"Speaking of operations--" / by Irvin S. Cobb ... illustrations by Tony Sarg.

  • Cobb, Irvin S. (Irvin Shrewsbury), 1876-1944.
Date:
[1915], ©1915
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: "Speaking of operations--" / by Irvin S. Cobb ... illustrations by Tony Sarg. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    18/78 (page 12)
    other men; and it is more exciting even than the question of how Mrs. Vernon Castle will wear her hair this season, if you are a woman talking to other women. For mixed companies a whale is one of the best and the easiest things to talk about that I know of. In regard to whales and their peculiarities you can make almost any assertion without fear of successful contra¬ diction. Nobody ever knows any more about them than you do. You are not hampered by facts. If someone mentions the blubber of the whale and you chime in and say it may be noticed for miles on a still day when the large but emotional creature has been moved to tears by some great sorrow coming into its life, every¬ body is bound to accept the statement. For after all how few among us really know whether a distressed whale sobs aloud or does so under its breath? Who, with any certainty, can tell whether a mother whale hatches her own egg her own self or leaves it on the sheltered bosom of a fjord to be incubated by the gentle warmth of the mid¬ night sun? The possibilities of the propo- [12]