Life, 1889-02-21 · page 12 of 14
Life — February 21, 1889 — page 12: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
# Analysis of Life Magazine Page 112 This page contains two distinct satirical pieces: **"Love's Long Embrace"** (left): A romantic comedy sketch where two young people, Florizel and Perdita (names from Shakespeare's *The Winter's Tale*), banter about social gossip. The humor relies on double entendre—she worries about being seen kneeling before him, and when he suggests "giving people something to talk about," she blushes in consent. The punchline subverts expectation: his actual proposal is merely to share punch, leaving her mortified. **"Klobenglobbski" (top right)**: A slapstick joke mocking a celebrated Russian Arctic explorer who survived extreme conditions only to comically slip on trivial ice in New York—physical comedy emphasizing the gap between reputation and reality. **"Prohibition Debate" (bottom right)**: A political satire where a boy uses logical absurdity to undermine his aunt's temperance moralizing. When she asks for instances where water caused death, he replies "the flood"—mocking prohibition advocates' selective reasoning about alcohol's dangers while ignoring water's destructive potential. All three pieces use humor to critique Victorian propriety, pretension, and ideological hypocrisy.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
LOVE’S LONG EMBRACE. She: GoopNEss ME, FRED, HOW IN THE WORLD AM I TO GET BACK TO THE HOUSE ? Miss Tellitall passed by the door and saw you kneeling at my feet. In ten minutes it will be known all over the room. FLORIZEL (4/untly): Well, I don't care if it is. PERDITA (sweetly): I'm sure I don't. FLORIZEL: Don't you, Perdita? Perpita (delightedly, but demurely): Not a bit. FLORIZEL (excitedly): Perdita! PERDITA (gently): Yes, Florizel. FLoRIZzEL: If people are going to talk like that about every little thing we do, let’s give them something to talk about. (Perdita blushes with the sweet silence that gives con- sent, and acts generally:in a.manner too well known to need description.) FLORIZEL (continuing): 1 know you haven't thought of it, Perdita, and I did not intend to speak of it just yet my- self; but why not now as well as any other time? Perdita, will you be—— PerpivTa: Oh, Florizel, it is so sudden! FLORIZEL (undauntedly): Will you be good enough to take some punch with me? It’s just the thing ! TABLEAU: Total collapse of Perdita, R.E.; malignant smile of the youthful and innocent Florizel, L. E.; sad music, accompanied by illy suppressed tittering behind the portisre and curtain. Tom Hall. If DIDN'T LOOK AT ALL LIKE SNOW WHEN WE CAME OUT, KLOBENGLOBBSKI, THE GREAT RUSSIAN EXPLORER, HAVING TRAVELED ALL OVER THE ARCTIC REGION WITHOUT AN ACCIDENTy COMES TO NEW YORK AND ALMOST BREAKS HIS BACK ON A BIT OF ICE THE SIZE OF A TEA-BIScUIT. “TB brain is out of sight, but not neces- sarily out of mind. il, Toa “1 TRUST, ROBERT, WHEN YOU GROW UP YOU WILL SHOW YOURSELF ON THE SIDE OF TEMPERANCE AND MORALITY BY VOT- ING THE PROHIBITION TICKET.” “OH, RATS! WHY, AUNT, WATER'S KILLED MORE FOLKS 'N LIQUOR EVER THOUGHT OF DOING.” » ‘1 AM ASHAMED OF YoU, ROBERT! CAN YOU THINK OF ONE INSTANCE IN WHICH WATER, JUDICIOUSLY APPLIED, HAS CAUSED DEATH ?”” “WELL, WHAT'S THE MATTER WITH THE FLOOD?” comicbooks.com roYreror