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Life, 1908-03-26 · page 20 of 22

Life — March 26, 1908 — page 20: what you’re looking at

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Life — March 26, 1908 — page 20: Life, 1908-03-26

What you’re looking at

This page mixes advertising with satirical commentary on literary figures. The central text discusses "The Literary Zoo," sarcastically lamenting gaps in female literary history. The author suggests a mock solution: that contemporary writers (Andrew Lang, Bernard Shaw, Maurice Hewlett) should "complete" Sappho's missing works through parody and imitation, since these modern writers are so skilled at mimicking classical styles that readers can't distinguish their pastiches from originals. The satire targets both classical scholarship (dismissing the Leucadian Rock legend as fabrication) and contemporary literary pretension—the joke being that mediocre modern writers think they can convincingly recreate ancient masterworks. The rest is period advertising for whiskey, ale, liqueur, and a Life magazine anniversary issue, typical of early 20th-century magazine content.

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

: : \ A BLEND OF STRAIGHT RYE WHISKIES— FOUND ON THE BOTTLE OF HUNTER BALTIMORE RYE Is IN CONFORMITY WITH THE PURE FOOD LAW, AND MEANS ‘THAT IT IS COMPRISED OF AB- SOLUTELY PURE RYE WHISKIES BLENDED FOR THE PURPOSE OF MAKINGIT A MORE MELLOW AND PALATABLE DRINK THAN ANY STRAIGHT WHISKEY, WHETHER BOTTLED IN BOND OR OUT OF BOND. Hi grat-clans cafes and by sobbers, STB iitote, de The first chance Don’t miss it. It’s too good to miss. It will take only a taste to con- vince you that P. B. Is the best ale you ever tasted. A. G. Van Nostrand BUNKER HILL BREWERIES Boston, Mas Life’s “ Birthday ” Number "HE Anniversary Number of LIFE, which contains the story,‘ How LIFE Began,” | specimen pages from the first number of LIFE, and a drawing by Mr. Charles Dana Gibson made especially for this number, will be on sale at this office at 1Ue. per copy until April 1. After that time, it will be 25¢, he Literary) Zo Fy rors sest of Cicero's De A Snlicenmatied to St. Augustine because of the predatory Paper Trust—and many other ravages of time, have been repaired. Even the Missing Link has had a show under the auspices of the late Dr. Barnum, and our own Mr. Carnegie is doing what only great wealth in the hands of the few can do towards salvaging the ashes at Alexandria. Surely it is the turn of self-consuming Sappho, who burned her brief candle at both ends. * * N SUGGESTING this undertaking, we feel assured of feminine sympathy and encouragement. Woman, having been re- pressed throughout the ages, has all too seldom lifted her voice in song. Mrs. Hemans, Mrs. Browning, Mrs. Wilcox— the Tenth Muse of the masses; whom else do we perceive coming up the literary pike from Parnassus? No one who holds a candle to the flame of Lesbos. Held in equality with Homer; anticipator of the piano in her use of the Acolian and her invention of the plectrum ; most original of women, in that we know the date of her birth (612 B.C.), but not of her death— Sappho is yet chiefly known to us through what she did not write and what she did not do. As every well-informed person is aware, the legend of her leap from the Leucadian Rock is a fabrication from whole cloth by the Parian Chronicle's reporter, who passed for an Attic wit. As an essay at popular biography, it is beneath contempt, however serviceable it has seemed for dramatic purposes, and how- ever barren, in consequence, becomes the brief paragraph about her life in the Hellenic ‘Who's Who.” ‘To make good our metrical losses is, however, quite an- other matter, * # 8 T SEEMS strange that no one should have suggested the obvious remedy Among the literati of our own times are men and women to whom parody and imitations are but child’s play; others who. as the late Bill Nye confessed, after reading Shakespeare | for hour—in- y, perhaps unconsciously, take on the style and thought of the master who has held them for the moment. We of to-day may be lacking in great creative power, but as mimics we make some stir, Andrew Lang writes an essay on Thomas Haynes Bayley, and finds himself wondering whether he or Bayley is making the verses that he quotes, Bernard § Cashel Byron” in blank verse, with a soupcon Shakespeare to flavor the metrical mess; with the result that his critics cannot tell which is Shakespeare and which is Shaw, or where the ‘bloom- ing gaseous folly” begins or ends. Maurice Hewlett, as a certain critic has lately pointed out, inhabits sundry styles, with a haw cooks up OmOnntroooes LIQUEUR Peres Chartreux —GREEN AND YELLOW— This famous cordial, now made at Tarragona, Car Monastery of La Grande Chartreuse, Fr and known throughout the world as Char- treuse. The above cut represents the bottle and label emplaved in the putting up of the le since the Monks’ expulsion from France, and it is now known as Liqueur Peres Cher. treux (the Monks, however, still retain the touse the old bottle and label as well), distilled by the same order of Monks, who have securely guarded the secret of its manufacture for hundreds of years, taking it with them time they left the Monastery of L Chartreuse, and who. therefor a knowledge of the elements nectar. No Liqueur associated w iu of the Carthusian Monks ( cs and made since their expulsion from France is, genuine except that made by them at Tarra- gona, Spain. Grocers, Hotels, Cafes Batjer & Co.. 4g Broadway. New York, N.Y. Sole Agents for United States, Our $750 Prize Drawing PON receipt of your subscription for one year, at our regular rate of Five Dollars, we will send you, with LIFES compliments, a special photogravure re- production, 12x 8 inches in size. on plate paper 22x 18 inches, of Mr. Malcolm Stewart's prize drawing, ‘‘ Hope Springs Eternal in the Human Breast."* LIFE PUBLISHING COMPANY 17 West Thirty-first Street, New York Canadian Subscriptions, $5.52 Foreign Subscriptions, . $6.04 comicbooks.com