Life, 1918-08-01 · page 15 of 36
Life — August 1, 1918 — page 15: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page contains three distinct sections: **"The Law"** — A prose essay criticizing the legal system's complexity and inaccessibility to the poor, arguing that law should serve justice rather than create delay and despair. **"Book Reviews"** — Commentary on how book reviewers mislead readers through selective reading or hidden agendas. **Two Illustrations:** 1. *"Her Hero"* — A bedroom scene showing a woman admiring a man's portrait while her small dog sleeps below, likely satirizing romantic idealization. 2. *"Will you point it towards my dad in France?"* — A boy and girl with a telescope, suggesting WWI-era anxieties about distant family members in combat. **"Silk Hats"** — Mocking the persistence of formal top hats among politicians and officials despite being outdated, suggesting they symbolize obsolete "Diplomacy." **"A Familiar Spirit"** — The beginning of a dialogue about séances and spiritualism.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
*LIFE: Some Non-Essentials THE LAW THE law is a collection of rules and precedents so ar- ranged that nobody is protected from anything except those who do not deserve to be. The machinery of the law has grown so cumbersome that the expense of running it is immense. As the poor cannot afford to pay, the matter devolves upon the rich, who in return receive immunity. Thus the law, originally intended to mete out justice, is a reservoir of delay, debt and despair. If there were no law there would be no precedents, and without precedents man- kind would flourish so much that law would not be neces- sary. To mitigate the incompetence of the law ought to be the sacred duty of everyone except lawyers. But inasmuch as everyone, including members of Congress, is a lawyer, the prospect is not rosy. BOOK REVIEWS The principal object of all book reviews is to mislead the reader about the book reviewed. To do this as it really ought to be done would involve a careful reading of the book; hence the reviewer avoids this, as a matter of literary principle, looking only at the first and last pages. Some reviewers praise a book so highly that all desire to read it vanishes from your mind. Others deprecate it so strongly that you are led to read it; and in both cases you wish y hadn't. Book reviews are useful in so far as they give you no idea of the book. But even under these favorable cir- cumstances they are only a method of concealing the re- viewer's opinions about other things, and these would be of no interest whatever presented by themselves. HER HERO “WILL YOU POINT IT TOWARDS MY DAD IN FRANCE SILK HATS Silk hats are worn by politicians, clergymen and college professors. This alone would place them in the non-essen- tial list. They are also worn by high officials. A high official whose lofty brow is surmounted by a silk hat and who is entirely surrounded by brigadier generals is one of the great features of our latter-day democracy. Nobody knows why silk hats continue to be worn by presumably otherwise intelligent people, except that, like the Anglo-Saxon law and the chairman of the ways and means committee, nobody has yet been able to invent a way to get rid of them. They appear to be, in a way, the symbol of Diplomacy, and they may go out with this obsolete industry. The war will not have been in vain if they can finally be rendered ex- tinct. A Familiar Spirit DIUM: Now, be seated, and in just a moment I will give a convulsive shudder, my voice will change, and I will go into a trance and begin to talk wildly, and possibly clutch you by the hair. You are not afraid, are you? Diapveton : all the time, Afraid! Why, that’s what my wife does