Life — April 6, 1905 — page 36: what you’re looking at

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

w 6 88S LIFE The Simple Life. MONG the many advantages which come unsolicited to the guile- less dwellers in this Republic is the inestimable privilege of receiving the latest brands of humbug manu- factured on other continents, before they shopworn. old one half-soled and heeled, has been sprung on a European com- munity, and has only met coolness and disdain from the populace, » had time to grow stale or When a new theory, or an and heat and inquisition from the police, the author, discoverer, or inventor loses no time in making nm with some American publisher or hot-air merchant, and connec of transferring himself and his theory to this continent. After he has expressed his well-digested views of America to bis blushing nd embarrassed press agent off Island, and has shown his irritation at the absence of a brass band from the pier as he prepares to step ashore and tip up the continent, he is foully kidnapped by a venal and vindictive press, and ed tod Then he is worge the secr f his greatness. free to unsettle the finances of the Republic, to garner surplus and organize a deficit Politicians and agitators may point the the ignorant foreigner who arrives via Ellis Island; but nger of scorn at THE EASTER HAT. BRS the sophisticated and defenceless en seeks the seclusion of his cyclone cellar when the superior, highly-differenti- ated and theory-laden European descends upon our coasts The latest contributor to the sum of our morals and so- phistication is Charles Wagner, a mild and reverend Paris- ian, who came to spread the Gospel of the Boulevard—the Simple Life. Too long have we depended for our knowl- edge of the Vie Paréstenne upon Americans with a surplus of dollars and depravity, who have maligned Paris as the spot par excellence in Europe where simplicity was sly, silken and surrepti ind life was hot, hurried and hila- rious ; we now know it as a fountain from which flows a pure and limpid stream of simplicity. Mahatmas and other black-and-tan gentlemen from Hin- dostan have appealed to us in vain to embrace the charms of life’s simplicity in the land of Buddha; the attempts to lure a materialistic people from broiled lobsters and Welsh rabbits toa diet of grass seed and Ganges water, and from furs and silks, fine linen and rubber heels to a costume of breech clouts and coats of tan, have met with meagre suc- cess; missionaries from Congo, litterateurs from Japan and laundrymen from China have failed to touch our hearts when managers from Palestine and ladies from Little Egypt have touched our wad ; and yet this man, whose name is a syno- nym for noise, and whose home is a euphemism for paradise superheated, has thrust his Simple Life down our throats, short-circuited our dollars, and got away with the goods. To-day the refined culture-centres of Arizona and Nevada are sweeter and simpler for his coming ; literary Indiana has a nobler conception of blank verse and fictitious his- tory ; Chicago has put away the trenchant axe and gory knife, and chloroforms her hogs in bloodless simplicit Judge Lynch has abandoned the refinements of torch and kerosene for the primitive pleasures of hemp and tree limb ; and frenzied finance has put away its bulls and bears to raise cane. Even the author of the Strenuous Life took the Parisian prophet to his bosom and his luncheon, giving him an ad. that made his tremu- lous press agent mad with joy ; and in the crowded thoroughfares of. Gotham every pint of peanuts is fortified with a copy of the Simple Life"; while in the tortuous streets of Boston each pot of beans is savored with the sweetness, sentiment and simplicity of a nickel volume. The American has grasped the Simple Life; and when he dines on roots and herbs, and lithia and predigested woodpulp, and doffs his simple union suit to retire to his modest cot of new-mown hay, he lays down in peace to dream of violets and da larks and nightingales, of fri and purling brook sies, of ing lambs , and to sce in visions the lawn-clad streets of Paris, where Charles Wagner and Sarah Bernhardt walk hand in hand, chewing Chicago gum and warbling coon songs. Joseph Smith. comicbooks.com