Life, 1891-12-31 · page 34 of 53
Life — December 31, 1891 — page 34: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page contains two separate stories. The left column satirizes high society dancing, where a classical goddess (Diana) observes modern young men and finds them physically and morally inferior to ancient youths. The satire mocks both pretentious social gatherings and nostalgia for classical ideals. The right column, titled "His Christmas Journey," shows illustrated scenes of domestic life. The narrative depicts Diana discovering a young couple in love. Rather than punishing them with her bow, she curses the man to a fate worse than death: marriage, urban poverty, Irish police encounters, reading newspapers, visiting a rich aunt in Brooklyn, and maintaining appearances on limited means. The joke targets 1890s anxieties about marriage, urban life, and social obligation—presenting matrimony and middle-class respectability as divine punishment worse than mythological vengeance. The Brooklyn aunt reference adds period-specific snobbery about outer boroughs.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
14 blasphemous caricature of the wor- ship of Terpsichore. “youths and maidens, as of yore. to herself, seeking some excuse to be near But These youths, so ach other. how different! puny,—so_ill- shapen, so unlike those that were wont to flock to the Arcadi groves! And tightly girt about their w little graceful in. their walk. harsh and strident in their voices Methinks they would be laughed at even in the villages of Bocotia All, save my prince! And him, of all this crowd, I tind like the youths I long since cherished.” Diana’s so-called prine these maids! So for some minutes, posed against a door-frame in what he red a graceful attitude, and surveyed the Grand- matriarchs’ ball. Finally h of voice asked Miss Effie consid strolled over and ina /rappd tone Vanastorpelt for a dance. The s—if any one could have seen them—looked a bit dangerous during this proceeding. They looked more dangerous yet when Miss Effic told the young man with a deprecatory and with a little beseeching look in the eyes, that she had given him up as not coming, and that her card was full. goddess’s ¢ voici ” replied the young man, ‘its my fault I thought the old ball was at Delmonico’s, instead of at Sherry’s, and went down there. I couldn't get a cab to bring me up. That’s why I'm late. But suppose we sit out this intermission,” Diana, not knowing modern young men, argued, from the youth’s prevarication, that he did not love the maid. “A virgin heart!" she exclaimed to herself. “ And in my prince’s first love I shall find the boon which shall release me from my thralldom on the tower.” In her in the Diana forgot for a instant to ki the guests caught sight of her they and two stout Grandmatriarchs in a corner actually lost the thread of a delicious bit of scandal they were discussing. But Diana recovered herself in a moment, the guests attributed the ap claret punch, and the c tations. Diana's prince and his companion managed to find a corner behind a barrier ef palms and ferns, and for a few minutes indulged in commonplace talk, as lovers are apt to after a long separation of two or three Diana's face assumed a more complacent expression, and hope burned high in her eyes. Then, as the young man and woman saw that they were not likely to be inter- oung man's movemen' ep up her invisibility. As were naturally terrified, intense interest ance to some peculiarity of the electric light, or the perons went on smirching repu- do on first m hours. * LIFE: HIS CHRISTMAS JOURNEY. rupted, their hands sought each other and their eyes told a tale that needed no words. “Do you love me, Tom, as much as you did at three o'clock this afternoon? " asked the maid. “Well, 1 should smile,” replied Diana's prince. “If I didnt think that confounded old Mrs. Debergast might look you up at any minute, I'd be tempted to kiss you right here and now But Diana could stand it no longer. Throwing off her invisibility, she stood before the lovers in all her awful majesty. Her arrow was drawn to the head, and she was about to release the bow-string, when her ex- pression relaxed. No,” she said; “I shall not smite you! It would be too easy a punishment. You will marry—you will live in this accursed town. You shall wade in mud to your knees. You shall be clubbed by Irish policemen. You shall belong to the 4oo. You shall read the Sunday newspapers. You shall have a rich aunt who lives in Brooklyn, and to whom you must make frequent visits. You shall be obliged to keep up appearances on a small income. I leave you to your fate!” Turning on her hee!l—she had been turning on her toe so comicbooks.com