Life, 1895-05-23 · page 12 of 18
Life — May 23, 1895 — page 12: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
# Analysis for Modern Readers This page contains three satirical pieces from *Life* magazine: 1. **"Nellie"** (poem with illustration): A humorous take on unrequited love—a man pines for a woman he cannot have because she's a prized racehorse ("Bromley's filly Nellie Vine, / With a trotting record of 2:"). The joke inverts romantic sentiment by making the beloved literally a horse. 2. **"The Prohibitory Specialty"** (main story): A painter named Love specializes in painting "emotions." He attempts to boost a poor farmer's romantic chances by buying him better clothes to compete with a college boy. When the farmer's rival sees the neighboring girl, he forgets Love's work and leaps across the brook to her. The title references Prohibition-era concerns about how alcohol affected courtship and morality. 3. **"Taken Up"** (brief comic dialogue): A wife suggests her insomniac husband take a nighttime walk for health—clearly intending to get him out of the house so she can sleep peacefully. All pieces employ light satire about romance, class, and domestic life.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
/- LIFE: “WHO THE DICK—HIC—ENS YOU MAKIN’ A FACE AT? NELLIE. ELLIE'S fair head is close to mine, I look into her soft brown eyes, Her neck is wreathed in curves divine, Her gaze as frank as summer skies. Oh, what a splendid chance, you say, To clasp her to my throbbing heart And kiss her in that fervent way That only true love doth impart. Yet, tho’ her warm breath fans my cheek, Standing there in the moonlit grove, List’ning to hear what word I speak, T tell her nothing of my love. I know she never will be mine, Tho’ I desire her more and more, She's Bromley's filly Nellie Vine, With a trotting record of 2: L. Ferdinand Gernhardt, R. PULSER: The action of winking is not without its use; people wink to keep the eyeball mois! SopA WATER CLERK: Not much they don’t! The people who come in here wink to keep their throats moist. THE PROHIBITORY SPECIALTY. 661 F my early success had not forced me into a specialty,” Love said, “ I should be the greatest painter of emotion in the world. I feel it.” He was working as he spoke on a young farmer who had come to him in great distress. This was an only son in the family where Love was stopping, and Love took a warm interest in him, Across the brook on the neighboring farm there was an only daughter, with whose parents a college undergraduate had come to board. “Where,” continued Love, drawing back a little to survey his work, “did you get these clothes that you are wearing?” “1 bought them from him,” said the young farmer. “I knew if she preferred him it must be for his clothes—he doesn’t have anything else—so I went over there to-day and 1 said, * How much will you take for those things?’ He said, * Ten dollars ; '—that's where I got ‘em.” “You look best in your old one: id Love, * but never mind,” and he applied himself with new zeal to paint- ing an emotion on the young farmer's face. He had prom- ised that when this painting was finished, awkwardness, embarrassment and halting speech should all forget to trouble him. And Love saw a great deal of work ahead be- . cause of the new cloth The shadow of his while he was working. ketching umbrella grew very long It grew until it joined itself to all the other shadows on the ground. Across the brook he saw the neighbor's daughter come down to the pasture lot to call the cows. Her lover also saw her. He forgot that Love was painting an emotion on his face. He made two strides and leaped across the brook, and Love wiped his brushes, closed his color box and pulled up his umbrella spike.“ Although my carly success forced me into a specialty,” he said, “Tam the greatest painter of emotion in the world. I know i Marguerite Tracy. TAKEN UP. E (at 1130 p.m): insomnia ? SHE (wearily): Yes, very often, He: I have heard that walking in the open air before retir- ing is beneficial. SHE (hopefully) : Let's try it! You do the walking and I'll retire. Are you ever troubled with OHN: Einstein is failing rapidly, SOLOMON: Vata glorious death !