Life — September 25, 1902 — page 15: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

267 lic that can never have enough. The Chinese official who, after sitting patiently through a concert, requested to hear the musicians re- tune their instruments—that being the only part of the performance he had enjoyed—is out- Heroded by the European wholistens entranced while a gramophone squeaks out some music- hall ditty, lending to the original dissonance its own inhuman twang. “MAMMA, UNCLE BILLY SAYS THAT STATUE I ‘VENUS COMING FROM THE BATH. BUT J #aT enz's GoINo To THE OPERA.” conveyed. In a muddled illogical way we commend this trait in boyhood, even while we suffer severely. A very young child can fill so large an area with sound that the excellent adage, “Tf thine enemy offend thee, give his son a drum,” embodies the wisdom and experience of ages. Increasing years take the edge off of many bar- baric pleasures. Dirt and fighting and green fruit fail in time of their attrac- tions; but the great majority of men —men who in other respects give evi- dence of being civilized—enjoy mak- ing and hearing a racket. ‘A good old-fashioned Fourth’? means some- thing from which a sensitive Zulu would shrink, yet adult Americans face this yearly ordeal without blanch- ing. It does not even extinguish the sentiment of patriotism in their hearts. The most hideous thing to contem- plate in a world quivering with noise is the determination of scientists to in- crease and perpetuate it. Each new invention for the storing up, the carry- ing, the unloading of sound is hailed with acclamations by a delighted pub- Year after year brings with it some fresh device, each one more wonderful and more heart-rending than the last, for the preservation of speech or song, that had otherwise been mercifully lost, and for transporting them over vast distances where they have renewed opportunities to annoy. Science, like eloquence, has nocompassion for its victims. Lived there a single scien- tist so civilized that he could feel for that intelligent and suffering minority who long in vain for quiet, he would invent some instrument which would prevent our hearing sounds we don’t want to hear, some life-saving, soul- saving apparatus which would gather up all need- less and afflicting noises, from steam whistles to our neighbor's piano, carry them to mid-ocean, and drop them safely into the eilent sea. Agnes Repplier. Gentle. NCE on a time a Gentle Girl came upon a Wicked Snake swallowing a frog. “How cruel!” she cried, in- dignantly, and got a club and killed the Wicked Snake, and set the frog free. The next day it rained, but the day after that it was lovely for fishing. And the Gentle Girl sat all day ina boat and held a line with a frog hung on the hook at tho end of it, and tho frog was very much alive and strug- gled beautifully, and attracted no end of bass. The End. al AMMA, what will I have to do a when Iam educated and ac- complished ?’’ “Oh, you can pass the rest of your life learning how to keep house."’ My Bad first suit was a fall suit. comicbooks.com