Judge, 1923-12-15 · page 9 of 36
Judge — December 15, 1923 — page 9: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
# Analysis for Modern Readers **"Suppressed Preferences"** is an essay satirizing great historical figures' supposed secret desires. The author facetiously argues that famous geniuses (composers, poets, presidents, explorers) would rather pursue mundane tasks—Rossini preferred making salads to composing operas; great poets wanted to do embroidery; Columbus wished he'd discovered a new drink instead of America. The satire's point: if these men truly hated their work, why didn't they stop? The implication critiques both the romanticization of genius and human self-deception about duty versus desire. **The cartoon by J.H. Fyfe** shows a domestic scene where a woman reassures a jealous man she's rejecting another man's candy—not from jealousy, but because "I'm sick of his chocolates." It's a mild joke about excess and insincerity in courtship gifts. **"Man Dressing Tree"** is a humorous Christmas cartoon: someone loads gifts and decorations *onto* a Christmas tree rather than carrying them separately, reasoning this makes the load "easier to carry home"—absurdist holiday humor about impractical problem-solving.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
Drawn by J. H. FYFE. Suppressed Preferences by Cyril B. Egan Rossin the composer, was a master hand at dressing salads. “I would rather,” he to have remarked in reference to one of his culinary chef @euvres, “be the author of that salad than the composer of the est opera!” The more we read of great men, the more we discover what humdrum, ordi- nary people they None of the geniuses seem to like geniusing a bit. All the great Presidents would rather have been honest plowmen tilling the soil. All the great poets and prosists, according to some commen have detested their work; n mad over some such occur sinct-making, or rug weaving Surgery, or embroidery. Homer, we suppose, would any day rather have done pottery y. Dante, no doubt, would rather have cooked up a beautiful bowl stti than the best passage from Inferno” or “Comedi: peare possibly preferred the making of a bethan toddy to the writing It must be somewhere on ecords that Columbus would rather have discovered a new drink than Amer- ( ty He—I wish you wouldn't accept any more of Bob’s candy. She (coyly)—Jealous? “No, I'm sick of his chocolates!” ica. And so it was, and is, with all the great talents of all the ages. The puzzle of the matter is this: If the genuises prefer plowing or rug weaving or spaghetti-slinging or fancy embroidery or beer brewing to all else in the world, why don’t they go to work at it? But no, perversely they go on geniusing; they go on poctising and prosing and presidenting and discovering, when all the while their hearts otherwhere. The actual onus of the tasks which they wish rdently to perform, they politely and considerately leave to those who desire to be geniuses. toe Many a price tag is without honor on a Christmas gift. Man dressing tree—By putting all this stuff on the tree— z it makes it so much easier to carry home!