The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1907-06-10
A DISC0URAGER OF C0NCEIT
Just Take a Peep at Some of Your
Boyhood Pictures.
New York Sum-

lows feels sort of cheSty and kind or
enlarged about the region of the hat 1
know of a way for you to cool out and
| get yourself where you belong. / found
out for myself. Here's the way:
"A little while away 1 visited my
good old mother. She lives on the old
farm, upstate. A rainy afternoon hap
pened along, and she got out the old
red plush covered family photograph
album. l spent some hours looking
| 1t over.
Now, up to that time 1 felt certain
| sense of Importance. / sort @ liked
myself. ! had it figured out that 1 was
a good deal of duck, all things consid-
cred. 1 regarded myself as quite some
| body.
But that rainy afternoon with the
old album settled it. 1 haven't quite
found out yet where 1 belong. The
likenesses of myself in that album did
the business for me-likenesses running
back to my swaddling days, and then
| right along through my various and
sundry stages of puppyhood and gen.
eral imbecility, almost-I let myself
down lightly you Observe-almost up
to the present time.
That's why I'm contending that
| there's nothing on earth better calcu-
| lated to take superfiuous conceit out of
a man grown to maturity than rainy
afternoon with a whole bunch of pic
| lures of himself
Il didn't mind so much the baby pic
lures of me that l had to look at
look like a sulhy, ugly sort Of a lumpy
| customer in all of them, l am bound
| to admit, and I'd like to know if the
man lives, anyhow, who doesn't expert
| ence certain sort of humiliation when
he looks upon the pictures taken of him
when he was lclling doughface of an
infant. The only consolation he has in
| looking at them is that he wasn't re-
sponsible al the time, that it wasn't his
fault that he'd been mugged at that
awful period of his life, and that most
other baby pictures, if not all of them,
| look Just about the same way. It's the
later pictures that cause a fellow to
really hate himself while the impress
sion of them lasts.
Il didn't even take any violent dis
| like to the photographs and tintypes
| that were taken of men when / was in
my boyhOOd-befOre had reached ado
| lescence, that is. / couldn't help those,
either, although they sure do make me
| out tO've been measley looking tad of
boy. One of them in particular, that
L had taken along with my little sis
| ter when / was about years. old and
| she Z, made me very tired, both for
| myself and for Sis. In that picture
I'm standing rigid. with the bottom of
the headrest that's holding me like
garrote showing at my feet. My mop
of carrOty-lOoking hair is brushed back
in a big WATERFALL think that's what
they call 'em-Over one side of my fore
head, my ears stand out like sails on
| Canarsie bay catamaran, and l look
sneaky and furtive and slinky and
treacherOuS and mean and underhand
all over.
But the portrayal of my little sis
ter in that photograph is a shame.
She's standing like an upright bed Stat,
too, confined in one of those barbarous
headrests, and sticking out away below
| the bottom of her little skirt is lot of
pointed embroidery, about both of her
| neither limbs. draped as they are in
white stockings. 1t always makes Sis
/ furious to see that photo, and l don't
wonder.
We'll, there are two or three more
of those boy pictures, and then begin
the bunch that 1 myself had taken and
/ that made me feel just to look at them
| like a nickePs worth of altar of roses
in the bottom of deserted cistetn.
| The first one of these was taken
when 1 was about Is and had left the
old farm for a nearby town. ! was
/ making a few dollars a week sn1 the
| cheap conceit that sticks out eM over
! that photograph is notifying 70 look
at. l insisted, 1 remember, that the
/ picture should be full length, so that all
| of me should show, and I'm standing
| alongside one of those papier mache
| pedestals, with my hair plastered down
in front like a Sicilian BARRIERS, and one
of those emery little round felt hats
/ of the period on the back Of my head
/ to show the plast5red hair.
Then there was the bust portrait
made of me when 1 was II. You can
| just see the swelIheadedness of me
| sticking out. I've still got my hair
| plastered down in that one, and there's
a rosebud stuck in my buttonhole, and
| I've got sort of snarlyN stuck up ex-
| preston on my chalky looking map;
| and, say, as / looked at that picture
| couldn't help but reflect upon what a
| blooming nuisance l must have been
| at about the time ii was taken, and
wonder how the older folks with whom
1 was associated ever stood me at all.
Then came the 19-year-old photo
| graph, taken for the express purpose of
| showing a waiting and marveling world
the vague and wispy imitation of a
mustache. True, only one side of the
mustache is there, although 1 had it
| taken full face particularly to show
that 1 had it on both sides. But there
| is such strong light on one side of the
| face that the mustache lost out in the
| shuttle on that side. / can remember
how horribly abused l felt when they
gave me that finished picture and
| saw how much of the budding mus
| tache had been sacrificed to the light
| ing scheme. l wouldn't have accepted
| the pictures at all, / was so sore over
| that only one-half of a mustache, but
I'd paid for them in advance and 1 had
| to take them.
well, the next one that caused me
to curl up was the picture 1 had taken
| for the sole and only purpose of allow
ing my relatives living in distant parts
| of the country to know that l was the
| possessOr of what used to be called a
dress suit [ remember to this hour
how absurdly / staggered around the
photograph gallery when Iawent down
there one day at noon and put on the
dress suit to have the picture taken.
I sort o. patronized the grizzled photOg-
rapher, l remember, and l believe that
l tried to give him some kind of an I'M