Life — May 25, 1893 — page 12: what you’re looking at

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

: LIFE: HER OBJECT. — HE talked about flirtation as a harmless Occupation, and the art of osculation As a most familiar thing ; And she said she saw no reason Why a maiden shouldn't ** breeze on” At the proper time each season To a sparkling diamond ring. She spoke of slang as ‘* taking” And my finer feelings raking, ‘Talked of man who *' took the cake.” She believed, she said, in drinking, And accompanied this by winking, And I could not keep from thinking What a dreadful wife she'd make. Thus she gibbered without meaning, While I sat, my feelings screening And my cultured mind careening And my heart surcharged with woe. While in language unexpected She talked on with mein dejected. Alas! had I suspected ‘That she wanted me to go! Tom Masson. AUTOUR DE MOI-MEME. HERE is a rule in the world's ethics that one should leave his praises to be spoken by others; butalarge experience has feelingly taught me that Poor Richard was right when he said that if we wish anything done, we would better do it ourselves. “For otherwise,” explained Poor Richard, “the affair is liable to be seriously blighted by neglect.” It may be that my career before men has made them spell-bound, and bereft them of the power of speech, and that.when they recover them- selves they will burst into words of admiration and homage : still, it would be neither modest nor sagacious in me to be too cock-sure about this, and I have determined to utter a few sincere praises myself. In person Iam singularly handsome, and yet, such is the excellence of my other qualities, people never notice this. My size of 5 feet 8 inches in vertical diameter by 2 feet in thickness gives me a happy air of solid contents. Of course, 1 am not tall, in the common sense, and rude people from the country say to me, “ You come from a small-boned fam'ly, I s'pose.” But Ido not. [am _ naturally tall, and though, as an individual my height is not extreme, yet to the intelligent eye it is apparent at once, from my hands and feet, that Iam sprung from a race of giants. It is a matter of isfaction to me to be handsome, for I have known what it isto be despised for my appearance. “ When,’ asthe poet says, “when that I was a little, tiny boy,” the sun it shone every day, and such were the effects of its actinic rays that on my cheeks and on my little snub nose and close around the margin of my blue eyes, the freckles lay as thick as brown autumn’s leaves: and people called me “turkey- egg.” Turkey-egg! By instinct I felt that this was a hard and contumelious term, but presently I saw a turkey-egg. and, reader, when I saw that sad freckled egg | felt so sorry for myself that I felt sorry for the egg. But to be handsome is not all. there is in life, and on the other hand plain people can make their homes happy. In society I am merry without monopolizing the conversa- tion. I am always ready and willing to applaud the happy observation of another person while I am thinking up one of my own: but when my observation is matured, time seems long indeed, and the artificial conventions with which we restrain ourselves from interrupting inferior and tedious peo- ple seem very irksome. One thing that troubles me greatly then is to have the subject changed so that my happy com- ment is out of time, I think that in conversations all topics should be brought up for a second and a third hearing so that the thoughts of our more careful thinkers might be utilized. My mind is fine and robust. I do almost all of my own thinking with it, and it is rare that I. have to send to Joseph Cook or the German Emperor or a Dante Society for an opinion. My morals are numerous. After all, it is my beauty that makes me glad. It is rot the kind of beauty that women fall in love with, nor that men care about, but you should see how it lights up in a looking- glass. Williston Fish, “A LONG STORY BOILED DOWN.” comicbooks.com