, as it tended to keep him awake, when Bobby had the following to say: “You drink it late at night, don’t you, Pa?" “Never, Bobby; what put that idea into your head?” “heard Ma say that whenever you came home late at night she made it hot for you, and I s'posed she meant coffee.” BY CABLE, ARY ANDERSON has not discarded a peer for three weeks, ENCEFORTH Bulgarian rulers will insist on having their salaries paid in advance as a precaution against involun- tary midnight abdications. A QUIET WORD WITH MACENAS. GREET you, Maecenas, as a patron of arts and letters—but more than that, as a genial, kindly man. From my window I look out on the won- derful establishment which you have builded ; it rises eight stories into the air and spreads to the four corners of a great block in the heart of the city. Every day a thousand men gather in that hive and spread your merchandise to the uttermost bounds of the country. It is a tremendous machine for sup- plying millions of people with dry-goods, and you do it well. In all its rami- fications it is the creature of your brain. You look back on the day when you sold tape in a country store, and from then to now has been to you like an enchanted dream. ‘The thought of your inmost heart has gradually realized itself in stone and mortar. You can sit in your modest office and look through the great vistas of the store, and say, “ All this is a part of me. I have embodied my past and laid sure the foundations of my future.” Happy Mixcenas! You have added to the sum of human comfort, and have lived your own life at its very best. . . . ND yet you are the patron of men of letters, and rather envy them their paltry fame! My friend, this is the one mistaken judgment which I know you to cherish in your clear brain. You live more in a day than these dreamers in a year. They imagine fine things and beautiful things, and per- chance picture them well on paper; then they sit down and moan at fate and circumstance. You imagine great things and the methods of doing them, and then by your indomitable will and superb ability, make real and palpable the substance of your dream. Do you not see that you are a giant among these pigmies? They are only half-developed, for their faculties of action have wasted through disuse. For centuries now the world has been flattering these men of dreams as though they were of a race set apart and especially endowed—when really they have only abnormally developed the weakest and least lovable side of human nature. One man of action is worth a hundred of them; the only hero is the man of deeds. Adieu, Macenas; your great store is as worthy of fame as an epic, and you are the equal of a poet. THE CANE'S REVENGE. comicbooks.com