Life, 1918-02-07 · page 9 of 40
Life — February 7, 1918 — page 9: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
The main illustration titled "Her Birthday" depicts a social scene where a man in formal attire (top hat and coat) presents what appears to be a government contract to a woman. The caption indicates this is satirizing romantic or matrimonial entanglement with bureaucratic paperwork—"Go as far as you like, Flo. I've just landed a government contract." The humor centers on the contrast between personal relationships and official business: a suitor uses a government contract as a romantic offering, suggesting either that official connections have become a form of currency in courtship, or that bureaucratic matters have absurdly intruded into intimate life. The page also includes "Acknowledgments to the British Navy" (a patriotic poem) and an introduction to writer Amy Lowell, but these are separate editorial content unrelated to the cartoon's satire.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
t Acknowledgments to the British Navy E do not like to own it, We wish it were not so; It’s useless to bemoan it Or hide what all may know: That we're not in the gravy, That still our fortune’s full We owe the British navy, By grace of Johnny Bull. We count our golden dollars, We count our bags of grain— They’d all wear German collars If William ruled the main. Poor Russia is a slavey, Poor Belgium is a hell; Without the British navy Their fate were ours as well. That we are our own masters And hold our banner high, That infinite disasters Have passed our nation by, That still in progress wavy Our skiff of state we pull, We owe the British navy: Hurrah for Johnny Bull! Amos RK. Wells. Introducing Miss Lowell UR friend the Poreupine—which, by the way, is a bright light in periodical literature—has an article on Amy Lowell in its current number which gives us much more complete information about that celebrated per- son than it has hitherto been our privi- lege to enjoy. It appears that, accord- ing to Miss Jessie B, Rittenhouse, who has written about Miss Lowell in the Bookman: “Released from the arbitrary con- fines of Imagism, Amy Lowell stands out as a vital individuality, the really creative and versatile mind of the group.” Miss Lowell is a sister of Presi- dent Lowell of Harvard College, and has written a book entitled “Men, Women and Ghosts” (MacMillan). Oliver Herford says of her that one half of Amy Lowell does not know how the other half lives. It will he gathered from this that Miss Lowell is a poet and, further- more, that she has scen Imagism, and HER BIRTHDAY Hubby: GO AS FAR AS YOU LIKE, FLO, I'VE JUST LANDED A GOVERNMENT CONTRACT gone it one better. If the reader asks what is Imagism, we are frank enough to say we don't know, As nearly as we can get at it, it isa kind of new poetry. The word imagism suggests that it may have something to do with the imagina- tion, but this we doubt, because no new poetry that we have seen has anything to do with the imagination. Windnmillian 'O the Windmills said the Mill- wheel: “As the wind wills do you still wheel?” “Yes, we still wheel when the wind wills!” To the Millwheel said the Windmills. comicbooks.com