Life, 1923-05-31 · page 15 of 37
Life — May 31, 1923 — page 15: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page contains two distinct sections: **Left side:** "Mrs. Pep's Diary" - a personal diary entry column discussing social activities, including lunch at Sherry's restaurant and observations about matchmaking. This is lifestyle journalism rather than satire. **Right side:** A section titled "New York" featuring a black and white photograph labeled "Seeing New York" showing what appears to be a nighttime city street scene with buildings and people. Below the photo is a poem or essay about New York, contrasting the city's grandeur with its actual character. The text uses paradoxical descriptions ("Stranger from mountain or plain / List to the lilt of the city") to satirize how visitors romanticize urban life. At the bottom, there's a definition of "Magnetism" as "the faculty of making people admire in you qualities you don't possess" - likely social satire about superficial city sophistication. This appears to be general social commentary rather than political satire.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
May 24th Lay late, recovering from the revelry of my birthday, and then to casting up my accounts, and I do find that I had not disbursed all of Sam's gift cheque before its ar- rival, for which I thank God. And so up along Madison Avenue to lay out the rest of it on some desira- ble object, but on reaching the street of my sempstress’s shop, I tempted to go in, and there I ind a young man a-selling silken se, the sheerest that ever I saw my life, for a low price. And evidence their durability, he did aw his knife along them with no casualties soever, but I told him it their resistance to cutlery did t concern me so much as their saction to the metal on hose sup- yrters. Nevertheless I did give a dollar against the delivery of six pairs, the balance to be paid the postman, and bade him farewell with a feeling that I should never see nor hear of him again. . .To meet Inez Bascom at Sherry’s, where we lunched on soft shell crabs, creamed potatoes and a sher- bet, very fine, though God knows I should have more wit than to eat potatoes. And catching sight of Tom Wilkins in the distance, I did point him out to Inez ‘and recall the days when she had kept me awake of nights talking about her love affair with him. And are you not rejoiced now that the match did not come off? I asked her, and Inez quoth, It is better to have loved and lost than never to have lost at all. May 25th This day I did again lie abed until an un- seemly hour, reproach- ing myself the while for neglecting my gymnasium as I do, but Lord, a woman must have some regard for the looks of her head, and had I exercised, the wave which my Emilie put in yesterday would have vanished like the baseless fabric of a vision. .. A package came from Grace Smith containing a fine bro- cade Dunhill bag, and when I opened it a small bulb flashed on to illumine the interior. So up and out like a child with a new toy, and whenever I had occasion to open it, all within range did mark it curi- Seeing New York ously, and one man even approached me and asked for a closer inspec- tion, which I gave him gladly. May 26th All day at the club, and Lucy Fulton, in speaking of a woman we know, did remark that her whole social existence was spent in a struggle to be natural, which seems a strange thing to me, my own con- sisting largely of refraining from being too natural. Lucy and I are agreed, too, that the novels written around the “dangerous age” are all rot, for if individuals have not made fools of themselves in one way or another by the time they are forty-five, it is not likely that they are going to do anything then to undermine the tenor of their way. Baird Leonard. New York GRANGER from mountain or plain, List to the lilt of the city; Nothing so flaccid as “pretty,” Grandeur symphonic its strain. Surface cars clang a refrain, ‘L’ structures rumble a ditty; Stranger from mountain or plain, List to the lilt of the city. Murmurous Gorges of Gain; Echoing stones that are gritty; Hand-organs, more is the pity, Tinkling in Lambency Lane. Stranger from mountain or plain * List to the lilt of the city. W. D. Macnetism is the faculty of making people admire in you quali- ties you don’t possess. comicbooks.com