Life, 1910-07-21 · page 23 of 40
Life — July 21, 1910 — page 23: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page combines a humorous essay with a satirical cartoon about bodily aging and decay. The three sketched figures appear to represent a middle-aged man with various afflictions, a woman, and another man—likely illustrating the essay's theme of bodily "revolt." Whitelock's essay uses dark humor to describe aging as a series of betrayals: teeth, stomach, appendix, eyes, and hair all "turn against" him like disloyal servants. He's consulted various doctors (with pun-laden names like "Dr. Zahnschmerz"—German for toothache pain). The satire targets both bodily decline and contemporary religious platitudes. Whitelock mocks those promising reassembly in the afterlife, sardonically refusing that "better glue" unless a superior adhesive is invented. This reflects early 20th-century skepticism toward comforting Victorian pieties about spiritual redemption. The cartoon's caption, "A Practice Game—Keeping Her Hand In," suggests the woman is practicing or demonstrating something, though without additional context, the specific reference remains unclear.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
Sticking Together OMEWHERE twenty-five years of age I got my between twenty and wasn’t heavens! growth, It very much growth, but, thank wasn't less. Since that time I have spent the time chiefly in keeping myself from falling to pieces—unhappily, only with partial suc- cess. First of all, my teeth revolted and gave notice of leaving—like a servant girl—on short notice. Dr. Zahnschmerz has “stopped '’ them temporarily, but they know they can't be replaced and are independent. Next my stomach turned against me— complained about 1 cooking— and threatened to quit. Dr. Gastric was called in hurriedly, and by soothing methods he pacified the revolter for the moment, but I am unpleasantly aware that under the slightest provocation (from my wife) the traitor will arise and smite me in the night A PRACTICE GAME KEEPING HER HAND IN With my appendix I was not so suc- cessful—that got away from me entirely, thanks to Dr. Vermiform’s scalpel, but Iam keeping it in a bottle as proof that 1 was once “all there.” The next members of the corporation to raise the standard of revolt were my eyes. They couldn't sce the fun of working longer without assistance, and I had to call in Dr. Focus to set them straight. He did it, but at the cost of making a spectacle of me, and of giving me an air of intellectuality not mine by rights. Further, under the least demand for extra work, the weaklings, I know, will quit the job and leave me to grope along without them. As though this were not enough, quiet ly and silently, like the Arab, my hair has been slipping away, unnoticed save by my delighted friends. Now, when too late, I have awakened to the fact, and am doing my best to retain a fringe to show to my son when he grows up. I will not mention the name of the tonic which is frustrating this praiseworthy endeavor for fear of putting the manu- facturer out of business. I have mentioned above a few points at which the machine threatens to go to pieces. But there are others—the hi 5 liver, lungs, ef€. Which will get ahead of the others is a question I am so deeply interested in that I hate to go to sleep t night lest it happen during a moment of unconsciousness and I never know The uncertainty is begin- ning to get on my nerve: in the face of all this, cert. “ good "’ people want to convince me that these traitors and loafers—heart, lungs, eyes, ete — will all be reassembled in the next world for me to begin all over again the job of persuading them to stick together and not letting me fall to pieces. No, thank you!—at least, not unless a better glue is invented than any known at present. William Wallace Whitelock. who has won.