Life, 1905-10-19 · page 12 of 30
Life — October 19, 1905 — page 12: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page from *Life* magazine presents literary fiction rather than political satire. It contains three short stories about "Old Mother Hubbard" and her dog—the nursery rhyme character reimagined as a realistic figure. The illustrated cartoon at top left ("The Flying Dutchman") depicts the dog's acrobatic mishap, while the photograph at right ("A Contrast in Boston: The Shade and the Shady") shows an urban street scene. The text explores a humorous premise: Mother Hubbard went to the cupboard to fetch her dog a bone but found it bare. The multiple literary treatments by authors Swinburne, Howells, and others parody the overwrought Victorian literary style by applying it to this trivial domestic scenario—the satire targets pretentious prose rather than politics or social issues.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
‘LIFE: from her great-grandfather, covered with faint blue spots and nicked in eight places on the left edge (counting from the windmill), there was a bone left over from the last dinner she had given to her deceased brother's last wife. She went and looked, the dog following. But as she re- turned from the cupboard his tail instinctively drooped He knew it was no use. The bone was not there. Turning away, he was soon lost to sight in the garbage pail next door—the one ie right, two hundred and eighty seven feet away. By Laura Jean Linpy. CRY rang out on the sunlit air. Pearl Habbertomtom shuddered, on her way home from the factory, and her face blanched with fear. THe FLYING DUTCH AS Old Mother Hubbard’s dog might have gone and been loose for some time, and Harold Heavyweight, hero, editor of this work, and point out some few discre in his chre . point out some few defects in his. style, point out some few de his knowledge of history. At present we shall confine ourselves to Mother Hubbard. We may not hope to do the fullest justice to this story But we assert, and we assert it with all the strength that is in us, that M r+ Hubbard alone is the heroine, 7] editor seems to believe, and we are entirely willing that he should b , that the dog was the hero. It is sufficient for us, however, to point out a fact that every schoolboy knows. We affirm that Old Mother Hubbard went to the cupboard to get her poor dog a bone. But when she got to the cupboard she discovered that it was bare, and so her poor dog got no bone. This is the story. No one dares to contradict it. ALGERNON CHARLES SWINRURN Q' D MOTHER HUBBARD, her feet in languid tux lingering, Yearned for the succulent softness sweet on the Lone she wished to be ring; All her exuberant tresses clinging in a wan rhapsody flowing— So, toward the cupboard, straight through the hallway, set both her feetlets a-going. Pale was her face, O much paler than moonlight a-stream Full on the bank with its redolent roses at re: Fluttering heart, hands dilated, could she, O, could she, be dreaming ? Rare in its horrible hauteur, the cupboard did not stand the test ! And now, like the clouds of the purple night, all of them lowering, There dwells ‘round the dog the gloom of the battle unwon. Thine eyes may be tender, but deep are the loc a-glowering, Thou famishéd beast, thy succulent nourishment—none ! By W. D. Howents RS. HUBBARD closed the door decisively, yet there was also about her action a subtle gentleness, for she felt that the dog’s eyes were fastened upon her, and in that fine alchemy of thought-transmission which we feel inher- ently at times, she divined almost instantly that the dog wanted a bone. It was natural for her to reflect upon her cupboard, whose shelves contained nothing but the latest editions of the Tribune, although she had reason to believe that on one A CONTRAST IN BOSTON. of them, ona plate which had been handed down to her SEEGER) HERR, comicbooks.com