Life, 1924-08-28 · page 23 of 36
Life — August 28, 1924 — page 23: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page from *Life* magazine contains several satirical pieces mocking early 20th-century literary and social pretensions. **"Love Letter of a Primitive Man"** parodies romantic poetry by imagining a suitor from prehistoric times (referencing Cro-Magnon, Neanderthal, and other early human species). The joke is the absurd juxtaposition: flowery, sentimental language paired with primitive violence ("I'll pound you something evil"). It mocks both overwrought romantic literature and pseudo-scientific fascination with human evolution that was popular in the era. **"Half-Columns with Nature"** satirizes nature writers who sell sentimental descriptions of pastoral scenes. "Jones," a hack writer earning "twenty-five cents a word," composes florid prose about dusk, angels, and moonlight while actually being annoyed by mosquitoes, wood-ticks, and herons. The humor comes from the gap between his published romanticization and his true miserable experience—critiquing dishonest, commercially-motivated nature writing. The smaller cartoons provide additional social humor about cars and domestic life.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
- LIFE: - Love Letter of a Primitive Man ET us wander, lovely lady, underneath the welcome shady Miocenal vegetation that will shortly be extinct, And in prehistoric fashion I will tell you of my passion, In a manner I'll endeavor to make terse, clear and succinct Should you take as a companion any bum of a Cro-Magnon, Pithecanthropus erectus, or Rhodesian super-ape, intense is my primeval love, I'll pound you something evil, And the tribe of your relations will be saying it with crepe. ve'll dwell in a flat palatial, furnished d /a Tertia Glacisl. Knocking excavators cockeyed in a million years or so; © shall have a brontosaurus in a goldfish bowl, and o'er us Pterodactyls in gilt cages tunefully will chirp and crow though I hate to seem conceited, | admit I'm undefeated ; I'm the undisputed Dempsey of the Neolithic Age; m the bimbo most heroic of the early C. And Neanderthalia nozoic, maidens point me out as all the rage. my little primal beauty, live with me and be my cutie; Every morning you may take the eohippus for a ride; Jon't ask Pa ultimatum—I just pushed him off a stratum ; Marry me, and be my darling nearly semi-human bride Tip Bliss. Reassurance : You sold me a car about two weeks ago. How do you like it? “[ want you to tell me everything you said about that car ill over again. I'm getting discouraged.” CAS OWN LESMAN Mrs. Duck: . CAN'T FIND THAT EGG 1 PRODUCED THIS MORNING ANYWHERE. Mrs, Hen: You MUST HAVE MISLAID IT. THERE'S NO ACCOUNTING FOR TASTES Half-Columns with Nature ONES, the syndicate Nature Man, packed his pipe deter- minedly with mosquito-proof tobacco and slid to a seat on a log. Behind him lay a pad of paper, behind his ear a pencil, and behind everything the realization that he was about to earn twenty-five cents a word. to his right a lonely heron croaked—and Jones moved farther along the log to avoid a passing wood-tick, tearing Then he moved back and tore foiled above, swooped down vic- toriously upon the rents; but with eyes fixed desperately upon the muddy stagnation before him, Jones wrote: Tt is the lambent hour of dusk, and Nature draws her filmy cloak about her, slumbrously. Above, in the plangent vastness of the heavens, myriad stars like golden tears gaze down. “It is the brooding hour of peace and cadenced hush. Afar on the silv'ry ripples of the lake, a grave-eyed duck- ling paddles sleepily. A rain-crow rumbles in the scented silence. And high in the ancient oak above my head there sighs a lovesick whippoorwill, “It is the hour of angels; and as I gaze and dream, their argent forms steal shyly through the moonlight Mists? Perhaps; but angels natheless! And as they weave their mystic sara- band: ‘God's in his heaven,’ chants rap- ture-sweet the faérie insect choir!" “Now,” said Jones, “I can buy some screens and keep the damn bugs out!” Gardner Rea, his trousers in the process them again. Mosquitoes, DVICE to Wives—lf at first you don’t succeed, cry, cry again. comicbooks.com