Life, 1894-08-16 · page 7 of 16
Life — August 16, 1894 — page 7: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
# Life Magazine Page 103 Analysis This page contains **summer social satire** set at Newport, Rhode Island—then America's premier wealthy resort. The cartoons mock high-society pretension, particularly around displaying expensive jewelry and hosting elaborate dinner parties. The text criticizes wealthy women like Mrs. Elisha Dyer and Mrs. William F. Burden for ostentatiously wearing valuable pearls and diamonds to public events, arguing that true refinement wouldn't require such displays. A secondary joke mocks gossip about Mrs. Paran Stevens and Mr. Ward McAllister (prominent Newport socialites) supposedly orchestrating society guest lists—suggesting their influence over who gets invited to exclusive dinners. The overall message: nouveau riche Newport society values appearances over actual breeding or intelligence.
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Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
f ; > LIFE: 103 SUMMER READING. HESE items are from a New York daily, The scene is laid at Newport. At the two dances last week there was a fair show of belles and beaux, scores of handsome toilets and a plentiful glimmer of diamonds. Mrs, Elisha Dyer, Jr., looked handsome in a gown of rainbow silk, trimmed with lace and made with sleeves of amber velvet. Mrs. Her: mann Oelrichs was in pale blue satin, elaborately embroidered with pearls and trimmed with point lace. There is certainly no advantage in possessing expensive jewels if one doesn’t wear them, and there is no use in wearing them if nobody is to know it. That is where the “Society” reporter is a useful thing. Although times are hard, we have no reason to doubt that these pearls and diamonds are real. Possibly they are the identical ones so often mentioned last winter. It is also pleasant to learn that Mrs. William F. Burden was in black satin, the bodice plentifully covered with white lace, and the small, puffed sleeves of magenta velvet caught up with diamond buckles. ’ And then, to think that The Count and Countess Sierstorpff to-morrow night will give the first of a series of dinner parties, invitations to which are much prized. And justly prized, too, we have no doubt. The food will probably be excellent, and the company well dressed and orderly, but why tell us about it ? WELL, WELL! HERE is a rumor from Newport that Mrs. Paran Stevens and Mr. Ward McAllister held a council of war and decided the Pullman family should be excluded from their set. We are not personally acquainted with the Pull- mans, and have no correct idea of just how sensitive or ambitious they may be, but we do happen to know something of Mrs. Paran Stevens and of Mr. Ward McAllister. To be damned by such a jury is either a compliment to the victims’ — intelligence and refinement or the deepest degradation to which a white adult can be subjected. It is either a side splitting farce or a howling tragedy. THEY UNJUSTLY HOLD REGINALD RESPONSIBLE FOR THE STUR- HORNNESS OF THE ANIMAL. We have nothing but praise for the way in which the hero of this story kills men. When it has to be done he makes clean work of it—even when he is compelled to run a knife into a man who is asleep in a boat. We have only one fault to find with him—he ought to have run off with the beautiful princess. When he restored the real king to his kingdom he satisfied the moralities enough. The laws of romance demand that a genuine hero should be devilish enough to run away with a beautiful wo- man when he has the chance. This is the only indication in the book that the modern Englishman has fallen away from the standard of the middle ages. In the meantime, where is the American School of Ro- mance? A contemporary cynic says that it is attending He 18 FINALLY RESCUED, BUT HIS. CONF afternoon teas and kettledrums ! Droch. NATURE IS TERRIBLY SHAKEN, IN HUMAN comicbooks.com