Life, 1911-01-12 · page 18 of 44
Life — January 12, 1911 — page 18: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
**The Main Cartoon ("As It Might Have Been"):** This is a classical allusion joke. The image depicts Antony and Cleopatra in a motorcar wearing goggles, rather than their historical setting. Antony asks "Cold, dear?" and Cleopatra responds that she finds her goggles "the greatest protection"—a deadpan joke suggesting the goggles, not the car or romance, are her primary concern. The satire mocks how modern conveniences (automobiles) have replaced the exotic drama of history with mundane practicality. **The Automobile Article:** A serious piece praising cars' dual utility: recreation and practical time-saving for workers. It notes automobiles are equally effective at wasting time for idle people as saving it for productive ones—a gentle social commentary on class differences in leisure time. **"Sweet Seventeen" Poem:** A moralistic verse warning young women about urban corruption—leering men, ribald talk, vice, and shamelessness everywhere. It questions whether innocent girls can remain "soul-white saints" amid societal wickedness. This reflects early 20th-century anxieties about female virtue and modern city life's corrupting influences.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
AS IT MIGHT HAVE BEEN Antony: coup, Dear? Cleopatra: Great Doings of the Auto HERE. are two strings to the auto- mobile bow—utility and recre- ation—and they are both important strings. To get the air is one of the important details of recreation, and you get it good and plenty in an auto. In hot weather you get it to great advan- tage. In cold weather there are those who, having leisure and energy and not too far to go, would rather walk; but many more traverse longer distances in motor cars, to their great refreshment. As an instrument of recreation the auto indeed has rivals, though it beats most of them, but when it comes to utility nothing in the line of transporta- tion can touch it in its own field. When the purpose is so to get about in city or country as to save time and strength, the motor car is unapproached. It has wonderfully extended the effectiveness of busy aud energetic people. It is the NOT AT ALL, I FIND THESE GOGGLES THE GREATEST PROTECTION next thing to seven-league boots. Wher we consider what the telephone, the typewriter and the automobile have done to save the time and distribute the ener- gies of useful people, the wonder is how long it will take these great economiz- ers to make everybody rich, They may be doing it, but they haven't done it yet. Perhaps the rea- son is that, sad to say, a considerable proportion of the time they save is not of high economical value. It isn’t everybody whose time is worth saving, but even that solemn social truth the automobiles are equal to cope with, since they are just as efficient in wast- ing time for wasters as in saving it for workers. HY did I ever leave home and mother?” sobbed his wife. Chiefly because your family were too stingy to take us in,” he answered bitterly. Sweet Seventeen AINTY little maiden with the soul- ful eyes, Still you seem unworldly, still from meanness free ; Have you kept from growing fashionably wise— Are you still the soul-white saint you seem to be? Men are leering at you—men whose blood is cold— You are hearing women bandy ribald jests; You are touching elbows with those who have sold Virtue for the jewels gleaming on their breasts. Sin is smiling at you from the printed page, Honor is belittled, wantons mock its worth ; Shame is made attractive on the gaudy stage, Infamy paraded to arouse your mirth. Wickedness is flaunted everywhere you turn, Vice, arrayed in splendor, shamelessly : Dainty little maiden, have you failed to learn— Are you still the soul-white saint you ought to be? S. E. Kiser. taunts you “THE TOUCH OF A VANISHED HAND.” comicbooks.com