Life, 1899-02-16 · page 8 of 20
Life — February 16, 1899 — page 8: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
# Analysis This page contains a book review titled "Another Hereditary Microbe Novel" discussing Elizabeth Robins's novel *The Open Question*. The review criticizes the work as unoriginal—a derivative descendant of George Eliot and Ibsen—comparing it unfavorably to genuinely artistic literature. The cartoon at bottom depicts two people at a social gathering. The caption reads: "You show that you are awfully frightened." "So would you if you wore your own hair." This is a period satirical joke about women's fashion. The humor relies on the era's practice of women wearing elaborate false hair pieces or wigs. The joke suggests that wearing fake hair would naturally make someone anxious about its visibility or displacement—mocking both the artificiality of women's fashions and women's concern with appearance.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
LIFE hands. That of the girl with the roses be looked at first, then put it ono side, The others be took one by one, scrutinized each eare- fully, and when he on the flames, ddone, Whe were gone ho took that of the girl with the roses ence more, and, touching it Iygbtly with his tel-piece. Still standin; looked long and tenderly down upon it. “Good p little girl,” he whispered ; “you have a better man of me already, and June is a long way off.” May D. Hatch, His Duty. INGO: I suppose, B merely as a parental [shall have to take that bos to the circus. Mrs. Binco: But I don’t want him to go this year, dear. “Then I'll have to go alon made T greatly makes for de- liberation and wise government that the excur- sion season is over, and Presidential progresses are discouraged by the in- clemency of the weather and the sitting of Con- gress. Another Hereditary Microbe Novel. ISS ELIZABETH ROBINS has, N through the machinery of a psou- donym judiciously revealed, and by pre- liminary discussion and solemn praise sent over in advance from England, prepared an atmosphere of expectant curiosity for her new novel, “ The Open Question " (Har- per). This is what William Winter would call “a pulmonary novel.” It is the legiti- mate literary descendant of George Eliot and Ibsen, with the Popular Science Monthly as godfathor, Tho unrelated facts of science are always too much for a sen- sitive woman, Indeed, they make sad havoe with the artistic temperament every- where, The man of science always knows enough to know the compensations which Nature has up its sleeve; but the dabbler in science who converts it into fiction sees only the dire and implacable fact. A cer- tain type of woman takes science as a decade ago she would have taken religion— with unreli EVERTHE . Miss Robins bas N written a novel with many unusual qualities, The first half of it, when the pulmonary motive is kept well in the back- ground, is a really fascinating picture of tid-life, It has the kind of reality that George Eliot gave to the Tullicer children, ‘The boyhood of Ethan and the girlhood of Val, shown at different times in exactly the same surroundings, are as vivid as tho earlier chapters of * David Grieve.” It is unreservedly “good work,” with that ine tensity about it that the reader calls absorb- ing. There is a great deal of it, and it has That of the girl with the roses he looked at first.” spoke, “Tam sure y bow can he be say ho is, when be br those T have The thin lips opened agai little longer you will flod A ship’s clock, the only timepiece it bells. Hush! Little A valet real, fe past tweive Reed came home. He wa When he had taken off his thing down by the fire, He looked into it ale photographs above him are wrongs 3 out all that vt known bim s: “When y what you truest in long, but known him a is best au talks to? have struck in the apartment, said Chappie and he and scurried from the rv 1 the fire and went away. to the photographs, At half- el with snow. he sent his man away and sat 4 while, then he He stood up raised his eyes to the thered them in his “YOU SHOW THAT YOU ARE AWFULLY FRIGHTENED.” “SO WOULD YOU IP YOU W: OCK OWN HAL comicbooks.com