Life, 1921-12-08 · page 27 of 34
Life — December 8, 1921 — page 27: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page mixes poetry, humorous anecdotes, and advertising—typical of Life's format. **Content:** - A sentimental poem about aging beauty (by Mabel Haughton Collyer) - "Fooleries of Science": satirical commentary on British scientists debating Earth's age, jumping from Lord Kelvin's estimate of 20 million years to Lord Rayleigh's 6 billion years. The satire mocks scientists' grandiose calculations as "amusing gambles" disconnected from reality, questioning why they "connect time with creation" when time itself is merely a human construct - Two brief jokes: one about divorce, another about a Christmas tree - A full-page advertisement for "A-B-A" traveler's cheques from Bankers Trust Company, marketed to businessmen as a safe alternative to carrying cash The satirical tone suggests skepticism toward scientific pretension—a common theme in early 20th-century popular magazines challenging academic authority.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
To a Lovely Lady NE would not fancy she could stay So lovely as before— Her eighteenth birthday far away, Full fifty years or more; Her youth the merest souvenir Some lover might regret, Since in her sere and yellow year, Her beauty lingers yet. Age is no setting for such charm! ‘Her loveliness defies Old Time himself to do her harm; Some potent secret lies Within a face that fairer grows e backward flung. dry of winter snows Still keeps her beauty young! Mabel Haughton Collyer. Fooleries of Science T the recent meeting of the British Association for the advancement | of science, they discussed the age of | the world, and Lord Rayleigh allowed that from evidence lately gathered about the time it takes to make uranium into lead, he calculated an antiquity for this earth of something like six thousand million years. This, he said, was quite an advance from Lord Kel- vin's calculation of thirty years ago that the earth was cooling at a rate that made it seem certain that it had not supported life for more than’twenty million years. Quite a jump from twenty million | to six thousand million, but, after all, when you have allowed the earth a mil- lion years of antiquity, the other illions do not matter. We used to think our earthly home was four thou- | sand years old, and got along comfort- ably on that hypothesis except that people who thought it was going to | end soon were able to get more follow- | ing than they can now. But it is wonderful how the great | scientific gentlemen talk about these | matters and with what straight faces. The calculations they make on geology and heat and mineral changes are amusing gambles and that is all. Why do they try to connect time with crea- tion at all? Time seems to be a mun- dane product that does not exist except in the minds of living men. No ac- count was made of it at all until Earth got far enough along to produce what Korzy »ski calls the time-finders, mean- ing men. . A Decree Nisi Jupce: If I grant you this divorce will you marry again right away? Appiicant (blushing): Oh, Judge, this is so sudden! “I don’t mind being trimmed,” said the Christmas tree, “But somehow or other, father doesn’t seem to take kind- ly to it.” For Business Men —as desirable as an escape BANKERS TRUST COMPANY New York City Facts About *A-B-A” Cheques —universally used and ac- cepted —your countersignature in presence of acceptor iden- tifies you —safe to have on the person because they cannot be used until they have been countersigned by the origi- nal holder = —safer than money, and fre- uently more convenient an Letters of Credit be- cause the bearer is less de- pendent on banking hours —issued by banks every- where in denominations of $10, $20, $50, and $100 —compact, easy to carry, handy to use comicbooks.com