Life, 1883-03-08 · page 6 of 16
Life — March 8, 1883 — page 6: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
# Analysis The upper illustration titled "AN IMPORTANT DETAIL" depicts a social scene where a young woman asks her uncle to take her to French operettas. The uncle refuses, saying it's "not a proper place" for her, though he admits the performances are "all in French" and he wouldn't understand more than half anyway. Another male relative asks which half he *would* understand. The satire targets male hypocrisy regarding female propriety and entertainment. The joke suggests the uncle's objection isn't genuinely moral but rather reflects his own limited comprehension—he's protecting her from content he himself doesn't fully grasp, making his guardianship seem arbitrary and self-serving rather than principled. The lower section contains an unrelated poem, "The Muskingum Valley" by J.W. Riley, a nostalgic piece about pastoral memories.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
AN IMPORTANT DETAIL. Guileless Young Woman; O! Uncre, I po Wish YoU WOULD TAKE ME WITH You. I ADORE THOSE FRENCH OPERETTAS. Discriminating Male Relative: 1 1sn’T A PROPER PLACE FOR YOU, MY GIRL. G. Y. W.; Bur 17 1s ALL IN FRENCH, AND I SHOULD NOT UNDERSTAND MORE THAN HALF THAT WAS SAID, D. M. R.: Yes, MY DEAR, BUT WHICH HALF? THE MUSKINGUM VALLEY. [ the Muskingum Valley !—How sweetis the gaze, Asa fellow looks back on the long summer days When the smiles of its blossoms once mingled with mine, And my childish heart drunk of their fragrance like wine! Where the hills caught the kiss of the morning and noon, And the river ran by like an old fiddle-tune, And the long, lazy hours went a-loiterin’ on From the dawn to the dusk, and from dusk till the dawn! In the Muskingum Valley it ‘peared like the skies Looked lovin’ on me as my own mother's eyes, While the faint undertone of the stream seemed to be Like a lullaby angels was singin’ for me— Till, swimmin’ the air, like the gossamer’s thread, *Twixt the blue underneath and the blue overhead, My fancies went glimmerin’ into the realm Where Sleep bared her breast as a pillow for them, In the Muskingum Valley, though far, far away, I know that the winter is bleak there to-day— That the perfume is gone from the brambles and trees, And where buds used to bloom, now the icicles freeze. That the grass is all hid ‘long the side of the road Where the deep snow has drifted, and shifted, and blowed— And I feel in my life the same changes is there, The frost in my heart, and the snow in my hair. But, Muskingum Valley ! my memory sees Not the white on the ground, but the green in the trees— Not the rough, frozen gorge, but the current, as clear And warm as the drop that has just trickled here; Not the chokec-up ravine, and the hills topped with snow, But the grass and the blossoms I knowed long ago When my little bare feet wandered down where the stream In the Muskingum Valley flowed on like a dream. J. W. Ritey. comicbooks.com