Life, 1910-12-15 · page 27 of 44
Life — December 15, 1910 — page 27: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This Life magazine page features a humorous illustration captioned "Extract from Letter of Enthusiastic Aviator to a Friend," depicting an early aviator who has just crash-landed a primitive aircraft in shallow water. The joke satirizes the dangerous, unreliable nature of early aviation (circa 1910s): the pilot casually describes his morning as "flew ten miles...had a bath, then rambled home to breakfast"—treating the crash-landing as an amusing, routine occurrence rather than a near-death experience. The cartoon mocks both aviation's experimental hazards and the nonchalant attitudes of early aviation enthusiasts who downplayed genuine risks. The contrast between the wrecked plane and the pilot's matter-of-fact tone creates the satire: what should be alarming is presented as a mundane part of his day. The page also contains book reviews, indicating this is a literary and cultural commentary magazine.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
EXTRACT FROM LETTER OF ENTHUSIASTIC AVIATOR TO A FRIEND “FLEW TEN MILES THIS MORNING, HAD A BATIL, THEN RAMBLED HOME TO BREAKPAST- upon Elizabeth Robins Pennell's Our House and the People dn It (Houghton, Mifflin, $1.25), will be instantly conscious of meeting, in the informal intimacy of private life, the gracious executive partner in that work of official and public colaboration. The new book deals, in an unaffected and un- assuming first person singular, with the trials of an unac- customed housewife in tradition-ruled London; with the vaga- ries of various charwomen and with the unstable perfections of other more or less exotic servants. It is intrinsically un- important. Yet it gives us somehow the sensation of being gracefully entertained in her own home by a hostess from whom such hospitality is a subtle flattery. TEMPLE THURSTON’S The Greatest Wish in the 2 World (Mitchell Kennerley), is a delectably tender lit- tle tale written in a mood of somewhat expansive recognition of the fugitive romance and latent pathos of humble lives. The “ wish” is the wish for one’s own child; and in the story of the little foundling girl who is adopted by Father O'Leary, by whom the wish has been forsworn, and raised by his wi owed housekeeper, to whom the wish has been denied, and in whose own heart the wish so unrecognizably develops in its turn, the author has invented a simple but happily chosen setting for his theme. Mr. Thurston has been called a “realist” by those who use the term as an opprobrious epithet, because, in Sally Bishop and his more serious novels, he has refused to dip the rose of romance in paraffine and thus make it “ stay romance until the end.” In The Greatest Wish in the World he has picked the little flower while it is still in full bloom. J. B, Kerfoot. “YPCONFIDENTIAL Book GUIDE gis A Man's Man, by Ian Hay. non- humorous, go-as-you-please story by the author of The _ Clayhanger, by Arnold Bennett. ing bistory of a suppressed individualist. The Doctor's Lass, by Edward C. Booth. story delightfully elaborated. ‘he Creators, by May Sinclair. A story of literary life in Lon- An unintentional satire of considerable interest. The Island of Stone Money, by William Henry Furness, 3rd. An account of a two months’ stay on the tropical island of Uap in the Carolines. Now, by Charles Marriott. An odd tale of the involvement of an “enlightened” English bourgeois family in the workings of a Secessionistic conspiracy Rewards and Fairies, by Rudyard Kipling. noteworthy series of Puck of Pooks Hill tales. The Theory of the Theatre, by Clayton Hamilton. A collection of critical and explanatory essays of unusual clarity, acumen and distinction. Tales of Men and Ghosts, by Edith Wharton. Short stories in which a perfected techrique is applied to inadequate material, The Way of All Flesh, by Samuel Butler. A novel written in the early ‘o's, published in 1902, and just beginning to be generally appreciated. A good-natured, loose:jointed, ‘ he Stuff. The voluminous but engross- A happy-hearted love don! A second and less