Judge, 1921-05-14 · page 13 of 32
Judge — May 14, 1921 — page 13: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
# Analysis of "The Hermit" (Judge Magazine) This is a satirical story-poem about rejecting modern urban conformity. A hermit explains to a visitor why he abandoned civilization for woodland isolation. The satire targets **early 20th-century consumer culture and social pressure**: the hermit resents mandatory grooming (expensive barber visits), fashion expectations, and the surveillance of respectability. Wearing an old hat or beard marks one as poor or eccentric, inviting judgment from grocers and bankers who deny credit based on appearance rather than character. The hermit celebrates freedom from these pressures—wearing shabby shoes, growing whiskers unchecked, avoiding rent and bills. His crude appearance (birds nesting in his hair) becomes desirable precisely because no one can judge or exploit him. The illustration shows the contrast: the hermit contentedly wild amid nature, while tiny town figures (visible upper right, marked "1871") represent the cramped, judgmental world he's escaped. The satire is ambivalent—the hermit seems foolish yet enviably free, suggesting Judge readers might share his frustrations with social conformity even if actual withdrawal is impractical.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
“Fok HERMITS LEAD A SIMPLE LIFE, REMOTE FROM ALL OUR STRESS AND STRIFE.” The Hermit By Warr Mason Illustration by SAW a hermit in his cell, secluded in a lonesome dell His whiskers fluttered in the breeze, and he was full of grass and peas, for hermits lead the simple life, remote from all our stress and strife; they drink the waters of the brook and simple herbs and roots they cook, or eat un cooked their frugal fare; and birds are roosting in their hair. “Why did you leave the teeming town?” I asked the hermit sitting down: “why flee from crowded neighborhoods, to grow long whiskers in the woods? Here you are lost, and camped afar from movie show and temp'rance bar; there’s naught to comfort or amuse; no daily papers bring the news; and here you sit in lonesome woe, and merely let your whiskers grow.” And that is something worth the while,” replied the hermit with a smile. “In towns there are no liberties; if 1 wore lam- brequins like these, where people throng. in woe and mirth they'd simply josh me off the earth. I always longed to wear a beard, but joshing from my friends I feared, and so I paid out intless beans to men who shaved my whiskerines. In barber shops I used to wait from six o'clock till half past eight; and should I count the hours thus spent, they’d run to years, [ll bet a cent. The man in town is but a slave; he shaves who doesn’t want to shave. But here where woodland birdlets pipe, my whiskers grow until they're ripe, and there is none to jeer and say, ‘Come from behind that swath of hay.’ “Out here my life is full and sweet: I wear old shoes upon my Raten Barton feet, and on my head I have a hat on which a hundred times I've sit. [tis a most disgraceful tile; and yet it’s truly worth my while. [hate a stylish, handsome lid; I always will, 1 always did. [like a lid that I can use to swat mosquitoes, if I choose or carry water from the brook, or mix bran mashes in, gadzouk The hat you have to wear in town was never fit for human crown; and every man would like to wear a hat like this, did he but dare, “But if you on the street appear with some old tile of bygone year, your friends all hoot you and remark, that hats like yours were in the ark. The grocer sees you and observes, ‘I do not like that fellow’s curves; the man who wears so bum a hat can have no credit here, that’s flat.” The banker sees it and he cries, ‘We cannot trust such shabby guys. We hold his note for fourteen bones, so we'll attach the goods he owns. and close the mortgage on his cow, and break him up—s do it now.” “But here among the trees and vines I wear old hats, and no one whines. I wear old shoes with busted soles, and uppers of helpful holes that let the ventilation in, and no one says it is a sin. “Here I can do just as I please and flaunt my whiskers in the breeze, and loaf and smoke and dream and snooze, and pay no rent or bills or dues; and that’s the freedom, I maintain, for which our martial dads were slain.”” Se SS SF | ee ae aa | { i | | ! ! | | aa comicbooks.com