Life, 1896-04-23 · page 9 of 20

Life — April 23, 1896 — page 9: what you’re looking at

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Life — April 23, 1896 — page 9: Life, 1896-04-23

What you’re looking at

# Analysis This illustration from *Life* magazine (page 329) presents a social satire about romantic rejection. The caption reads: "She: MY HEART IS NOT OF STONE! 'NO, ASPHALT—SOT IN SUMMER, FLINT IN WINTER.'" The cartoon depicts a well-dressed man with a cane addressing a fashionably-dressed woman who turns away coldly. The joke plays on the woman's claim that her heart isn't stone—the man's retort suggests her heart is actually *asphalt* (soft/yielding in summer heat, hard in winter cold), implying her affections are inconsistent and weather-dependent rather than genuinely cold. This is a typical early-20th-century *Life* magazine quip about female fickleness in romance, using architectural materials as metaphors for emotional unreliability. The sophisticated dress and refined setting suggest upper-class courtship humor.

📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

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