Life, 1895-11-21 · page 8 of 18
Life — November 21, 1895 — page 8: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
# Analysis This page satirizes the female editorial staff of *The Boudoir Bulletin* magazine. The three sequential cartoons show the same group of women in increasingly chaotic states during what appears to be an editorial meeting. The text mocks their tendency to speak without completing sentences ("do without the first syllable of the last verb") and describes one as "The Recipe Woman"—a materialist who compares writing to "confessing to a priest" and reduces literary value to practical measures like "pounds of Sutton cheese grated." The satire targets early 20th-century women journalists and magazine editors, suggesting they were intellectually pretentious yet commercially-minded, prone to incomplete thoughts, and prone to indignation when their work was actually read. The humor relies on period misogyny about women's intellectual capacity and workplace competence.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
AMONG THE LITERARY. HE female staff of The Boudoir Bulletin was enjoying itself at one of those slander- bees and indigestion-orgies, humorously known among ladies as a Dove-party. Drawn together by the magnetism of intellect, one bottle of olives and a dish of salted almonds, they discussed each other's work. A casual observer might have noticed among them a tendency to do without the first syllable of the last verb—and also to speak all at once. Now and then, however, when the rest had their mouths full of charlotte russe, an enterprising woman would struggle to make herself audible. The Recipe Woman was talking. Naturally she was a materialist. “Nowadays,” she began, with gestures that vaguely suggested beating eggs, ‘writing is like confessing to a priest. The Public is the priest and the confessions are printed—that is, if they bear the stamp of truth. Nothing imagiriary sells.” “* What about that weird little prose poem of yours ?”” exclaimed the Storyette Writer. “The one which appeared in The Young Wife last week, and says that six mushrooms and two pounds of Stilton cheese grated forms an ex- cellent and palatable dish for invalids? Isn't it paid for?” In her surprise which followed the discovery that someone had actually read her work, the Recipe Woman forgot to be indignant, FOOTBALL TERM. “FALLING ON THE BALL.” comicbooks.com