Life, 1909-11-18 · page 25 of 36
Life — November 18, 1909 — page 25: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page is primarily **advertising**, not satire or political commentary. The main content features a large advertisement for **The Prudential Insurance Company of America**, emphasizing their "Monthly Income Checks" product—insurance policies that provide guaranteed lifetime monthly payments to beneficiaries. The ad contrasts salary checks (which "end with your life") with Prudential's continuing income, using the company's Gibraltar Rock logo as a symbol of financial strength and stability. Below this is a brief **literary commentary** praising Professor William James, the American philosopher and psychologist. The writer notes James's "Pragmatism" and "Will to Believe" have become bestsellers, particularly in Japan, jokingly suggesting this popular success may undermine his reputation for "profound thought"—implying accessibility conflicts with serious intellectual credibility. The page also contains minor advertisements for **Excelsior Springs, Missouri** (a health resort) and **Everstick invisible rubber** shoe soles.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
N ideal Health resort, expecially ‘tractive during the EXCELSIOR [22225 SPRINGS, |* a Salary Checks CO. Soctuwese Limited, feavin ; rey (3 alge reaching the Springs for breakisst the nest r ‘rain. Se enue Cuca, ~eul\ Pay Envelopes Goat Rastern Agent, a1 Iwas, New York Clty. é nF . ° The Literary Zoo end with your life — (Continued from page 695) When “Words Fail to Describe” then Some time ago we noted the en- deavor of a former magazine editor e uho proclaimed his intention to launch ver a writer endowed with the com- iined gifts of Arthur Brisbane, Ed- rd Bok and Thos. W. Lawson. The -. ee ca ae Monthly Income Checks Begin erus—" three gentlemen at has not emerged from. the = SS d. 3 tial . could no further go, but now comes a Newark yy, correspondent of the London Chron- i" Musing on the heights of Que his mind roves in search of an quate reporter. Despairing. he ex- claims that not only a landscape painter needed, but “a Shaw, a Chesterton yee der of Zi Payrue due 0m Mosihiy income Pbicy WP — 1a Thackeray rolled into « n’s sense of beauty does it—but why drag in Thack- to say nothing of a landscape inter. The natural beauties of Que- hee described in epigram and paradox! What satiated soul could ask for more? Send this coupon for full particus The INVISIBL: Seg hi 4 Incorporated as a Stock Company by the State of New Jersey is worn without di! on the shoe. JOHN F. DRYDEN, President Home Office, Newark, N. J. Protects the soles | M wet weather and kee en aac: ae The Family Is Safe — The Income Guaranteed physicians. = James and James Our compliments to Professor «are commingled with qualms. Is it James, the only American humorist ible that the Professor is be who has successfully grafted humor on coming too popular? There is al psychology. His “ Pragmatism,” we wags! peril in making Foursell easily are informed, hagcgone: through eight understood. It begets a following editions, and is selling like so many that is incompatible with a reputa hot rice cakes, in Japan, where the tion for profound thought. With purely imitative Japanese will doubt- “Pragmatism” a “best seller” and less, ere long, manufacture a new phi- the latest novel by the Professor's losophy of their own on Yankee mod- brother, Henry, circulating in the hun- els. Also his “ Will to Believe,” pub- dreds, we have a literary mystery lished as long ago as 1896, is still in whose clarification we leave to the cul- constant request. Yet our compliments ture clubs, Watt. n7 comicbooks.com