Life, 1908-01-16 · page 5 of 24
Life — January 16, 1908 — page 5: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This satirical piece critiques the visit of **Mrs. Elinor Glyn** to America. The illustration depicts society figures in formal dress gathered around a globe, suggesting Mrs. Glyn's international celebrity status. The accompanying article and sonnet mock the excessive public reaction to her visit. Mrs. Glyn, apparently a controversial British author, visited the Pilgrim Mothers organization in New York, causing considerable social fuss. The satire suggests American society was overly fixated on her presence while overlooking substantive issues. The phrase "half-mourning" implies the country should move past its obsession with this foreign literary figure and focus on more important matters—likely including the presidential election referenced in the "MOTTO" section below.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
Chassis. imme- 9) shops is w body : invite Sonnet [Alter reading "We Are Such Stuff as Dreams Are Made Of" ia Lirx’s Twenty-fifth Anniversary Num ber] Tit sitting visions ofa dreamt night Are not more vague than youth's un- taught desires, ‘That rise like ghostly flames of vanished Gres; To burn awhile and fade with morning's light. And when the noon of manhood scems most bright, When love has come and all that love inspires Of noble deeds, reality retires Into the shadows of the infinite. What do they matter, pale philosophies! These futile systems of a fading day ‘The world moves on and Icaves them all behind, ‘Though puny man must have his cecstasies, And mighty nations crumble to decay, The love of Lire lives ever in mankind. Henry Eastman Lower. HALF-MOURNING A PLEA FOR THE BRIGHTER SIDE Unworthy of Mrs. Glyn W = CANNOT help but doubt if the visit of Mrs. Elinor Glyn to this country will be profitable enough to any one to recompense her for the consider- able trouble of coming here. It has been in the papers that she went to a meeting of the Pilgrim Mothers in New York, and was not received by all of the Mothers with the cordiality and evidences of es- teem that a distinguished visitor likes to excite. Some of the Mothers had differ- ent notions of literary propriety from those lately disclosed by Mrs. Glyn in printed works, and behaved to her as though they were not sure she was a proper person, Mrs. Glyn took their be- havior much to heart, and some of the newspapers represented her as saying painful things about it. Probably she did not say them, but she did endure a good deal of newspaper publicity, to SS )y Y the distress, doubtless, of her sensibil- ities, and did relieve her mind a good deal, in or out of print, and exacted and received apologies from some of the Mothers. All of which goes to show thate this country is hardly the place for Mrs. Glyn. So many of us are still slaves to old- fashioned prejudice that in any assembly that she might honor with her presence the chances would be that from three to four-fifths of those who met her would feel that New York was not really worthy of her, and that she would have been better advised to bless and benefit some more enlightened city. OTTO for Presidential candidates (especially W. J. B.): If at first you don’t succeed Roosevelt, try, try again, comicbooks.com ,