Life, 1886-02-04 · page 7 of 16
Life — February 4, 1886 — page 7: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
# "The Wealthy Hippopotamus" - Analysis This fable satirizes the nouveau riche and their ostentatious spending habits. A hippopotamus character, having made millions through business ventures (a mummy factory and quarry), hires an artist to fresco his newly-built mansion. The hippopotamus then destroys the work with a jar of preserves—an absurd act of vandalism. The moral critiques "wild, riotous, and headlong enthusiasm" of wealthy nouveaux riches and bourgeois gentlemen who spend lavishly on art without understanding or appreciating it. The satire targets the nouveau riche class's wasteful, destructive relationship with culture and fine art—spending fortunes on masterworks only to ruin them through ignorance and carelessness.
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oo DEVE -: FABLES FOR THE TIMES. LOW-BORN but sagacious Hippopotamus who had made several millions of dollars by running a nummy factory in Lower Egypt and a relic quarry inthe Soudan, settled in New York and built a palatial residence. When the structure was nearly finished the owner hired a Goat to fresco one of the walls. To accomplish this the Goat got a jar of preserves and hung it on the wall with a string; then, going back to get a good start, he ran at the jar with the force of a bat- tering-ram and gave it such a butt that the glass flew into a thousand fragments, and the contents were scattered over the wall with the most artistic delicacy and despatch. “My esteemed Goat,” said the Hippopotamus, who had contemplated the process with speechless wonder, “such a magnificent dying sunset is worthy of the old masters, whose devotion to art goes so far towards soft- ening our horror of their cruelty towards their black slaves. In this work you have caught the gorgeous sensuousness of the Italian evening sky and yoked it to the robust and lurid strength of a sunset on a Colorado plain. I'm proud of your friendship, and I engage your next painting at your own price.” Morac: This Fable shows the wild, riotous, and headlong enthusiasm with which our famous millionaires and the more numerous but less noted crowd of lucky nouveaux riches and bourgeois gentilhommes enjoy their costly works of art. ANTHEM. Freshman, tell us of your class,— ADAPTED TO THE DAILY USES OF HARVARD COLLEGE. Does it not all run to brawn? BY S. E. T. | Stelliger, “ turn off your gas,’ FRESHMAN: tell us of your class,— | See, the day begins to dawn. What its signs of promise are ; Freshman, then depart in peace : Stelliger,* we've “tin” and “ brass,” | Hie unto thy sumptuous room. They will take us anywhere. Stelliger, your maunderings cease : Freshman, how about your zous,— | Tumble back into your tomb. Do you think it ’s over-strong ? Stelliger, do n't be abstruse, English it, or move along. WILLING TO TAKE A HAND. a3 HAT do you mean by a gentleman's game of Freshman, tellus of your class, —— poker?” asked a Western citizen, who is in town a Jet enor ol, Crock é buying hardware. “ Any different from the reg'lar game?” Stelliger, do z. te ke tee) “We take each other's word for what we 've got, anddo n’t “Soft electives we bespeak. have to show down.” Freshman, has it come to this) “Is that so?” said the Westerner, beginning to get ex- a Is,your Creek elective een cited. “Give me twenty dollars’ worth of chips.” Stelliger,.you, bet it.issy-nt 5p ate ~~ Reanim gre ane ak) Fz Tek Latin, too, I’m glad to say. “ALL men are born free and equal,” but’ the difficulty is * Deceased alumnus. that some are born equal to half a dozen others. comicbooks.com