Judge, 1912-11-02 · page 11 of 24
Judge — November 2, 1912 — page 11: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This illustrated dialogue satirizes early 20th-century upper-class courtship and marriage. A fashionably dressed couple exchanges witty banter about why they married each other. The satire targets the era's obsession with superficial elegance and efficiency over genuine sentiment. The husband married his wife because she dresses quickly for theater outings—not for love. The wife married him for his skill wearing a monocle. Both explicitly reject "sentiment" as outdated, claiming they live in "an age of system" and practicality. The final joke undermines their shallow priorities: while the wife holds a rose for his coat and admires herself in a mirror, her maid waits unnoticed in the corner—suggesting the couple's vanity and inattention blind them to those around them. The cartoon mocks modern marriage as reduced to trivial concerns and performative sophistication, lacking genuine connection or awareness.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
coypnat reason dominated you when you asked me to be your wile 2” “That is a peculiar quedion for a pretty woman to ack her husband with the honeymoon still efful- gent, my dear!” “Well, what «vas the reason? We ‘ve been married long enough to be mutually candid.” “Have | been a poor lover 2” “Oh, as lovers go, perhaps not !”” “Perhaps not! You at least are candid!” “And I want you to be candid. We are not liv- ing in an age of sentiment. We are too busy.” “That fact relates to my dominating reason for marrying you, my dear!” “Indeed 1" “Yes. You are the only woman I ever knew who can dress 80 expeditiously for the theater that your escort needn't wait a moment for you.” A MODERN COLLOQUY. “Then love was not the determining factor with you?” “Oh, love is all right in its place. me to be candid.” “Very well. look 2” “Stunning! But you haven't told me how you do it, and although I ‘ve been married three weeks, I've never been able to find out!” “It's very simple. 1 begin my toilet in time. This is an age of system.” “I hadn't thought of that. Now, my dear, tell me what mostly influenced you to accept me?” “The way you wear your monocle.”” “Well, that's a bally queer notion! even with me. “Yes; but I"ve never been able to discover how or why you could wear your monocle so gracefully You asked You are candid. How do I You are —so fetchingly! You act as though you had been born with it adjusted 1" “You say this is an age of system. It is also an age of determined effort that stops at nothing in the struggle for perfection. Perhaps I might have made another million or two if | had given less laborious and secret attention to my monocle. I will confess that at first 1 even slept with it to my eye. We understand each other ?” “The understanding is hardly mutual yet.” “Why 2” “Well, I ‘ve been standing here three minutes "— “Admiting yourself in the mirror!” “No, only incidentally that. For much of the time Ive held out this rose for your coat. You haven't observed it. But I know as well as you that my pretty maid has been over there in the corner all the time.” J. A Wal comicbooks.com