Life — February 9, 1911 — page 28: what you’re looking at

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

Life’s Suffragette Contest $300 to the Winner Notice to Contestants The contest closed on December 34, 1910, and the winner will be an- unced as soon as all the accepted contributions have been published. and the award made. We hope to announce the winner in the first is- sue in March, Ample notice will be given. ul A Psalm of Life Tell me not in mournful numbers Suffragettes are but a dream; That you've never had your slumbers Shattered by their battle-scream, Lire, they’re real! Lire, they're carn- est! But the home is not their goal Dust thou'lt be unless thou turnest Deaf ear to their rigmarole. Not enjoyment, only sorrow’ll Be your destined end or way, Should you wed one. Each to-mor- row'll Find you weaker than to-day. Art is long, and Time is fleeting, But e’en shorter time you'll crave, If from such fierce spouse you're beat- ing It, and longing for your grave. In the suffrage ficld of battle, In the biff and whack of life, You'll be like dumb, driven cattle, She'll be IT in every strife. Lives of suffragettes remind us We can’t make our lives sublime While they’re chasing swift behind us, Hurling gravel, bricks and lime. Gravel which perhaps some Birrell, Sprinting. frantic, o'er life’s deck, Or some Asquith, stern and virile, Will receive upon the neck. Let us then be up and doing, With a heart to fight such fate; Every suffragette eschewing. Learn to dodge ’em and to wait. W, F, Smyth. Lil Twenty-six Reasons Why Any Man Should Not Marry a Suffragette « Because, in Man’s Lexicon of Love, A stands for Angel, not Amazon, B for Bon-bon Box, not Ballot Box. C for Cosy Corners, not Clubs. D for Darling, not Delegate. E for Epistles, not Exhortations. F for Frills, not Finance. G for Gossip, not Gymnastics. H for Home, not Homilies. I for Ideals, not Iconoclasm. J for Joys, not Jars. K for Kisses, not Knocks. L for Love, not Law. M for Mercy, not Missiles. N for Notes, not Notoriety. O for Order, not Orders. P for Poetry, not Politics. Q for Quips, not Questions. R for Roses, not Rights. S for Smiles, not Speeches, T for Trust, not Truscs U for Unity, not Units. V for “ Vittles,” not Votes. W for Witchery, not Wisdom. X for X-cuses, not X-amples. Y for You, not Yoke. Z for Zest, not Zeal. Ella Randall Pearce, Lil Why Any Man Should Not Marry A Suffragette If you must marry, marry an artist —an artist in life. Marry a pragma- tist, one who believes in the immediate “cashing in” of values. Don’t marry a metaphysician or a suffragette. A true woman, like an artist and a prag- matist, has no principles and no moral- ity. Had she them, she could not do justice to her husband. She could never see him as he is, for she would apply to him the little measure of her ‘ism. The male longs passionately to be taken absolutely; to be looked at moralistically or sociologically by one’s wife is intolerable. And to see in your wife’s eye a deep interest that does not centre in you is one of the most ex- quisite of pains. That way madness lies. Your old poetry, your ancient sentiment, your aesthetic convictions, from these lovely ways of looking the suffragette is detaching herself. The suffragette is the ridiculous prose companion of the women types of Ibsen, who strain toward the Fu- ture, These women harrow and excite us, make us wonderfully unhappy. To live with one of them would be a beau- tiful but harassing dream. Wistfully we would strive to make her see our reality, and the reality of our old ideals, but she would not. To marry a woman of the future is to lead the strenuous life, indeed. The art of life consists in enhancing the value of the actualities we possess. The suffragette renounces and denounces the actual— and in its place she seldom gives us the intense and disturbing quality of the Future—for she is seldom beautiful and imaginative. Better so, for if she were, and when she is, she means an occupation and an unsatisfying pre-oc- cupation for any man, Hutcutns Harcoop, LIV A Bunch of Reasons Why a Man Should Not Marry a Suffragette (These extracts have been taken from the unwritten verse of several famous poets, and form a few examples of “poems which might have been.”) Limper than arms which lic powerless, Locked in a pulsing embrace; More bitter far than the dowerl ‘error carved large on your face; So will you be. Oh, take warning, Ere you have yielded just balk; She will argue all night and all morning, Our Lady of Talk. TENNYSON’S DICTUM T hold it true, whate’er befall, That she who wants to rule the state Is also sure to rule her mate: 'Twere well she had no mate at all RROWNING'S MEANDERENGS These things unearthly—nay, but mark me well, Though not of earth still not of heaven —so As I have said these things unearthly tell A tale. Shall I repeat it for you? No! Yet if these things would make your home a ......, but If you grasp my meaning, profit, go. (Concluded on page 319) comicbooks.com