Life, 1886-02-18 · page 5 of 16
Life — February 18, 1886 — page 5: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
# "D.V. Or Otherwise" - LIFE Magazine, Page 103 This cartoon satirizes upper-class anxieties about weather and travel. A well-dressed woman suggests to her mother that they should begin shopping, while a man (John) responds with an absurdly comprehensive list of catastrophic weather scenarios: "Heavy rains, followed by snow, hail, sleet, blizzards, cyclones, tornadoes, simoons, hurricanes." The joke targets wealthy society's tendency to find excuses for postponing activities. The elaborate meteorological doom—presented as inevitable—mocks both the dramatic pessimism of weather forecasts and the frivolous concerns of the leisure class. The title "D.V. Or Otherwise" (Latin: *Deo Volente*, "God willing") suggests that human plans are subject to divine or natural whim, making the woman's maternal certainty ("We are not made of sugar") the punchline's pragmatic counterpoint.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
D. V. OR OTHERWISE. Wife: 1 Tux, MOTHER, WE HAD BETTER BE STARTING FOR OUR SHOPPING. PROBABILITIES ? BY THE WAY, JOHN, WHAT ARE THE WEATHER John (reading from the paper): HEAVY RAINS, FOLLOWED BY SNOW, HAIL, SLEET, BLIZZARDS, CYCLONES, TORNADOES, SIMOONS, HUR- RICANES AND EARTHQUAKES, Wife: H'm, HOW PROVOKING! SHALL WE VENTURE OUT, MOTHER? Mother : CERTAINLY. WE ARE NOT MADE OF SUGAR. HE moral of it all is most commendable, and should be framed in brass and hung in all the new Fifth avenue stages. ‘It teaches that labor is the prime factor of human happiness, as it is the first necessity of human existence, or the sole source of permanent wealth. It believes that con- tentment is better than riches, and that there is nothing earthly nearer heaven than home.” And all the millionaires will say “ Amen” as they ascend the steps of their palaces. . . . R. HOWELLS has been so busy recently pointing out the defects of Thackeray and Dickens that he has not kept the fly-specks off his own china. In the opening chapters of “The Minister's Charge” in the Century he makes the Rev. Mr, Sewell, a learned Boston clergyman, say that Nilsson was “a peasant, you know, a country girl in Norway.” Either Mr. Sewell or Mr. Howells should have known that Nilsson was born in Wexid, Sweden. ° . * ECENT events in the Southwest make very timely Captain John G. Bourke's spirited narrative of “ An Apache Campaign in the Sierra Madra” (Scribner's). It is the story of Gen. Crook’s campaign after the renegade Chi- ricahuas in the spring of 1883. Capt. Bourke’s own journal of the expedition is the foundation of the book. There are a number of illustrations. Droch, + NEW BOOKS - (Al CARDINAL SIN. A Novel by Hugh Conway (F. J. Fargus), Leisure Hour Series. New York : Henry Holt & Co. Third Report of the Civil Service Commission, to His Excellency the Governor. New York : Trow Co. Two College Girls. By Helen Dawes Brown. Boston: Ticknor & Company. comicbooks.com-: