Life, 1900-12-13 · page 8 of 20
Life — December 13, 1900 — page 8: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
# Analysis of Life Magazine Page 512 **The Cartoon:** "An Up-to-Date Bank Directors' Meeting" depicts five elderly men in discussion, with one figure depicted as a bust or sculpture in the background—suggesting a figurehead or absent authority. **The Satire:** The president's speech (quoted below the cartoon) complaints that a note teller maintained a house on Fifth Avenue and a rubber business on Long Branch, earning $3,000 yearly but cannot explain his wealth. He asks if accounts were "lowered into within a year or so." **The Point:** This mocks bank leadership's blindness to employee fraud or embezzlement. The "up-to-date" bank directors are apparently oblivious to obvious financial misconduct—a critique of corporate governance and negligent oversight among the wealthy during the Gilded Age. **"The Cardinal's Kodak"** is a separate short story beginning below.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
AN UP-TO-DATE BANK DIRECTORS’ MEETING. The President: \ UANe NOTICED THAT POR TUE LAST POUR YEARS OUR NOTE TELLER HAS HAD A HOUSE ON PIPTIL AVENUE, AND A SUMMER. RESIDENCE AT LONG BRANCH, MOW HE CAN DO IT ON THREE THOUSAND A YEAR, | CANNOT UNDERSTAND, BUT THIS AFTERNOON HE TOLD ME HE WAS GOING TO CANADA, AND NOTICED THAT THE BAPE WAS EMPTY. ACCOUNTS BE LOOKED INTO WITHIN A YEAR OR 80, The Cardinal's Kodak. BY Menry Harvanp. EALLY,” said Matthew to himself, his eyes taking in that pleasant scene with, oh, the most delicious sense of a beauty, a perfec- tion—the humming of a song—‘‘ the view is altogether good.’’ He longed, oh, with an intensity, a burning desire, for the ability to make that view his own. “ Not altogether bad, the view,” said some one, in English. Matthew glanced about him. His eyes met hers, rested a moment—oh, no more than a moment. Bat his heart leaped — oh, prodigiously far. Then it came back to him for reasons— for the best reasons in the world. Matthew had need of his heart. He looked again, and his eyes took in her hair, shining, burning, blazing, spark- ling—oh, doing all the things that red hair, of the kind you play Chopin to, has todo, He managed finally, with ever so stern an effort, to achieve a bow. “TI think one might call it worth taking,” he said. “Ob—1" Her eyebrows went up, whimsically. It was a way they had. They came down again. She, like Matthew and his heart, needed her eyebrows. For reasous—oh, for the best reasons in tho world. “You do not think,’”’ she inquired, with an air—oh, an air that hammed itself into Matthew’s memory for, ah, the longest time !—‘‘that the view is too—shall I say, too likely to break the film?" “T have confidence,” he said — just like that ; he gave it to her as if it had been an insult, but with a gaze—ah, what youth, what glow! —“in your judgment. It is your view, I believe. You arranged it. Ah, if I could only take it.” “You have,” she returned, gathering up herskirts with a grace, a daintiness, “my permission.”’ NOW, IP (T 1S IN ACCORD WITH THE MEETING, 1 MOVE TUAT HIS And she swept away over the meadow. . . * That afternoon Mariana asked, “ You did not see the Cardinal, Signorino?”’ “No, Mariana.”” “He was here.’ And she looked, oh, the devoutest old Italian in the world. ‘ He left something behind."” “A card for me?” “A little box. It is black.” “Ah. Black magic, Mariana. You have heard of black magic?” “Come, He is a Cardinal.” « Really,’’ said Matthew, eying the film for the tiniest fraction of a second, “it was a view worth taking. It is arranged, oh, with the most artful grace in the world. Will you ac- cept it?” She raised her eyes, and there was something in them, something. He took it out. “ Will you accept—the view?" “* Are you aware,” she asked, “ that comicbooks.com