Life, 1904-06-02 · page 11 of 50
Life — June 2, 1904 — page 11: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
The page contains two distinct pieces: **"A Storm Cloud" illustration** shows a man and woman sitting outdoors during approaching bad weather—a visual metaphor for life's troubles. **"A Prayer"** by Eliza Atkins Stone is a poem requesting resilience and good humor during hardship. It asks for sufficiency, practical sense, and the ability to "bear my suffering" quietly without dramatizing spiritual discontent. The prayer emphasizes dignity in misfortune and acceptance of fate. **"Men in Society"** is a brief satirical piece mocking men's actual interests despite polite social conventions. It suggests men care about money and physical appetites more than the refined topics women discuss in "polite society"—a commentary on gender hypocrisy and the gap between public pretense and private reality.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
A STORM CLOUD. A Prayer. POWERS That Be, make me sufficient to my own occasions, Teach me to know and to observe the Rules of the Game. Give me to mind my own business at all times and to lose no good opportunity of holding my tongue. Let me never lack proper pride or a due sense of humor. Preserve, oh, preserve me from growing stodgy and unimaginative. Help me not to cry for the moon or over spilled milk ; to manage my physical constitution and my practical affairs discreetly; never to dramatize my spiritual dis- comforts, Grant me neither to proffer nor to welcome cheap praise ; to disting ‘ish sharply between sentiment and sentimentality, cleaving to the one and despising the other. Deliver me from emotional excess, Deliver me from atrophy of the emotions. When it is appointed me to s may humanly be possible, take ex ffer, let me, so far as mple from the dear, well-bred beasts, and go away quietly, to bear my suffering by myself, Let me not dwell in the outer whirlwind of things and events; guide me, rather, to the Central Calm, and grant that I may abide therein. Give me, nevertheless, to be always a good comrade, and to view the passing show with an eye constantly growing keener, a charity broadening and deepening day by day. Help me to win, if win I may ; but—and this, O Powers! especially—if I may not win, make me a good loser. Vouchsafe me not to estrange the other me at my elbow; suffer not my primal light to wane ; and grant that I may carry my cup brimming, yet unspilled, to the last. Amen. Eliza Atkins Stone, Men in Society. T is true that women do most of the talking in polite Are men, then, stupid ? By no me Men are interested rather in money and stomachs, which may not be mentioned in polite society, than in scandal and clothes, which may, GIE is giving away a lot, isn’t he?" “Yes indeed. If he keep down to the money he really earned.” on, he'll be getting comicbooks.com