Life, 1892-06-02 · page 8 of 14
Life — June 2, 1892 — page 8: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
# Analysis of Life Magazine Page 346 This page contains a book review section and satirical content rather than political cartoons. The main illustration shows two figures from behind—a man in a top hat and coat with a woman—captioned "NEAR ENOUGH," accompanying a dialogue joke about never being in love. The page primarily reviews W.H. Mallock's novel "A Human Document," which the critic defends against morality-based criticism. The reviewer argues that novels can present moral questions as legitimately as life itself does. Below is a separate humorous dialogue titled "MY DEAR WIFE," where a husband discusses his rotating belief system—alternating weekly between Christianity, rain-making, and other pursuits—as a way to manage stress and prevent over-strain on his faith. The content reflects turn-of-the-century satirical commentary on both literature and casual religious skepticism.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
AN INHUMAN DOCUMENT. 'O criticise W. H, Mallock’s strange story, ‘A Human Document” (Cassell), on the ground of its morality would be to fall into the very trap which the author has temptingly set in his elaborate Intro- duction. He asserts, with something of the air of a discoverer, that good and evil as realities are everywhere in the closest contact, in the same people, society, motives and actions; and that his story presents a picture equally complete of both. It is, therefore, just as moral or immoral as life is, and if you don't like it, your disagreement is with life and not with Mr, Mallock, He has shown in previous books that if it were left to him he could make a better world ; but he and you will have to take it as it is, in reality and in books, until the management of terrestrial affairs is fully turned over to him. In the meantime is it not better to look at novels as works of a cer- tain sort of art, and let the moral question take the background? It is not at all likely that people who are profoundly interested in morality as an abstraction will read this or any other modern novel for anything but amusement. They take their morality in a more serious dress. * * * TH ask which the author avowedly set for himself is rather a huge one. He has tried to lay bare the hearts of a man and woman of extreme culture and refinement who are swept away from their prin- ciples and conventional standards by a real and serious passion, The author's belief is that each is raised to a more exalted plane of living by being faithful to the highest inspiration of Nature, before which laws and customs are worthless barriers. Now the test of the book as a work of art is that it shall persuade and convince the reader, for the time being, that this is true; that he shall follow the man and woman with increasing admiration for their fidelity to an ideal. If we may be allowed to speak for the gentle reader, we don't be- lieve he pays any such tribute to Mr, Mallock’s talent as an artist. He is probably charmed with the rhythmic style, the keen aphorisms, and the worldly wisdom of the first half of the book, For a time he shares jin the poetic exaltation of Grenvitle and /rma, in the presence of what is beautiful in nature and pathetic in life, The growth of sympathy, the unfolding of new possibilities in companionship, the release of a charming woman's heart from dire imprisonment—all these the reader sees with increasing interest and approval. Bat when the result of this exaltation isto make the man sacrifice an honorable career in a reckless manner, resolve to lead an idle life that he may be near the woman he loves, and then spend days and weeks in fruitless fretting over her necessary or imaginary inconsisten- cies, you begin to have contempt for him. His whole adventurous career in skulking around Vienna, London, and out-of-the-way Hun- garian castles in order to meet another man's wife, without arousing suspicions, is true enough to a certain phase of life, but one is never expected to see anything heroic in the man who does it. If one day he is shot, you simply say he took the risks of the game and lost. . . * AS for the pathologic and melodramatic solution of the difficulty by malignant diphtheria, with its attendant revolting sacrifice of good sense to a bad conscience on the part of Grenville, one can only call it “ mushiness,” and end the volume in disgust. In a word, Mr. Mallock sets himself a big task, artistically, and fails to achieve it, after having half won the battle. All his preliminary worry about the morality of the book, was a waste of powder on the wrong fort. Droch. NEW BOOKS. HE EVOLUTION OF CHRISTIANITY. By Lyman Abbott. ton and New York: Houghton, Miftin and Company. Bos- NEAR ENOUGH. She: You Say THAT YOU HAVE NEVER BEEN IN Love. How NEAR HAVE YOU COME TO IT? He: 1 WAS MARRIED ONCE, What is Love? By Felix Dahn. Translated by Kannida. Chicago: N.C. Smith, The Old South. By Thomas Nelson Page. New York: Charles Scrib- ner’s Sons. The Jew at Home, By Joseph Pennell, with illustrations by the author. New York: D. Appleton and Company, The Last Words of Thomas Carlyle. Company. Moonsbli, York: Chai New York: D, Appleton and 4. By Dan Beard. With illustrations by the author, New ries L, Webster and Company. MY DEAR WIFE. HE puts her arm around my neck: A slave to beauty’s plot, I put my hand inside my vest And give her all I've got. “ O you believe in Christian Science?" “Not this week. There isso much to believe in just now that I've had to divide up my time. One week I be- lieve in Christian Science, and the next in rain-making, and the next in monkey-talk, and the next in objective appari- tions. Then I take a week off to rest and not believe in anything, and then I begin again. It’s a good way, and helps lots to keep a man’s faith from getting over-strained.”” comicbooks.com