Life, 1907-08-15 · page 25 of 28
Life — August 15, 1907 — page 25: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page is primarily **advertising and literary criticism**, not political satire. The left side features **financial/insurance advertisements** for The Prudential and Morton Trust Company—standard corporate promotions with no satirical content. The center section contains a **literary review** of poet George Sylvester Viereck's work. The critic uses mock-flowery language to describe Viereck's poetry as excessively passionate and color-obsessed (obsessed with red imagery). The review is gently **satirical**—praising Viereck's technical skill while subtly mocking his overwrought romanticism as "a hot-house garden" of overwrought emotion. The critic compares him to major Romantic poets (Baudelaire, Heine, Wilde) in a tongue-in-cheek way suggesting Viereck imitates rather than originates. There's also a **jab at Thomas Lawson**, a Boston broker whose novel apparently deserves a literary prize, but whose friend Norman Hapgood suspiciously praised it in Collier's Weekly—implying the praise was bought rather than earned. The right side contains straightforward **product advertisements** for Scotch whiskey and Napp-Felt hats.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
YOUR Wife and Little Ones Should be Protected by Life Insurance in The Prudential PRUDENTIAL MAS THE STRENGTH OF GIBRALTAR ‘Send for Booklet by Public lnaructon, Pen The Prudential Insurance Co, of America Incorporated as a Stock Company by the Pore ateotNewJeneye JOHN P. DRYDEN, Home Office: Prest. DeptO. NEWARK, N. J. MORTON TRUST COMPANY 38 NASSAU STREET, NEW YORK Capital, - $2,000,000.00 Surplus and Undivided Profits, $8,201,262.72 OFFICERS: Levi P. Morton, President Thomas F. Ryan, Vice-Pres Charles HM. Allen, Vice-Pres. Jaunes K. Corblere, Vice Pres. HM. Francis, Secretary. Paul D. Cravath, Counsel EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE: Levi P. Morton Paul D. Cravath Thomas F. Ryan G, G. Haven Charles H. Allen James jarvie Edward J. Berwind Jacob H. Sehitt Harry Payne Whitney estimation, would be the “best”? Then our roving glance fell upon Collier's Weekly, and we felt sorry for Mr. Lawson. For Norman Hapgood, whom the Boston broker has called publicly his “friend and literary sword-crosser,” unblushingly an- nounced therein his need of the money, and proceeded to produce an “apprecia- tion” easily worth the prize. “Mr. Law- son’s novel,” wrote Mr. Hapgood, ‘marks the first time in history that literature has ever focused into something perfect and complete. To the chaste selection of the Greeks this work unites the profusion and vitality of the great Elizabethans.” ‘There was more in the same strain—and then some more; but the prize, so far as we are aware, has not yet been awarded. Will Mr. Lawson's singular sense of delicacy restrain him from offering it to a friend? Or, in keeping with his well-known aver- sion to publ has he already made the award in secret? Let us not burst in ignorance, Mr. Lawson A Hot-House Garden of Verse “ Passion hallows each page—guilt ennobles each line” of the poems of George Sylvester Viereck—brother to Baudelaire, cousin-German to Heine, pupil of Poe, disciple of Swinbume, Rossetti and Oscar Wilde—yet, for all that, arrayed in singing robes of his own original design. We have been wandering in his hot-house garden of verse, sniffing from time to time our aseptic vial labeled “ screetly the poison plants, and enjoying the color and form of the flowers even while we found their tropical fragrance somewhat overpowering. Mr. Viereck’s taste in color runs almost exclusively to red. His roses are very red indeed, and particularly thorny; “his flower of love is scarlet, crimson his wings of passionate de- sire”; for him the grape yields but red blood. On the whole, we greatly admire the gardener’s skill, and are attracted by many evidences of an uncommon, if some- what monotonous, exhibit. Yet we are glad to breathe the fresh air again, and to observe some daisies and buttercups grow- ing just across the hedge from the poet’s hot-house garden. * * # Me VIERECK’S verse unquestionably has qualities that attest the true poet as distinguished from the arid school of magazine poctasters. There is nothing anemic in his work. “Nineveh and Other Poems” (Moffat, Yard and Company) displaysa metrical mastery, an imagination and a lyric gift that belong only to a high order of talent. He is consonant, as he likes to say himself—‘ pregnant with sound and color.” In sentiment and theme he seems at times a mixture of Villon and Verlaine, Sanderson’s Mountain Dew A treat for lovers of Real Old Scotch Whiskey The first Derby made in America was a C.& K. Hats for Men NAPP-FELT soft hats are de- lightfully mellow in texture, suffi- ciently light in weight aud surprisingly durable in quality. Knapp-Felt De Luxe hats, soft or stiff, are Six Dollars—Knapp-Felts are Four Dollars, everywhere. Write for “The Hatman™ THE CroruT & KNAPP Co. Broadway, at 13th Street New York comicbooks.com