Life, 1922-07-27 · page 23 of 36
Life — July 27, 1922 — page 23: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page combines a photograph with light verse rather than a political cartoon. **The Image:** Two dachshund dogs sit together indoors, appearing to gaze upward. The Latin caption "Experientia Docet" means "experience teaches." **The Text:** "Midsummer Jingle" is a whimsical poem by Flaccus (a Life magazine humorist) celebrating solitary fishing in nature. The speaker describes escaping the city's noise to angle (fish) in a quiet forest stream, contentedly lacking wealth ("not a single sou") while surrounded by natural sounds—cow bells, breezes, and water. **The Connection:** The photograph likely illustrates the poem's theme ironically. The two dogs together contrast with the speaker's solo retreat into nature, or the dogs' wistful upward gaze suggests longing for freedom—mirroring the poem's escape from urban constraints. The joke appears gentler than typical satire: a humorous pairing of image and nostalgic verse about simple pleasures.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
Experientia Docet Midsummer Jingle ‘VE an ingle, shady ingle, near a dusky bosky dingle Through the trees I'll hear a single ringing sound, a cow- Where the sighing zephyrs mingle with the purling of bell’s jingle, the stream, And its ting-a-ling’ll mingle with the whispers of the here I linger in the jungle, and it makes me thrill and breeze; tingle, So, altho I’ve not a single sou, no potentate or king’ll Far from city’s strident jangle as I angle, smoke and Make me jealous while I angle in my ingle ‘neath the dream. trees, Flaccus, comicbooks.com