Life, 1915-06-10 · page 14 of 48
Life — June 10, 1915 — page 14: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page satirizes literary ailments with humorous "remedies." The top cartoon, "The Bridge of Sighs," depicts various literary figures crossing an arch labeled "DEBT," with a demon dropping a weight marked "DEBT" below. This mocks authors struggling with financial difficulties—a common problem for writers. The text below, "Simple Home Remedies for Literary Troubles," parodies medical advice by prescribing absurd cures for famous authors' problems: Henry James's indigestion requires Shaw and Billy Sunday; Jack London's hysteria needs equal parts Chesterton, Henry James, and the Congressional Record. The satire targets both the authors' well-known struggles and contemporary literary criticism, suggesting that writers' personal and professional difficulties were public knowledge and fodder for humor in this American satirical magazine.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
THE BRIDGE OF SIGHS Simple Home Remedies for Literary Troubles HEx®¥ JAMES indigestion, even in its most acute form, may be relieved by a simple tea made of the following ingredients: One Shaw play, one Billy Sunday sermon, two Ade fables and six Mother Goose rhymes. To be taken two hours before retiring at night, Maeterlinck anemia may be relieved and in time per- manently cured by making a simple tonic of Galsworthy acid, iron of Tolstoi, and the bark of Herman Ridder. One brainful should be taken every twenty-four hours. Heart-trouble, superinduced by a too steady diet of Meredith Nicholson and Harold McGrath, may be abso- lutely cured by steady applications of a poultice made of layers of Shakespeare, Scott, Balzac and Dumas. This will be very weakening at first, but the patient will acquire strength in proportion to the length of time it is used. For Jack London hysteria, compound a pill of equal parts of these sedatives: Chaucer, Henry James, Genesis and the Congressional Record. Knead together with oil of Bulwer, and take one before each meal. Ibsen brain fag can be handled most successfully by weekly injections of Pinero, Brieux, Harry B. Smith and George Cohan. An antidote for an Arnold Bennett middle-class head- ache may be made by mixing together one poem by Thomas Moore (who loved a lord), one novel by Thack- cray (who wrote of lords), one book by Tolstoi (who loved the proletariat) and one play by Masefield (who writes of the proletariat). To be sipped at intervals of LANDSTURMETTE thirty minutes until relieved. THE CORPS OF LAST RESORT comicbooks.com