Life — February 3, 1921 — page 20: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

164 public It is through bool review> that books are introduced and read. Who the book reviewers are and what their habits of life, therefore, may determine the gen- eral course of our literature. Book review- ers should not only be segregated but should be kept under constant observation, fed upon simple but nourishing food, and be required to pass an examination, after which they may be duly provided with a book reviewer's license. The laws of book reviewing should be agreed upon and be- come better known. And should be graded and licensed according to their standing. In Grade A would come those reviewers who are able to read a book a day without fatigue and to digest it properly. They should be able to give the essential flavor of the book without telling so much about it that the reader will feel that it is not necessary to read it. They should also have themselves under such good control as to restrain themselves from writing anything clever about the book, merely for the sake of being clever, without regard to the damage done to the author and publisher. In- deed, 1 should be inclined reviewers to make it a law that here- after there shall be no more clever book reviewers, al- though I am bound to say that clever ones are few and far between, when we con- sider the whole mass. I should also make a dis- tinction hetween the city and country book reviewers, with the odds greatly favor- ing the latter. City book reviewers have too many other things to do. The country editor is the ideal book reviewer; not that he has little to do, but what he does he does more thoroughly. I am inclined to believe that all the books published should be turned over to country editors, who might be subsidized by the government. The book reviews turned out would thus be well worth while. . But if it be decreed otherwise, then all the big bow-wow book reviewers who are obliged by necessity to read one or even two books a day in order to keep up with the literary procession, should certainly be provided helpers, who might be apprenticed to their masters for a term of with LIFE. years before obiaining a reviewer's license. In the second grade of book reviewers I would place all those who declare them- selves to be critics. And in order to stim ulate their ambition, I would make it a condition of their getting into the first grade that they gradually abandon the idea that they are critics and not mere human beings with quite ordinary feelings and opinions. T. L. M. NNY saved is a periny taxed. JAMES LINE FORMS ON RIGHT If they pass the bluey lays My Sundays I shall miss ; If I can't kiss my own wife Whose wife can I kiss? In Court “THE indge says it will take him an hour to try this case. The clerk says it will take all day.” “T'll take the clerk’s version. He's a great deal better acquainted with the judge than the judge is. Avaunt, Critics! FTER four long years the ban on bull- fighting in Mexico has been lifted, and those who have been lamenting the decadence of the American drama will now have somewhere else to go for en- tertainment MATGONERY FLAGG Life in Boston EALLY to enjoy life in Boston, one must first learn to walk in the middle of the street. While learning to accomplish this feat so successfully as to avoid too fre- quent rides in the ambulance, purchase some horn-rimmed glasses, some flat- heeled shoes, Emerson's Essays, and a Boston bag. These will lend distinc- tion. Assume a learned expression, supple- mented by an air of aloofness and ab- straction. Cultivate the broad sound of a, and an intimate ac- quaintance with Bunker Hill Monument and other local, historical landmarks. Become a frequenter of Ford and Faneuil Halls, and follow the lecture fraternity, for therein lies culture. Remember that Hunting- ton Avenue is the one and only street in the world that harbors 6842 cults, and that it is adding to them daily, and that it is privilege to join one or all of them. The more the merrier. Stroll along the Common, and through the Public Garden, occasionally; you will find others in the same frame of mind. Feed your intellect at the Public Library, your artis- tic sense at the Art Mus- cum, your cyes on Tremont Street, but when your inner man clamors for sustenance, hie thee to the sign of The Green Monkey, or The Blue Crow, for such way goeth the would-be elect! your Valentine MANY maids there be Beneath the sun, Yet, dearest heart, for me There is but one; You with the joyous air Like morning skies ; You with the twilight hair And vesper eyes. Come days of rose or rue, Till life be own My love will be for you, And you alone! Clinton Scollard. comicbooks.com