Life, 1895-05-16 · page 5 of 18
Life — May 16, 1895 — page 5: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
# Analysis of Life Magazine Page 319 **Main Content: "My Typewriter" Essay** The page features a personal essay lamenting the author's troublesome typewriter, which they compare to other forms of mischief-making. The author describes how the typewriter has sabotaged their writing efforts, citing specific examples where printed text caused unintended reactions (Lady Constance crying at "The Doom of the Devons," for instance). **Cartoon Below:** The illustration shows a stern woman at a desk pointing at a boy, with a blackboard visible. The caption concerns tobacco use, referencing 1492 and arguing that centenarians predated tobacco's discovery—therefore tobacco didn't cause people to live long lives. This is a humorous logical fallacy used to defend smoking, likely reflecting early 20th-century tobacco industry arguments against health concerns.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
- LIFE: MY TYPEWRITER. HE deadly parallel is a frequent mode of comparison nowadays. But the deadly typewriter has no parailel. Compared with all other forms of diabolism, it stands un- rivalled in its capacity for mischief. As a cause of profanity it excels the window-shade roller, and the murderous in- stincts it arouses in the minds of its devotees find expression in their books, spreading far and wide the evil of which the typewriter is the root. Once my pen bounded over the paper, light as a fawn on a May morn, Now my fingers scuttle wildly over the keys in a manner for which there is no simile. And with what ingenious malice my fondest imaginings are brought to naught. Why, oh why, in the very climax of my most powerful story, “The Doom of the Devons,” did the printed page make Lady Constance cry “O lud?” when she really “cried aloud.” And _ how was it, that afterwards, when all was over, and she had given way to despair, she “ wagled unceasingly,” d" was what she ought to have done. And again, in my article on “ Forgotten Passages from Revolutionary History,” in that most lucid piece of writing, 319 that unfortunate commander to masquerade as “ Gonerat Burgoby deherry?" Surely that is a forgotten passage I would never wish recalled. Thus my typewriter mocks my finest efforts, and I toil on, its helpless slave. Sometimes, in futile rebellion, I resume my pen, but it no longer bounds with its original fawnlike grace, and I soon return to my cruel bondage. So my life goes by, tormented in this world, and without hope concerning the next. When I die, the demon of the typewriter, clutching my shrieking soul, will hurry back to the abode from which it came. Fancy writing on a red-hot typewriter. Struggle as I may, I cannot evade my fate. In prophetic sion I can see my spirit ascending the golden ladder, and knocking at the pearly gate. 1 can see St. Peter leaving his engrossing occupation to open the door, out of humor at be- ing interrupted in the middle of a sentence. And I can see him pointing with grim pleasure, not unmixed with the pride of authorship, to a placard beside the entrance, bearing the (typewritten) inscription : terresTrial TY Pewriters, maleFE, male, ANDNEUter, GOBELOW. beginning “General Burgoyne hurriedly,” etc., what possessed NO, MARM, THERE WERE NO CENTENARIANS BEFORE 1492.” “Why bo you sav THAT?” USE I'VE BEEN READING THE PAPERS, AND ALL THE PEOPLE OVER A HUNDRED HAVE USED TORACCO EVER SINCE THEY WERE EN, AND TOBACCO WASN'T DISCOVERED BEFORE THAT.”