Life — June 1, 1916 — page 18: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

“FRE - The Family HERE'S a girlie upstairs in her bed so deep— Hark to the wind a-croor She's wrapped in a silver web of sleep, Snug in her dream cocoon: She hears the birds and crickets call, She stirs and smiles and loves them all, But somewhat less than she loves her doll— Heigh-o for the little maid! There's a laddic asleep in the house to-night— Hark to the sound of wings! His slumbers are filled with a soft delight And strange, ecstatic things: He dreams of brave knights on a sunlit plain, Of fairy queens that soothly reign, That wave their wands to banish pain— Heigh-o for the sylvan glade! There’s a mother of both, Hark! she gently sighs, Kneeling beside them there. The long day ended, ‘neath starlit skies She offers a broken prayer: But out on the field, where the wild blades leap, Where the shrapnel bursts and the bayonets sweep, One lies quite still where a trench yawns deep, And the toll of Mars is paid! H. Stanley Haskins. The Brutality of Guests OBODY has ever yet dared to say anything adverse about guests, because it is the nature of hospitality not only to be continuously joyful about all guests, but also to betray one’s gladness over their presence. It seems to be a kind of dishonorable thing to go back on one’s guests. Well, let us be dishonorable for once in our lives and get it over with. Let us tell the truth and shame the devil. The majority of guests are nuisances. If you are a fairly decent housekeeper and even moderately intelligent, it is to be presumed that you run upon some sort of a schedule. Does your guest ever fit into that schedule? Never! You have to adopt a new one—based upon guesswork—to fit NATURE STUDY WHY THE CAT WAS GIVEN THE PERPENDICULAR EYE, “ALL DRESSED UP, AND NO PLACE TO GO his needs. He takes your cherished chair, sleeps in your favorite bed, he exercises in ways that you abhor, but which you are obliged to conform to while he is present. In short, your entire system of existence is, by his presence, completely unsettled. To make the whole matter worse, he is continually pro- testing that he hopes he isn’t putting you out in any way, and you, on your part, are continually protesting that his pres- ence, instead of putting you out, has added a new joy to your life. Thus two liars cope with each other in a game where there are no stakes but the cheap sense of personal hypocrisy. All this in case of a man. But if your guest be a woman, the matter is intensified a hundred-fold. When you are visited by a woman, at once suspend every normal function you have slowly developed. Every known law is at once abrogated. Your new motor must be taken out in the most violent storm. Your servants—who are likely to grow restless after the first twelve hours—must run up and down stairs until they cither give notice or are spoiled from that moment on. The linen closet is robbed of its best; your favorite book is cast aside; your morning paper is henceforth a negligible factor; your quict, neutral hour is ruthlessly violated. Everything you hold sacred becomes a memory. Even your conversation is shattered; you say things you never have believed, merely to preserve the ap- pearance of a perfect ease. The presence of a woman guest has rendered you a hopeless mental rene; ‘| HEAR Toneup is on the water wagon.” “Then he's had it refilled with cocktails!” comicbooks.com