Life, 1895-03-07 · page 9 of 20
Life — March 7, 1895 — page 9: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
# Analysis This page contains literary criticism and two illustrations titled "The Wonders of America." **Top section:** Joseph Smith critiques contemporary American literature, particularly California novels, which he describes as "big, highly colored and flavorless." He sarcastically notes that California poets and financiers are "dangerous," and laments the absence of a true American Homer. He mentions specific poets (Will Carleton, Jimmy Riley) and references the New York *Sun*'s promotion of mediocre work. **Bottom section:** The two engravings show American landscapes—Presidential Rock at Buzzard's Bay, Massachusetts, and Pittsburgh at noon. Below the first image is a brief humorous dialogue between "Willy" and "Wally" about confinement and poverty, though its satirical intent is unclear from context alone. The page exemplifies *Life*'s role as a satirical magazine critiquing American culture and literature.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
- LIFE: Cable who has basely betrayed his country by writing English tainted with humor. The literature of California, like its fruit, is big, highly colored and flavorless. By a species of poetic justice all our California novels now come from foreign parts; a compensation for the fact that all our foreign wines come from California, The novel of the Sierra is not serious ; the grizzly bear has ceased to be grizzly or bearable; only the California poet and financier are dangerous. Poetry, unlike prose, presents the same phases everywhere. It is awful when it rhymes; it is haw- hawful when it is —— verse; and this in spite of the heroic efforts of Gilder and other Centurious poets, and the encouragement of the New York Suz, Were it not for the soap advertisers we should believe the muses had followed the cash boxes to Canada. It is true Will Carleton’s “ Buttermilk Ballads echo the pure notes of the cow pasture and that Jimmy Riley's ‘Swamp Sonnets” reveal the genuine flavor of dear old Indiana, when you can understand them, but these are mere oases in the desert. When will the American Homer arise out of the woods and cornfields to be rejected by the magazines? When will the soul- stirring campaign lyrics that wafted Jerry Simpson from Medicine Bow to Washington be duplicated? When? Alas! We look forward with interest to the coming spring. Joseph Smith, THE SALARIED PHARISEE. SAR Mr. Anthony Comstock has been dis- tinguishing himself again. That eminent art icked out a new It happens D critic and prominent Pharisee has set of victims for his striking abilities. that there are in New York State some gentlemen who are lovers of the race horse for other reasons than that he can be made a gambling machine. In their efforts to eliminate gambling from THE WONDERS OF AMERICA. PRESIDENTIAL Rock, BuZzARD's Bay, MASSACHUSETTS. 3 ILLY: -I hedr you have been a good deal confined lately. What was the cause of it? WaALty: I didn’t have ten dollars. ———s = the turf and make racing a legal as well as a legiti- mate sport, they have found their chief obstacle in the immaculate and dis- interested Anthony. In other words, Anthony Comstock is the principal opponent of the Gray Bill, which seeks to make racing possible without the approval of Mr. Comstock and the pro- fessional gamblers. Judg- ing the merits of the bill in inverse ratio to the character of its oppo- sition, it should pass unanimously. THE WONDERS OF AMERICA. THE City OF PITTSBURGH, AT NOON ON A SUNNY DAY,