Life, 1895-04-18 · page 5 of 18
Life — April 18, 1895 — page 5: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
# Page 255 from Life Magazine This page contains humorous "fin de siècle love songs" written by different professionals—a geometer, chemist, physicist, and doctor—each applying their specialized knowledge to romantic verse. The satirical point: these experts attempt to woo by reducing love to their technical disciplines (geometry, chemistry, physics, medicine) rather than genuine emotion. The left-side illustrations show a rejected suitor being escorted out by others, humorously depicting the failure of such overly-intellectual courtship approaches. The bottom anecdote about "Moses and Ikey" mocks naive religious conversion, suggesting salvation claims miss practical reality. The overall satire ridicules the Victorian era's tendency toward pseudo-scientific pretension and the gap between technical knowledge and human understanding of love and faith.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
* LIFE * HOW THE REJECTED SUITOR CAME OUT AHEAD. BY A GEOMETRICIAN, LOVE the oval of your face, The arcs above your eyes, The circles which your soul looks through With tenderest surprise. I love the angles of your mouth, Your cheeks’ convexities, The whole sweet sphere of that fair head, So far from plane it is. Like a right-angle I shall kneel And ask you to be mine, And round one finger then describe A golden circle fine. 255 FIN DE SIECLE LOVE SONGS. BY A CHEMIST. The sweet alembics of your eyes, Distil most precious tears, And in the crucible of your mouth, What hopes, what joys, what fears, Transmuted are to golden words, To which my heart coheres ! O, be not too precipitate, Nor acid to the tcuch ; Decant your love so carefully, If you have any such, That when my soul dissolves in it, *Twill not react too much ! KY A PHYSICIST, (Atn—Conservation of Forces.) Thousands of wavelets shook mine car, And millions thrilled mine eye. The first were music soft and clear Made by thy voice and sigh, The last the radiance of thy head, Light waves of brown and black and red. These fine small motions in my brain Such strange vibrations made, I thought it joy or some sweet pain That through my being played. And little fancied it could be But quiver of sound and light from thee. Then straight I felt this power seize With mine own hand the pen, Leap into verses such as these To seek their source again— For thus thy beauty aye shall be Returned in tender rhyme to thee ! BY A DOCTOR, Give me your hand and let me feel your pulse And learn how fares your cardiac apparatus. Whether it starts and beats uncertainly, While Cupid aims his keen swift arrow at us! Grant me one fever, it is all I ask— Take me to be your knight as well as doctor ! For you, of what fine potions, powders, pills, Could I forever be the proud concocter ! O, sweet compendium of anatomy, How beautiful your eyelids’ modest ptosis— For lo! you love, I feel it in your pulse ; I'd stake my life upon my diagnosis! Frederick Peterson, A GREAT INDUCEMENT. y had stopped in at a Methodist revival from motives of curiosity. “Salvation is free,’ shouted the preacher. is free.” Moses looked at Isaac in astonishment. “Thank the Lord, salvation “My poy,” he said earnestly, “if dot is gorrect, ve oughd do pecome Ghristians.” F the men who didn’t find the Philosopher's Stone were alive to-day, they would have systems for playing the races. comicbooks.com