Life — September 23, 1909 — page 8: what you’re looking at

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

404 Our Fresh Air Fund Previously acknowledged * Proceeds of a fair gotten little girls under twelve"... “In memory of Little Charlotte Frederick E. je Clarence J No. 17 Battery $6,182.58 45.06 To.00 $00 Foe 150.00 $6,397.58 POSTAL FROM Live's FARM. dear moma we got hear safe we play games and lots of other things and pick apples and piease send me 10 cents I have not a peny and I want 10 cents for some candy. IFE is an unceasing round of getting the health to do something to in- jure our health to take a rest to get back our health to dive in again and so rings and the give us credit, x worth while or on until the last bell preacher whether we did anyt comes to not A good part of life is missed, there- fore, when we spend it all in answering advertisements which request our symp- toms, in sampling nostrums in the hope that the right one will hit the right and that the wrong ones will her, in dieting, physical cultur place altoge| ing, ete. for the pure and simple pur- pose of having health without regard to what we are going to do with it. It is as if we daily loaded a perfectly good locomotive and kept it burnished on the ding to wear itself out with blowing off its steam into the desert air. It is impossible to test a healthy man nperature, by putting to demonstrate a ts, or by print- testimonial for by taking his him in a show window of chest wei ing his picture as a Anti-Sick. Health is On the other hand, it is well that so many of our panaceas are of the quack variety, as otherwise, in state of knowledge, we new style s health does. or semi-quack our present would have more health than we could properly use, leading inevitably to 1 chief. "LPP E* The Confidential School HAT may be termed the confidential school of lit erature has recently risen, RY) and now holds undisputed sway over the British isles at least, and over parts of this benighted Republic of ours. The idea was first promulgated by onc Arthur Christopher Benson, who is a son of the late primate of England, and more important still, a brother of the author of “ Dodo. The idea is simplicity itself. It con sists in taking the reader into your con. fidence, getting him into a corner ané telling him all of the things that you both have known for a long time were true, but which no one has ever thought before could be + ture. Once you have the idea, and once you yet started right, there is no limit to th thing. You run on guilelessly, and the more guilelessly you can run, the more times you will win at the game. Natur- ally all criticism is at disarmed You have admitted start, and there 1s a criticise you for. Mr. Benson have chuckled 10 himself discovered this new vein, knowing that he had a good start, and that it would take the others some time to catch up to him, And, if he ought this, he was right. For two or three years now, he has published one book after another, alone in the field He had the prime advantage of having been brought up in a social-intellectual ecclesiastical atmosphere, le into salable litera- once everything at the olutely nothing to must when he where there has been more or less of an established All he bad 10 do wa out loud what everybody h cretly thinking Then came along one Gilbert Chester ton, and went Benson one better Chesterton stirred in the paradox to his mixture, and caught the trick of twist ing the simplest thing around so that could see the opposite side. It seemed to require audacity to do this, but the audacity was only apparent Both and Chesterton knew enough to know that you can say any- thing that you want to the most stupid and conventional public in the world, provided you can snap your words every dogma you Benson time so that you will get a report And along Mr. H. G. Wells, who does the thing even better than his predecessors. Mr. Wells proceeds to lay bare bis soul and to uncover the things that we have hitherto been whispering He now comes ONE GF THE “ HIGHER’? OFFICIALS doesn't enere Why In this literary vehicle there is room for all Here is one thing that Mr. Wells says: ch upon Benson or Ches- terton. should he? new I do not believe 1 have any personal im- tality +. My idea of the unknown is of ‘something so wide and deep I cannot conceive it encumbered by my egotism perpetually. Immortal ity would distress and perplex fT may pot this in mixture of theological and, social language, I cannot respect. 1 cannot believe in a God’ who is always going about with me. This reminds us (if we be so inti- mate and confidential to use such a time-honored phrase) of the the little girl who mother if God was everywhere, and when her that He was and asked the usual “ Why??? ree story of inquired of her mother assured her plied that she didn't want Him tagging around after her all the time. Tens SAVER Ss NAME? PETER, BUT 1 ’cos 1 Tommy: wutat’s Your ¢ “1 USED TO CALL IT CHANGED IT TO NELLIE, TO WAVE KITTENS.”? WANT IT comicbooks.com