Life, 1915-04-22 · page 8 of 44
Life — April 22, 1915 — page 8: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page contains humor about social etiquette rather than political satire. The main cartoon depicts a couple where the man says "Why isn't he muzzled, my dear?" and the woman responds "I wouldn't do anything so human" — mocking a man's verbose behavior at social gatherings. The accompanying article "Saying a Few Words" advises readers on giving brief speeches. It satirizes people who drone on at dinners and meetings without preparation, boring their audiences. The article suggests that most listeners won't remember lengthy speeches anyway, so brevity is preferable. A small dialogue between "Master" and "Man" at bottom appears to be a humorous exchange about truthfulness, though context is unclear from this excerpt alone. The page emphasizes early 20th-century social anxieties about proper public behavior and conversational restraint.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
696 Springs HERE are many different kinds of springs. Among others may be mentioned bed and mountain springs, athletic springs and the spring that comes as a rule once a year, which is advertised by poe There is also the grasshopper’s spring. The poet's spring is almost invari- ably vernal, and has crocuses and pussy willows; also winter flannels, It is sometimes accompanied by snow and hail. Hence hailing the spring is quite a common practice. Mountain springs are used generally in summer, Every mountain spring which tastes enough has a hotel attached to it, and spends its time in curing people of imaginary ailments and bank accounts. Bed springs usually come in rows, and are gracefully concealed from the view by slabs of breakfast food, ar- ranged in the form of hair mattresses. The row around the edge always tow- ers above its neighbors in the center, which modestly sink to permit your tired body to tie itself up into a grace- ful knot, while you dream of crossing the desert of Sahara on a nervous dromedary. Cause for Detestation is noted for his moral cour- “Dear me! all that?” Is he as unpopular as “WHY ISN'T HE MUZZLED, MY DEAR? “YT WOULDN'T DO ANYTHING SO HUMAN. THE SHADOW Saying a Few Words IF you are called upon to say a few words after dinner or at a mect- ing, don’t be backward. Get right up and go at it. The chances are that what you say on such an occasion, without preparation, will be of no im- portance and probably wouldn't have heen of importance if it had been pre- pared in advance, but that isn’t the point. The point is that the minds of your hearers will be quite as blank and amorphous as your own, and consequently the few who actually listen to you will have no means of judging whether what you say is tional or not. The majority, out of politeness, will assume that you did well, or if they do not wish to com- mit themselves too irretrievably, they will say you did well “under the cir- cumstances”, The whole secret in “saying a few words” lies in making it “few”. If you go on and on and on, your audi- ence will not heed or remember a thing you said. They will only re- member that you talked long enough to bore them, Short speeches never bore. E.0O.J. ASTER: Is that really so, Pat? Max: To tell yez the truth, I'm lyin’,