Life, 1916-09-14 · page 34 of 38
Life — September 14, 1916 — page 34: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This article satirizes Boston's failure to commemorate its own literary giants. The author notes that Americans nationwide revere Boston's 19th-century cultural icons—Longfellow, Emerson, Holmes, Lowell, Whittier—yet Boston itself has erected no visible monuments to them. The piece mocks this contradiction: schoolchildren nationwide thrill to stories of Paul Revere and Adams, but when they visit Boston expecting to find bronze statues of the poets who made the city famous, they find "mainly nothing." The satire extends to Boston's erection of statues to financiers like Alexander Hamilton while literary figures languish—or worse, like William Ellery Channing, face years of delay. Even Edward Everett Hale's statue seems relegated to a corner, enduring New England weather with apparent indignity. The advertisement for Budweiser beer appears unrelated to the article's content.
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The Glory That Was NTLEMAN returning the other day from a considerable sojourn in Europe propounded to Boston an em- barrassing question. He naively in- quired who were the Longfellows now, the Emersons, the Holmeses, the Lowells and Hawthornes and Whittiers. Well, the gentleman might have stumped the proud Athens with another poser. Where are the visible tokens she has ever set up to remind herself, and the other meck and admiring, that such men ever lived to make her famous? All over this glorious country small boys are taught to cross themselves at every mention of Boston, to thrill to the speeches of Adams and Webster, to the deeds of Israel Putnam, to Longfellow’s galloping story of Paul Revere. Every- where boarding-school misses sob over Evangeline, or soar into the oculist’s par- alt. of all foods,is one of the most quickly turned by digestion into nourishment. ©The best of malt is used in making Budweiser~ ‘hence its food value. g munaculate cleanliness in process and surround~ ings and perfect pasteur~ ization of product and bottles tale Ducuciset a pure-beverage. So~theres ne food and drink in Budweise ANHEUSER-BUSCH, st. Louis. Bottled at the Brewery You generally give all your guests the same drink when you mix your own cocktails. How much better to have ready on the ice the favorite varieties of Club Cockfails to meet the individual taste! In all ten varieties, Club Cocktails are marked by a smoothness and balance of flavor practically impossible in the home mixed variety. G. F. HEUBLEIN & BRO. Hartford = New York —_ London Importers of the Famous BRAND'S A-1 SAUCE lors on the winged words of Emerson. On the first chance that comes in later life they come in wonder and humility to Boston, to see for themselves the cradle of history, the fount of wisdo: the temple of the arts, the hub and cen- ter of all culture, to feast their eager cyes on the glittering memorials that a grateful city has reared to the minds that have made her. * And what do they find? Mainly nothing. Where is there a bronze Longfellow warning Boston in mournful and useless numbers to be up and doing? Where is there a Lowell, “ safely ensconced in the old constitootion,” on some familiar cor- ner? Where is Emerson, fixed forever in some Olympian inspiration, on the Common? Where docs Oliver Wendell Holmes rest beside the “ Long Path,” as if in etern ind fitting, amusement ? Where, if not these, is Paul Revere, caught in some pattern of civic virtue along his famous, if disputed, ride? It's a pertinacious memory that lives in these days. Boston has respect for a master of finance, and marks it in a statue of Alexander Hamilton. But how long was he suffered to hide in a barn, waiting the subscriptions necessary to his public appearance on Commonwealth Avenue itself? How long was the fiery spirit of William Ellery Channing cooled by the same experience? No wonder he seems to be clenching an angry fist at Arlington Street Church across the way! Edward Everett Hale had better luck. With a truly startling promptitude he took his stand in a corner of the Garden, looking up and not down, and baring his bronze head to the caprices of New E land weather in a manner that is scarcely