Life, 1883-07-26 · page 5 of 16
Life — July 26, 1883 — page 5: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
# Analysis of Life Magazine Page 39 **The Cartoon "A Penny for Your Thought":** This illustration depicts two figures on a dock overlooking water. The tender dialogue concerns a woman lost in thought about a man, with her eyes following her daydream. The joke plays on the Victorian-era phrase "a penny for your thought"—a flirtatious device to prompt disclosure of romantic preoccupations. The satire gently mocks the predictability of romantic yearning and the tendency of couples to read each other's minds. **"To Matilda at Thirty":** This poem by T.R. Sullivan addresses a woman reaching thirty, examining how age affects romantic appeal and male attention. It sarcastically comments on male poets' shallow preferences and societal expectations, suggesting that aging women become invisible or less desirable, while humorously noting that catching a man's lasting interest remains as difficult as catching fish.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
A PENNY FOR YOUR THOUGHT. He (tenderly): She (more tenderly) : He (most tenderly) : She (dreamily) : He (rapturously) : She (sighing) : Yes. THEY pip, How? WHERE? TO MATILDA AT THIRTY. IS looks, I agree, can ’t allure you ; He’s bald as the palm of your hand,— His years—forty-one, I assure you ; His figure—inclined to expand. ‘Time was, when such lovers you might have rejected ! Time is, when you ‘Il take him, or linger dejected ! His prosing, no doubt, will perplex you ; His love for the poets is nz/ ; He'll seem to live only to vex you, When once he recovers his will. No spark of the hero in his composition, But get him—be thankful—and bless your condition ! AND YOU WERE THINKING OF ME? AND WHY DID NOT YOUR EYES FOLLOW YOUR THOUGHT ? THAT LONG, LOW, LAZY, QUITE TOO SPLENDID SWELL. [He tumbles, so to speak} At breakfast he's sure to be surly ; Thus heroes are, too, I am told. Converse not, when forced to rise early ! (N. B.—He won't eat mutton cold.) Rococo and rare are the oaths that he uses— Consider his coffee, and cut the nine Muses ! And when, his brief idyl well over, Your evenings you have to yourself, You ‘ll say, as you sit there in clover : “Alone, yes, but not on the shelf!” Good fish in the sea, we have all of us seen them,— But few fish that bite, and a long way between them. T. R. SuLtivan, comicbooks.com