Life, 1911-10-05 · page 39 of 50
Life — October 5, 1911 — page 39: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page combines advertisements with literary content, typical of early 20th-century *Life* magazine format. **Left side** features two ads: a Cape Cod fire lighter ($3.50) and Saylor's (product unclear from image). Between them is sentimental poetry about love, virtue, and aging—advising women that "pleasing manners" and moral character matter more than physical beauty, though "inevitable wrinkles" will come with time. **Right side** is a large Firestone Tire advertisement showing a non-skid tire with a motorcycle on a nighttime road, emphasizing safety. **Bottom content** discusses "The First English Comedy"—John Heywood's *Gammer Gurton's Needle* (1575), a play about an old woman searching for a lost needle found stuck in a servant's breeches. The text treats this as culturally significant early English theater, tracing its publication history and noting its simple plot structure typical of early dramatic works. The page reflects *Life*'s blend of consumer advertising, moral instruction for women, and cultural/literary discussion aimed at educated middle-class readers.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
iif, Cape Cod «ul Fire Lighter $3.50 Flaming Log Fire at Once. No Kindling Wood Required. Solid Brass Good fooking, Saf=, Hundreds in use. Send jor pamphlet, CAPE COD SHOP, 20 Vesey St., New York Love's spell that's far more powerful than any in the Herbal; | Os fan x * 0 i ! and extract’ from them their juice; ; ] 4 ; He'll but cheat you with his mixtures Ee ) Hl and his hocus-pocus. verbal, ‘8 aS Well AS In hame And. those very nasty philters are | : of very little use. here’s my little reci: reful of your morals. | Pleasing manners are more lasting I than a medicated face. Time will never touch the character. or lessen virtue's laurels, But inevitable wrinkles threaten | fashion’s flecting grace. ‘ Ladies, Days will come in which the mirror | will afford you and reflection; Those inexorable crow-fcet will but add unto your pa Dut, as time progresses, ripens to perfection, And a face which love and goodness brighten never can be plain. The First English Comedy Those of us who are inctined to dwell in the past—as being the only age- should serve to be reminded of the plot of the first comedy in English— Gam- mer Gurton’s Needle,” by John Heywood, ist, who was jester to ny virtue only who claims for the » if not the foremost 2S "THE FIRESTONE TI AMERICA'S LARGEST EXCLU. place “Gammar Gurton’s Needle,” Sunday and which, by way of strophe was written by John Still, afterwards to the piece, is, after much search, great Bishop of Bath and Wells, and pub- altercation and some battles in its cause, lished in 1575. This comedy, though at last found sticking in the breeches | altogether of a comic cast, and not want- themselves. The original title runs: | ing in humor, affords an instance of the “A Rigght Pythy, Pleasant and Merie | simplicity which must prevail in the early Comedic, Intytuled Gan ‘© Gurton’s dawning of genius. The plot, which is Needle; played on the s! not longe written in metre, and spun out into five go in Christie's College in Cambridge, regular acts, is nothing more than Gam- made by Mr S Master of Arts. Im- 9, mer Gurton’s having mislaid the needle prynted at London in Fleete Streeate, with which she was mending her man beneth the Co —_— jf Hodge's breeches against an enstting John Evan! the signe of St. hy Thomas Colwell.” 585 comicbooks.com