Life, 1893-05-18 · page 13 of 18
Life — May 18, 1893 — page 13: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page satirizes upper-class affectation and shallow values. The main text mocks a pompous advice columnist (unnamed but clearly contemptible to *Life*'s editors) who insists a gentleman *must* employ a valet to maintain respectability. The satire targets the pretentious logic that certain "vulgar" necessities of life—earning money, eating, bodily functions—should be hidden behind a veneer of refinement to remain aesthetically acceptable to the wealthy. The cartoon "Working for His Friend" jokes about a woman's obliviousness: she attributes a man's devoted attention to her singing and playing, unaware he's merely being polite. The dialogue jokes about marital mismatches and the cynical observation that only this particular man would tolerate her company. The bottom sketch about ending sentences with prepositions is a standard grammar joke, somewhat disconnected from the page's main satirical thrust. The cartoon "Able to Draw His Salary" appears to depict a man's financial precarity.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
AS SEEN BY HIM.” ‘C7 T is absolutely impossible to exist without a valet. No man with any self-respect, or any regard for his personal comfort can afford to do so. ‘* The young man who uses the patent trousers stretcher, or the more eco- nomical mattress, and who confides his boots to be cleaned by street boys at the corners of public thoroughfares, does not enter into consideration. He should know better." “There are certain necessary ad- juncts to living, which are vulgar in themselves, but which, with a proper amount of tact, can be so transformed as to render them acceptable to the westhetic sense. Money is one of these. We do not —Iam speaking of people of refinement —wish to know what is the cost of articles or how they are purchased any more than we care to assist at the prep- aration of our food or the slaughter of cattle which are to provide us with sustenance. And yet even these rude functions may be so directed and accom- plished as not to be offensive to our sense of delicacy. WORKING FOR HIS FRIEND. She: WMAT MAKES YOU THINK HE LOVES ME SO DESPERATELY ? above has LiFE’s deepest pity. a - - ee oe Stmplex: O, A THOUSAND LITTLE THINGS! HE ALWAYS LOOKS PLEASED, FOR INSTANCE, For months this brainless biped wey you SING AND PLAY. has been pouring out similar drivel — in the columns of a weekly journal The special brand of idiot who can publish utterances like the whose name we considerately refrain from giving. The paper is young, very young, but anything over two weeks old should know better than to print such loathsome twaddle. From his brilliant pen came the statement, some time ago, that ‘one should dress quietly at a funeral.” It is many a long day since the reading public has been brought face to face with anything so fatuous and so sickening as this complacent “ gent.” RS. A.: 1 called on Mr, and Mrs. Laster this afternoon. I tell you they are a well mated pair ! Mrs. B.: Why so? Mrs. A.: There is not another man in the world who would take from her what he does! DISTINGUISHED teacher once said: ‘Boys, a preposition is a very bad word to end a sentence with.” comicbooks.com