Life, 1886-01-07 · page 7 of 16
Life — January 7, 1886 — page 7: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
# Analysis of Life Magazine Page 21 This page contains a humorous four-panel comic strip titled "A Duel" depicting a confrontation between two men arranging a formal duel. Panel I shows them meeting the night before to plan details. Panel II depicts them meeting at dawn with seconds present. Panel III shows them beginning to turn their instruments—apparently musical instruments rather than weapons. Panel IV reveals the resolution: the "wound is slight" and they reconcile over dinner at Duvál's restaurant, each paying 75 centimes. The satire mocks the absurdity of formal dueling practices by substituting musical performance for lethal combat, transforming a serious affair of honor into an anticlimactic, trivial event. The joke undercuts the pretension and bloodlust surrounding dueling culture by making it financially modest and comically harmless.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
THE NIGHT BEFORE THE ENCOUNTER THEY ARRANGE THEIR AFFAIRS, THE FAIR AMANDA LOOKING DOWN FROM ‘THE SIGNAL IS GIVEN. IMMEDIATELY THE TWO ADVER- SARIES SET TO WORK TURNING THEIR INSTRUMENTS WITH FRIGHTFUL RAPIDITY, EYE TO EYE, WITH FURY IN THEIR FACES, THE STEEL OOES BITING THROUGH THE WOOD,.. . WHEN, WITH A PIERCING YELL, D'ACARUS FALLS SENSE- LESS TO THE EARTH. AT FIVE O'CLOCK THE NEXT MORNING THEY MEET. Two PLANKS OF EQUAL THICKNESS ARE ATTACHED TO THEIR RE- SPECTIVE STOMACHS, THE WOUND IS SLIGHT, HOWEVER, AND HONOK IS SATIS- FIFD, A RECONCILIATION TAKES PLACE AND b'ACARUS, WHO HAS RECEIVED HIS MONTH'S SALARY OF 15 FRANCS 75 CENTIMES, INVITES THEM ALL TO A SUMPTUOUS DIN- NER AT DUVAL's, A DUEL, La Caricature. N a word, Mr. King sees things—characters, landscapes, incidents—with a clear vision, and knows what he sees. More than that, he can tell about them accurately and inter- estingly. This is the best journalistic faculty, and is a good aid to a novelist. Of course there is something higher than all this in a really great novel—moral insight, the dramatic sense, fancy and imagination. But we are not classing “ The Golden Spike ” with great novels. We are simply delighted with a fresh, breezy tale, which takes us away from the depressing atmos- phere of Boston, and exhilarates us with the new and glori- ous scenes of the “ Great Northwest.” . . . UR Quaker City readers will appreciate the author's gentle irony when he says that a certain old lady could “ hardly be said to live in the world,” because she “ re- sided in Germantown, near Philadelphia.” We doubt the good taste of introducing in this novel sev- eral disagreeable incidents of the Northwest Excursion, which attracted considerable comment at the time. IRK MUNROE'’S wholesome story of adventures in Florida has been republished from Harper's Young People in a very pretty volume, under its original title, “Wakulla.” (Harper’s.) Droch. BOOKS RECEIVED. THE THANKLESS NURSE. By Henry A. Beers. Boston : | Houghton, Mifflin & Co. Time Flies. By Christina Rossetti, Boston: Roberts Brotbers. A todel Wife. By G.I. Cerous. Philadelphia. J. B. Lippincott ‘0. EALLY, now, we are as innocent as the day, but it’s worth $152,800 to us to have this cruel suspicion hushed, as it were. Warner & Work. HE chin-rest is used more than ever by violinists, and, coincidently, the popularity of this instrument is de- | lining in the hands of lady amateurs. comicbooks.com