Life, 1904-06-02 · page 17 of 50
Life — June 2, 1904 — page 17: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This *Life* magazine page contains satirical content about social manners and wealth. The top illustration, titled "A Storm Cloud," depicts a man and woman in an outdoor setting—likely commenting on social interactions or romantic dynamics. Below is a prayer-like essay mocking genteel Victorian/Edwardian social pretensions, advising readers to maintain composure, avoid dramatics, and accept life's disappointments with dignity. The final section, "Men in Society," uses light satire to suggest that men actually dominate social conversation despite appearances, being more interested in money and business than the trivial gossip (scandal and clothes) attributed to women. The closing joke about Andrew Carnegie mocks the wealthy industrialist's philanthropy as relatively modest compared to his total fortune—implying he's giving away only a fraction of his vast wealth while keeping the bulk he "really earned," a sharp jab at Gilded Age wealth inequality and selective generosity.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
A Prayer. POWERS That Be, make me sufficient to my own 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, ob, 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 pract affairs discreetly ; never to dramatize my spiritual dis- comforts. Grant me neither to proffer nor to welcome cheap fF to distinguish sharply between sentiment and sentimentality, cleaving to th occasions, one and despising the other. Deliver me from emotional excess. Deliver me from atrophy of the emotions. When it is appointed me to suffer, let me, so far as humanly be possible, take example from the dear, 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 bide therein. Give me, nevertheless, to be 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, yct unspilled, to the last. Amen. Eliza Atkins Stone, Men in Society. T is true that women do most of the talking in polite society. Are men, then, stupid ? By no means, stomachs, which may not be mentioned in polite society, than in scandal and clothes, which may. Men are interested rather in money and “ CARNEGIE is giving away a lot, isn’t he?” “Yes indeed. If he keeps on, he'll be getting down to the moncy he really earned.” comicbooks.com