Life, 1916-11-30 · page 39 of 42
Life — November 30, 1916 — page 39: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This poem by Arthur Guiterman satirizes the romantic image of Omar Khayyam, the Persian poet famous for celebrating wine and hedonism in *The Rubaiyat*. The joke: Khayyam preached excess while living temperately ("walked jest as straight as you an' me"), yet respectable society praised his work as "Awful Nice" despite its immoral subject matter—rewarding vice with virtue's approval. Guiterman's point is about hypocrisy: Khayyam deliberately cultivated a bad-boy persona to gain attention ("kep' his pose of bein' Bad / To make a hit"), and society ate it up. The satire mocks both the poet's calculated image and the public's contradictory eagerness to celebrate transgressive literature while maintaining moral pretense—a common critique of Gilded Age cultural attitudes.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
That Fraud, Omar HEN Omar sang, the bloomin’ liar Extolled the alcoholic spree; An’ yet this O. Khayyam, Esquire, Walked jest as straight as you an’ me. The Proper Folks reviewed his lays As Wrong, of course, but Awful Nice, An’ gave his Work unbounded praise— The tribute Virtue pays to Vice. But Omar knew, the crafty lad, That folks is eminently thus, An’ kep’ his pose of bein’ Bad To make a hit—the same as us. Arthur Guiterman, for Wholesale Killing A giant motor truck, with wheels two hundred feet high, that would crush whole towns like flies under foot, is the lat- est idea for making war terrible. Is it practicable? Just read Popular Science Monthly for December. There are 183 different articles and over 300 vivid pictures in the December Popular Science Monthly, showing all the new inventions and the newachiev ments in automobiles, aeroplanes, electricity, mechanics and astronomy. Do you like to make things? There are 57 articles in the December number that tell you how to do things with just a hammer, a chisel, a saw, and a few nails, Popular Science Monthly costs but $1.50 a year. If you mention this advertisement we will enter your subscription and send 1 bill you can pay after receipt of the t copy. Address 239 Fourth Avenue, New York, Popular ScienceMonthly | | Mr. Wright's Allegory of Life This Year’s Book for Xmas Giving Real Western Novel A Story of Manhood Harold Bell Wright’s Best Novel Yet Written WHEN |A MAN’s A MAN Cloth $1.35 Leather $1.85 Harcld Boll Weight Illustrations and Decorations by the Author —Author-illustrator WHEN A MAN'S A MAN is a story, true, of the real heart of the life of the unfenced land of ranch and range of Northern Arizona, A Girl Graduate Says, ‘‘Wuen a Max’s a Man’? is so clean, so wholesome, so uplifting that it impels me to shout from the house-tops to every young man’ and every young woman in the land and implore them to read this wonderful story of manhood. It just thrills with interest. It strikes the responsive chord of your heart's purest and best wishes and desires. The New York Times: There is much of the vigorous outdoor life of the Southwest in the story, and Mr. Wright writes of it with knowledge and with graphic truth. | Messenger of the Sacred Heart: Through it runs a pretty love story that has the charm | of being sweet and clean. The Continent, Chicago: Harold Bell Wright knows you and me, our temptations, our sins, our struggles, our hopes of triumph over ourselves and also the certainty of our triumph, if we go straight after the task and with the proper leading, stick at it until victory come He writes of life as it is lived and of you and me as we live it. * * The novel is an ipspiration. Harold Bell Wright’s Books Are Sold Everywhere Also Recently Published—Popular Edition of 1,000,000 Copies Rowe so'Cents Lhe Eyes of the World thatirere all Recondeat $1.38 | Other Novels by the Same Author That Printer of Udell’s — The Shepherd of the Hills — The Calling of Dan Matthews — The Winning of Barbara Worth — Their Yesterdays | Best Selling Novel Ever Publi iene gen ie witive Lhe Uncrowned King ftter si00 | Our Big Catalogue of FREE We catalog and sell by mail, at a big saving to by e i you, over 25,000 books of other publishers, Books of all Publishers supply the largest number of public, private and school libraries and individuals with all their books, Our service is quick and satisfying. | Write for catalog today. A post card will bring it. THE BOOK SUPPLY COMPANY, Publishers and Booksellers ‘W. REYNOLDS, President 231-233 West Monroe Street, CHICAGO HE TROUBLE?” SPOON IN HIS MOUTH.” comicbooks.com