Life, 1896-08-06 · page 7 of 18
Life — August 6, 1896 — page 7: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
# Analysis of Page 99 from Life Magazine This page primarily contains **literary criticism** rather than political cartoons. The main illustration, titled "A Deceitful Appearance," shows two figures in a garden setting with a joke below: a guest compliments the garden, and the host reveals those are actually his wife's old hats. The text discusses various poets and verse, including J.K.S.'s parodies and Archibald Lampman's nature poetry. The page concludes with "A Sharp One"—a brief notice praising F.S. Duckett of Philadelphia as both a skilled financier and art judge, while subtly mocking his labor-saving business methods, suggesting his "future" involvement with "public institutions" (possibly jail). The humor relies on wordplay and social commentary about business practices rather than political satire.
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Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
-LIPE* 9 amount of creditable verse of this genre. The poet's reputation was made by one quatrain: ‘When there stands a muzzled stripling Mute, beside a muzzled bore: When the Rudyards cease from kipling And the Haggards Ride no more." There is nothing else in the volume as good as this. The parodies are mild and the cynicism is conventional. A fair example of it is this addressed to Prior: “Ah! Matt, old age has brought to me Thy wisdom, less thy certainty : The world’s a jest, and joy’s a trinket I knew that once; but now I think i Another variation on the old theme of lost illusions is “Blue Hills"—one of the best poems in the book, ending : ‘I will try to believe, as I used to do, There are some Blue Hills which are really blue.” It is a good thing to have ‘J. K. S.’s" verses all together in this book, but it will not replace Calverley, though it may stand beside him on the shelf. And, by the way, there are two little books of American verse that ought to be on the same shelf—Hertord’s “Artful Anticks” and Martin's ‘Little Brother of the Rich.” . . . T is unusual to find a hint of this epigrammatic qual- ity in poems by women, but in the ‘* Poems of Caroline and Alice Duer" (Richmond), there is one— “A> Portrait"—which contains the following terse couplets: ‘* Whose manners covered, through life's outs and ins, Like charity a multitude of sins.” ‘* His wit and cleverness consisted not So much in what he said as what he got.” ‘* Few are both true and tender, and he grew In time a little tenderer than true.” Of the poems of sentiment in the little volume, ‘‘Over- heard in a Conservatory” and ‘Good Night" are ex- ceedingly good. There is no better poet of nature among the younger men than Archibald Lampman, whose ‘* Lyrics of Earth” (Copeland & Day) reflect the moods of all the seasons in verses of unusual melody and rich imagery. It has the rare quality of being spontaneously poetic and fanciful, with no machinery visible. Droch, A SHARP ONE. E desire to express our admiration, publicly, for Mr. F. S. Duckett, of 921 Market Street, Philadelphia. Hy. : 3 This person is not only a skillful financier but is also a suf- ficiently good judge of art, to select and copy a figure from Mager oneof Mr. Gibson's cartoons in Lireand then sell it as an orig- inal production of his own. We have notthe honor of know- ing Mr. F. S. Duckett personally, nor do we wish to, but if A DECEITFUL APPEARANCE. he continues to apply his labor-saving methods indiscrimi- nately, he may find himself gazing at the future through Guest > WHAT A BEAUTIFUL GA Host: SH! sui! THOSe ARE MY WIFE'S LAST YEAR'S HATS. the iron bars of a public institution. comicbooks.com