Judge, 1923-07-14 · page 10 of 36
Judge — July 14, 1923 — page 10: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
# Cartoon Analysis The top cartoon satirizes materialism and shallow values among the wealthy. A clergyman lectures a young woman about "higher things of life," but she dismisses his moral concerns, responding that she wears only expensive garments, loves roof gardens, and is engaged to an aviator—implying she measures worth by luxury and status rather than spirituality or character. The elaborate tableware and decorative objects surrounding them emphasize conspicuous consumption. The joke targets both the hypocritical reverend (preaching virtue while dining lavishly) and the flighty society woman who conflates moral elevation with material acquisition and fashionable pursuits (aviation being a trendy novelty at the time). The accompanying article "On Verse Making" by Arthur Neale is a humorous essay mocking amateur poets and overly-earnest literary criticism, ultimately suggesting that uninspired verse ("It's a hard world / Park bench") receives absurdly effusive praise from pretentious reviewers.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
“You should think more of the higher things of life, young lady!” “My deah reverend! and am engaged to an aviator!” On Verse Making by Arthur Neale OR SOME TIME now we have been attempting | the rather discouraging se making—and with ex- ntisfactory results. That is y the other day, when a cer- nper review of a book of ged our whole attitude toward elerating our work, remov- ing difficulties from it and ranking our output with the sublime songs of the immortals. We must admit that previous to our meeting with this mentioned review real throbbing inspiration had often enthralled us. But when we attempted to wrestle with it on paper the going was always hard. This _ busi of rhyming al seemed so annoyingly arduous. Pi zling over a rhyming dictionary, we found, so very often nipped our line of sub- lime thought right in the bud. But now, as we've hinted, all is changed. This review of which we speak dealt with a book of verse entitled s All Wrong and Other Poems.” — Describing one of the other poems, the revie said something about “here is genius indeed! This man throbs and_ pulses with the very universe itself! Point to the poet who could interpret life 8 I wear nothing but the highest priced garments, just adore roof gardens, as this burning with such uncanny exactitude inspired singer does in his fragment, ‘Hardness’: ‘It’s a hard world Park bench. And the cops: Oh, how iy The thing was so brilliant that for some moments it had us comple dazzled. That is—for some mom we couldn't see it. But came a sudden burst of enlightenment and we saw! To think of all the hours wasted with that rhyming dictionary! All that (Continued on page 27) and wor and spec hav stat A arti¢ dust Pat look comicbooks.com