Life, 1916-04-20 · page 8 of 52
Life — April 20, 1916 — page 8: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
**Main Article: "Thinking Is the Most Fun"** This essay argues that American intellectual life has become overly focused on material construction rather than abstract thought. The author (Pierre Frobshesky, a Virginian) criticizes how American culture values concrete achievement over contemplation. He cites Tarkington's novel "The Turmoil" as evidence that Americans pursue "bigness and construction" at the expense of deeper civilization. **"Pigs Is Pigs" Cartoon** The four-panel sequence shows pig faces with changing expressions wearing different hats, apparently illustrating variations or transformations. The title is a phrase suggesting deceptive similarity or changeable appearances—possibly satirizing how superficial modifications mask underlying sameness, fitting the page's theme about substance versus appearance.
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Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
BEFORE THE QUEEN Thinking Is the Most Fun APPINESS is a state of mind. Prince Pierre Troubetskoy, who married a Virginian (Amélie Rives) and has lived in this country a good deal, thinks the American mind in this generation is so closely applied to con- crete things that it loses much of the simple joy of life which is gathered in by the Latin. He finds that American efficiency tends to mechanisms and ma- terial riches, rather than to artistic in- spirations, and he deprecates the Amer- ican habit of “indulging in artificial luxuries, not realizing that in the mean- while they are renouncing the highest luxury of all, that of thinking for the pleasure of thinking, and not for the material remuneration it may bring.” True enough, all that; but charac- teristic, probably, not so much of the American people (if there is such a thing) as of the current phase of their development. For generations, and never more than in the latest genera- tion, the great errand of the American mind has seemed to be material con- struction. All the colleges have run to that, until one is ready to feel that that is all they are good for. Booth Tark- ington’s novel, “The Turmoil,” has that for its subject, and takes the view that the American zeal for bigness and construction means something impor- tant to civilization; something more than mere bricks; that a great appa- ratus is being created out of which presently will come great thoughts. The highest luxury is the pleasure of thinking ; moreover, it is the safest and most wholesome pleasure. Too much “Pics Is Pics" concer.tration of thought on concrete objects, machines and material acquisi- tions wears maay people out before their time, sends others to sanitariums, and of others still makes dull and un- profitable companions, People whose minds run on money, and who are per- petually on the make, are seldom profit- able company. Nevertheless, one hears very interesting stories of contempo- rary Americans of great and successful commercial activity who have another side to their minds that they cultivate purely for their own pleasure. One such man was the wonderful Van Horne of the Canadian Pacific, who ‘lied the other day, and there is Henry Frick and many others, who at least buy pictures, and we have heard a tale about the avocations of a comicbooks.com