Life, 1901-11-14 · page 9 of 20
Life — November 14, 1901 — page 9: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
# Analysis of Life Magazine Page 389 **Upper Content:** A poem by Denis A. McCarthy addresses struggling poets, urging them not to despair over rejection and poverty. It's a sympathetic piece encouraging perseverance in the face of editorial dismissal. **Lower Content:** "Parallel Parables" contrasts two young men—one who pursued diverse arts and sciences but found no specialty, versus another who focused entirely on piano, achieving success until losing both thumbs in a railway accident, thus losing his means of earning. **The Cartoon:** Shows anthropomorphic animals (appears to be the King, Queen, Jack, and Ten-spot) playing cards. The illustration is labeled "A Four Minded Game." **Overall Point:** The page satirizes life's unpredictability—both through the poem's encouragement of artistic persistence and through the fable's dark irony that specialization can become worthless through circumstance.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
ttalk of other people's woes, Not one of them compares With what the struggling poet knows, And grimly grins and bears. Let fate set everything amiss From now till doomsday’s erack, There is no grief as great as this— To get his poems back. Perhaps beyond the pearly gates, Where bards (and saints) abound, And where no fiend of ‘usual rates,” No editor, is found ; In bliss he will forget the pain That keeps him on the rack, And best of all he'll ne'er again Receive his poems back. Oh you, to whom these lines are sent! Oh man of shears and paste! In vain the time on them I spent, If made not to your taste; They may be limpy here and there, And something maybe lack, Yet kindly heed the poet's pray'r, And do not send them back. Denke A. MeCarthy. L PHYSICIAN, writing to the London 7imes re- cently, said: Everything we eat and drink and wear runs the gauntlet of germs toan extent which nervous people had better not contemplate. Far too much fuss ts made of them. If we listened to all these scares there would be nothing left to do but get {nto ® bath of carbolte actd and stop there until starvation freed us from the dangers of hfe, W HEN courtship is over, it is over ; when marriage is over, it is just beginning. Parallel Parables. THE TWO YOUNG MEN. “yNCE on a Time there were Two Young Men of Promis- ing Capabilities. One pursued no Especial Branch of Education, but Con- tented himself with a Smattering o many different Arts and Scienc < hibiting a Moderate Proficiency in Each. When he Came to Make a Choice of some means of Earning a Livelihoca, he found he was Unsuccessful, for he had no Specialty, and Every Employer seemed to Require an Expert in his Line. The Other, from his Earliest Youth, bent all his Energies toward Learning to play the Piano. He studied at Home and Abroad with the Greatest Masters, and he Achieved Wonderful Success. But as he was about to Begin his Tri- umphant and Profitable Career, he had the Misfortune to lose both Thumbs in a Railway Accident. s he was Deprived of his Intended 3 of Earning a Living, and as he “RUN, AUNTIE, RUN! DON'T YOU SEE WHAT KIND OF AN ANIMAL THAT 18?” had no other Accomplishment he was Forced to Subsist on Charity. This Fable teaches'that a Jack of all Trades is Master of None, and that It Is Not Well to put All our Eggs in One Basket. Carolyn Wells, A FOUR HANDED GAME, TAE KING, QUERN, JACK AND TEN-#POT. comicbooks.com