Page:In the dozy hours, and other papers.djvu/115

 Rh housekeeper's pie, for example, and the tramp who is unable to digest it—which even a conservative American, if such an anomaly exists, would relinquish dry-eyed and smiling. It is not for such feeble waggery as this that we value our comic journals, but for those vital touches which illuminate and betray the tragic farce called life. "Punch's" cartoon depicting Bismarck as a discharged pilot, gloomily quitting the ship of state, while overhead the young emperor swaggers and smiles derisively, is in itself an epitome of history, a realization of those brief bitter moments which mark the turning-point of a nation and stand for the satire of success. "Life's" sombre picture of the young wife bowing her head despairingly over the piano, as though to shut out from her gaze her foolish, besotted husband, is an unflinching delineation of the most sordid, pitiful and commonplace of all daily tragedies. In both these masterly sketches there is a grim humor, softened by kindliness, and this is the key note of their power. They are as unlike as possible in subject and in treatment, but the undercurrent of human sympathy is the same.

Is it worth while, then, to be so contentious