Life, 1911-05-18 · page 11 of 42
Life — May 18, 1911 — page 11: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page contains three distinct pieces of satire: 1. **"People I Would Rather Not Know"** — A portrait sketch labeled "A. Bloodgood Damper" accompanies text expressing the author's desire to avoid meeting Bernard Shaw, whose prolific writings have made him thoroughly disliked. The piece also mentions James Gordon Bennett, criticizing his habit of discharging employees. 2. **"Peacocksis"** — A poem mocking fashionable Sunday church attendance, satirizing wealthy women who parade in expensive carriages and French fashions while claiming religious devotion. 3. **Cartoon illustrations** show conversational scenes — one depicting a dog discussing immortality, another showing what appears to be a daring criminal escape ("A Daring Hold-Up"). The page satirizes social pretension, literary celebrities, and fashionable hypocrisy typical of Life's editorial stance.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
A “LIFE People 1 Would Rather Not Know HAVE for long now cherished a secret desire never to meet Ber- nard Shaw. I know that to some this may sound like affectation, and I am inclined to believe that it is. I do not know of anyone for whom I would rather have an affectation than for Bernard § My reason then, to put it baldly, is that Mr. Shaw hurt my vanity so many times in his writings, he has got me so thoroughly mad, that it 1s a great pleasure now to stand off and say that I have no desire to know him. Besides, I have a conviction that he must personally be very uninteresting. How can he be anything else? And why should 1 have the slightest desire to meet him, when I know what his views are now? I would gain nothing There would be no object in listening to him, because every- thing that he has thought he has long since put into type in much better form than he could possibly do in a hasty con- versation. Then Iam quite sure that if Mr, Shaw has already hurt my vanity in his writing he would do this all the more if I knew him He wouldn't try to be flattering to me, He would make no effort to say pleasant thi And I have got to the point now where I only appreciate those people who make a rule to say pleasant things to me. aw. has Bloodgood Damper WOULD rather not know James Gordon Bennett, because the first thing he would do when we met would be to I am told that he has a habit every once in xing everybody The fact that he had never that he had nothing to discharge me from, n with a habit discharge me. a while of disc! met me before, would probably make no difference to a.m like that. He would say “ You are discharged" and I could not help myself. Now I object to being discharged from anything, and especially by Bennett, and so Tam reluctantly, ete., ete James Gordon say, IN IMMORTALITY HIS LOVE WAS UNDYING, COLLIE, DO YOU BELIEVE “WELL, F WEARD MY \ND WHAT TE Says Gors.” MASTER SAY “WON'T You CoME FOR A LITTLE FLY?” “ SORRY, OLD CHAP, BUT 1 HAVE RUEUMATISMOIN MY LEFT WING.” Peacocksis s° dress t you join The when on Su ultrafashionable which mov To that shall pay caravan mysterious realm where each Her pew rent in a rich-appointed church, Thou go not dowd, like the suffragette or Dressed as for comfort; but, hobbled and laced a French avenue Like one who’ simply Dying to be known as a nightmare, modiste, walk up the to the manner born and fashionable A OW is it, Pat, that Murphy is out of j “Faith, an’ the that he godt well.” your friend man killed “4 DARING HOLD-UY" comicbooks.com