Life, 1916-12-14 · page 7 of 42
Life — December 14, 1916 — page 7: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page from *Life* magazine contains a cartoon and essay about accepting life's disappointments. **The Cartoon** ("Locating an Author") depicts a bookstore scene where a customer asks a clerk about the author of "Fifteen Decisive Battles of the World." The clerk responds that he doesn't know the author's name but thinks "it was some married man"—a joke implying that married men are so burdened by domestic responsibilities they have no identity of their own. **The Essay** ("Accepting the Inevitable") philosophically discusses how wise people accept life's inevitable hardships rather than futilely resisting them. It uses the metaphor of gold mining to illustrate acceptance, concluding with a dialogue where someone notes their gold mine is "worth its weight in paper"—a light joke about dubious financial value. Both pieces use gentle humor to comment on practical life realities: marital subordination and financial uncertainty.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
ML LOCATING AN AUTHOR “ HAVE YOU GOT ‘FIFTEEN DECISIVE BATTLES OF THE WorLD'?" “WHO WROTE IT, SIR?” “DON’T KNOW HIS NAME, BUT I THINK IT WAS SOME MARRIED MAN.” Accepting the Inevitable MAN is known by the manner in which he accepts the inevitable. The wisest and happiest man is the one who looks into the future and discerns the inevitable at the greatest distance. Such a man then goes out, meets the inevitable at Icast halfway, slaps it on the back, takes it by the hand, envelops it with his aura and asks it to stay to lunch. The miserable of earth are those who are continually trying to dodge the inevitable. Perhaps they shut their eyes when they hear that it is expected, or oftentimes they jump into bed and pull the clothes over their heads. The madhouses are full of people who have quarrelled with the inevitable so much that neither polite society nor im- polite will have anything more to do with them. Some of them will not admit that there is such a thing as an inevitable even after it has come and gone. The first lesson parents should teach their children is that whenever anyone wants to give them the inevitable they should accept it instanter. “TS your gold mine profitable?” “T should say so! It's worth its weight in paper.” comicbooks.com