Life, 1916-02-03 · page 30 of 48
Life — February 3, 1916 — page 30: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page contains three distinct literary pieces from Life magazine's 1915 publication: **"The Spell of Love"** (left column): A nostalgic poem by Gorton Carruth about a man who revisits a grove where he once carved a heart with his initials on a tree during a romantic courtship. The poem's ironic conclusion: the tree is gone, replaced by a commercial store selling valentines—a commentary on how commerce and urbanization have replaced romance and sentiment in modern life. **Tribute to Miss Gilder** (lower left): An obituary noting the death of editor Jeannette Gilder, who co-edited *The Critic* literary magazine. The tribute laments that her intellectually superior publication was displaced by competing magazines with "less brains" but "more colored ink"—satirizing how mass-market publications were eclipsing serious literary journals. **"The Cat That Came Back"** (right): The opening of a short story contest entry by Virginia West about Leonard Raymond, an amateur naturalist living in a boarding house. The illustration shows a domestic scene. The page's theme suggests early 20th-century anxieties about modernization displacing tradition and sentiment.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
The Spell of Love HEN I was young—not yet above A thrill of pride when I was shav- ing— One summertime I fell in love With one whose charms were most en- slaving! But there! It's been so long I'll not Do more than say that she was pretty. Her home, O deeply hallowed spot! Was in a suburb of the city. Nearby there grew a pleasant grove, And when on rambles incidental To courtship, there we'd often rove, Our mood extremely sentimental. One day, I know, I turned to art To tell our love—and wherefore hide in2— And on a tree engraved a heart With our initials carved inside it. Ah well! A dozen years have sped, And over them we'll draw a curtain, For though the lady’s safely wed She never married me, that’s certain. To-day I went to find the wood, Inspired by tender recollections, But grieved to find that neighborhood One of our thriving business sections. “ Alas!" I mused, “ was vulgar Trade Untouched by those sweet influences That hovered here? Could it invade These grounds and feel no conse- quences?” Ah no! For where the tree that bore The symbol that I carved that summer Once flourished, there I found a store With valentines for every comer! Gorton Carruth, Miss Gilder ISS JEANNETTE GILDER, dead at sixty-seven, will be mourned by all writers and many readers in New York whose memories reach back thirty years. The Critic, which she edited with her brother Joseph, has been crowded out, irrespective of its deserts, by an overwhelming competition of periodicals with less brains in them and more colored ink. It was a good paper, and Miss Gilder was a good editor, and very interesting besides in the personality which she put into her paragraphs. ‘LIFE: Life’s Short Story Contest The contest closed on October 4th, 1915. So many thousands of manuscripts have been received, each one necessitating a careful reading, that our friends are invited to exercise all due patience. We shall continue to publish the stories accepted each week in this department until all the manuscripts have been passed upon; and as soon thereafter as possible the prizes will be awarded. The Cat That Came Back By Virginia West EONARD RAYMOND was tempera- mentally a naturalist. Had cir- cumstances not compelled him to make a living he would no doubt have been an Audubon, or a Gray. He spent his spare moments studying the habits of the living things about town: English sparrows, pigeons, stray cats, homeless dogs, and so forth. Old man Peterkin, whose wife kept the boarding house at which Ray- mond was getting his meals, who did nothing but collect the board bills, grow fat, and hold the position of church deacon, had told him that the crows in the cupola of the Eutaw Place synagogue had been nesting there for eleven years. Raymond did not know whether to re- gard that as an interesting item about crows, or as evidence against Mr. Peter- kin’s veracity. However, Mr. Peterkin and the crows have nothing todo with this story. In the back yard of the Linden Avenuc house in which he lived with his mar- tied sister, Raymond raised flowers, and on Sundays and holidays he would often go to the country to study the wild flowers and the birds. One summer evening he sat in the back yard among the flowers. He was hot and lonesome, the thermometer being close to ninety, the family being out of town, and no vacation for himself in sight. To-morrow, he reflected, he would return to his post of teller in the bank, and hand out more money than he would ever own in a lifetime; the day after he would do the same thing—— His melancholy reflections were broken in upon by what seemed to be a ball of fire on top of the tall board fence. In an instant it disappeared, and he saw the long black form of a cat slide down the fence and light in the yard. The beast went to a garbage can in the corner of the yard, sniffed about it, observed (Continued on page 218) LITTLE WILLIE, WHOSE SENSE OF SMELL. 18 IMPAIRED BY A BAD COLD, BRINGS HOME A NEW KITTEN