Judge, 1922-03-25 · page 35 of 36
Judge — March 25, 1922 — page 35: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This parody satirizes the famous historical legend of the courtship of Priscilla Mullins and John Alden in colonial Plymouth. The traditional story depicts Miles Standish asking John to propose on his behalf, with Priscilla famously responding "speak for yourself, John." Stewart's parody subverts this romantic narrative by making it absurdly casual and modern—reducing the colonial love story to contemporary collegiate flirtation. The cartoon shows the couple kissing immediately after Priscilla's rejection of Standish, treating a supposedly momentous historical moment as trivial adolescent behavior. The satire mocks how Americans mythologize colonial history while suggesting that beneath the romanticized narrative, the actual behavior was probably just ordinary teenage romance. The page is part of Stewart's "Casual Collegians" series depicting American college life, applying irreverent modern sensibilities to supposedly dignified historical events.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
Al page from Mr. Stewart’s Curiously Irreverent * ‘é Traine A Parody Outline of History — Historical Gvents A Quiet Evening in Plymouth John: It’s really awfully funny, but I came here to-night because Miles Standish made me promise this morning to ask you to marry him. Miles is an awfully good egg, really, Priscilla. Priscilla: Speak for yourself, John. (They kiss.) Donald Ogden Stewart is contributing to JUDGE a page of ‘Casual Collegians’’—a series of conversations depicting American collegiate adolescence in all its moods. “No one has practiced the art of parody so cleverly since ‘Max Beerbohm.”* —Heywood Broun.