Judge, 1919-05-10 · page 5 of 32
Judge — May 10, 1919 — page 5: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
# "Her Progressive Suitor" Analysis This satirical story by Elias Lieberman mocks intellectual pretension and progressive politics through the character Arabella Mayfair's suitor, Bert. The caricatured portraits labeled "Wagner" and "Beethoven" suggest Bert affects highbrow cultural interests. The narrative reveals his "intellectual" persona—tortoiseshell glasses, cane, discussion of Russia's economic crisis—as performative affectation masking his actual bourgeois conformity. The satire targets early 20th-century progressive aesthetes who adopted radical rhetoric while remaining fundamentally conventional. Arabella, who loves music and progressive ideals, finds Bert's progressive weekly journal merely theatrical. The pamphlet titled "Drummers' Yarns" (apparently dropped) suggests his supposedly serious intellectualism masks commercial banality. The illustration of Arabella at the piano emphasizes the contrast between genuine artistic appreciation and Bert's shallow posturing.
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Her Progressive Suitor By Vuras LitperMaAn Illustrated by Avsert Leverinc RABELLA MAYFAIR pointed a dainty index fi to her forehead and paused before the mirror in per- plexity. “T love Bert,” she confided to herself, ‘and I think he loves me, but—” patted a few strands of hair into place, tapped the floor impatiently with her heel and shrugged her shoulders Then she pouted. “There goes the bell and improving conversation,” she mur- mured without joy. Bertram’s hair could not have been plastered back further from his forehead without endangering his skull. His chubby face rested on his immaculate collar like a pink, freshly polished apple. He wore spats and permitted a cane to accompany his right forearm. All this might have indicated that Bert was a prosperous member of the bourgeoisie, but there was a distin- guishing touch which seemed to transform his personality. He wore tortoise shell glasses, from which a black silk string de- scended to his lapel. You have guessed Bert's secret. He was intellectual! ‘This horrible suspicion could have been confirmed by noting the weekly Bertram conspicuously carried. It was one of those progressive periodicals which go so fast in a circle that the rest of the world seems desperately slow He handed Arabella a box of candy with the solemn grace of a potentate abdicating a throne “The economic situation of Russia is still desperate,” he in- formed her. Arabella, although a lover of the best in music, hated inter- rational relations, the commercial outlook for 1919, reconstruc- tion problems and prohibition. As for the Bolsheviki, she washed her hands clean of them, which is more than the Bol- sheviki ever do—but that is a different story. As Arabella gingerly removed his progressive weekly and was about to deposit it on a chair in the next room, a small pamphlet with a gaudy cover fell out of it. It was not a sup- plement of the aforesaid p. w., for it bore the title,—‘ Drum- mers’ Yarns.” A little wrinkle shaped itself above Arabella’s delicately modelled nose. It signified thought and disillusion. But she