Life — March 2, 1922 — page 6: what you’re looking at

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

LEFE - Abstinence Makes the Heart Grow Fonder HE Anti-Saloon League, the Lord’s Day Al- liance, the Anti-Nicotine League and other heavenly bodies of reformers are rapidly put- ting Lent out of business; at least they are robbing it of any distinction that it may have possessed as a season of the year. People used to have a sentimental affection for Lent. They looked upon the forty-day stretch between Ash Wednesday and Easter Sunday as a sort of annual Saturday night, and they made it the occasion for a spiritual bath. They cleansed themselves of their manifold sins and wickednesses, using the waters of abstinence and the soap of self-denial for the purpose. They gave up one or all of their bad habits, and found a vast amount of sanctimonious satisfaction in so doing. Now, however, the stock of bad habits is being reduced with such startling rapidity that one finds it difficult to know just what to do about Lent. Lent without self-denial is just about as foolish as Thanksgiving without turkey, or St. Swithin’s Day without rain; and self-denial nowadays is next to impossible. All the denying is done by outside forces, and it is effective throughout a period of three hun- dred and sixty-five days a year, instead of forty. And so, as Mardi Gras rolls around, the average self- respecting citizen is constrained to murmur, “What am I going to do about it? I cannot give up anything unless I have something worth giving up.” I, for one, have decided to face the issue squarely. I do not depart from old traditions easily (I still go out to look for my shadow on Ground Hog Day) ; and I cannot bring myself to let Lent slip by unobserved. So this year I am going to give up abstinence! Although, normally, I have no use for tobacco “in any form” (as the song goes), I intend to consume as many perfectos, pane- telas, exceptionales and stogies as my. lungs will permit I also intend to break the XVIII Amendment in pieces that it will resemble a picture puzzle. I have a number of other ideas in mind for observance of the Lenten season, and I intend to carry them a the letter. No one can deprive me of the chance to be a Spartan. Robert E. Sher:vod. so many out to Nocturne LWAYS I knew that it could not last (Gathering clouds, and the snowflakes fling), Now it is part of the golden past; (Darkening s and the night-wind sighing ) It is but cowardice to pretend. Cover with ashes our love's cold crater,— Always I've known that it ha’ to end Sooner or later. Always I knew it would come like this (Pattering rain, and the grasses springing), Sweeter to you is a new love's kiss (Flickering sunshine, and young birds singing Gone are the raptures that once we knew, Now you are finding a new joy greater, Well, I'll be doing the same thing, too, Sooner or later. Dorothy Parker. Circumlocution “Jim, what do you think of my game?” “Well, boss, I’se been caddying on dis co’se fo’ ten years, an’ you’se done hab me in places T’se never been befo’.” comicbooks.com