Life — May 18, 1893 — page 1: what you’re looking at

What you’re looking at

# "The Favorite Suitor" (Life Magazine, May 18, 1893) This cartoon satirizes a romantic triangle involving class and money. The illustration shows two women and a man in late-Victorian dress. According to the dialogue: - **The Girl** tells her father: "But his father has left him well off" - **The Honest Friend** responds: "Well off! He has left him a taste for liquor and not a cent of money!" The satire mocks the daughter's naïve assumption that the suitor is wealthy based on his appearance and family background. The "honest friend" exposes the truth: the man's father left him only bad habits (alcoholism) and debt, not an actual fortune. This critiques both romantic illusions about gentlemen suitors and the financial precariousness beneath Victorian gentility—a timely concern during the 1893 economic depression.