Life, 1925-05-14 · page 26 of 40
Life — May 14, 1925 — page 26: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page contains a literary review column alongside a period cartoon titled "The Gay Nineties." **The Reviews:** Critic J.S. Fletcher dismisses novelist S. Fletcher's *The Mill* for recycling tired socialist themes (capital vs. labor, millionaire sons rejecting business). Fletcher expresses frustration with "young men struggling with their ideals" as protagonists—they predictably make wrong choices. He praises *The Spring Flight* by Lee J. Smits instead, appreciating its authentic, realistic portrayal of youth without heavy-handed ideology. **The Cartoon:** "The Gay Nineties" satirizes Victorian-era social anxieties. A scandal unfolds: young Wilfred has been caught smoking cigarettes in public—a shocking transgression for the period. The shocked family members express horror that "a disgrace like this" could happen to their respectable household. The joke mocks the exaggerated propriety and pearl-clutching morality of the 1890s, where minor vices sparked genuine social shame. The cartoon's humor relies on period attitudes toward tobacco and public decorum that seem quaint to modern readers.
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Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
S. FLETCHER, the great spinner * of mystery yarns, has, for the moment, gone bad on us. he Mill of (Doran) is not what its title and its author’s past perform- ances would indicate, but a thinly fic- tionized disquisition on our old friends capital and labor, running truc to for- mula right down to quotations from Karl Marx and the millionaire’s son who loathes business. When capital and labor fly into a plot, I usually fly out of the winde nto the nice spring sunshine, but this time I stuck to the finish in the desperate expectation that Mr. Fletcher would make good and pull off a swell murder or something. He didn’t. Right here and now let me say that I am done, as far as fiction heroes go, with young men who are struggling with their ideals. These individuals ILL FORTUNE HAS DONE HER Worst! CIGARETTES! AND IN PURLIC, TOO! OH, 5= SAO Oem So nae Li fe and _Letters who give their conduct such serious con- sideration usually make straight for the wrong decision with the unerring in- stinct of a homing pigeon, and are liv- ing examples of the theorem that fools do more harm in the world than knaves. This is the third tale this season I've had to worry through with the constant fear that the juvenile lead would give all his millions away the minute he fell heir to them. But Bright Marrashaw realizes just in the nick of time that doing the right thing by one’s fellowmen is a retail proposition. You can't be magnanimous to mobs, because something goes wrong with the retro- action. Of course anybody is likely to make That's why, as the comedian lo-Flo,” they put rubbers on lead pencils, But now that his error has been pointed out, Mr. Fletcher must THE GAY NINETIES IN our FAMILY! DEAR! DEAR! see that it doesn't happen again. Next time I want to find an old man dead in his library on the very first page. UCH more to my notion is the young gentleman of “The Spring Flight,” by Lee J. Smits (Knopf) Here is the intimate record of a typical American against a background slapped in so realistically that the reader knows at once that he is dealing with an authentic document. Truth, set down with humor and intelligence, is so scarce these days that when one comes upon it suddenly or accidentally, the instinct arises to take it slowly, a chapter or two at a time, in order to make it last as long as possible. “The Spring Flight” is concerned with the carly youth, adolescence and young man- hood of Kenneth Farr, and everybody (Continued on page 36) WILFRED HAS BEEN CAUGHT SMOKING ONE OF THOSE PESKY TO THINK THAT A DISGRACE LIKE THIS COULD HAPPEN comicbooks.com