Life, 1897-02-11 · page 7 of 20
Life — February 11, 1897 — page 7: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
# Analysis of Life Magazine Page 109 This page contains two distinct illustrations with accompanying text. **Top illustration ("A Full House"):** Shows four women in elaborate period costumes and headdresses in a flat landscape. This illustrates a discussion of female novelists, apparently critiquing their work as relying on "intuition" rather than careful observation of actual life. The text references George Eliot and Daniel Deronda, suggesting the debate concerns whether women writers produce authentic social commentary. **Bottom illustration and moral:** Depicts a woman holding a scale with figures, with the sun above. The caption reads: "MORAL: NEVER CALL IN A THIRD PERSON IN A LOVE AFFAIR." This is a straightforward cautionary illustration about romantic entanglements—a satirical commentary on relationship advice, warning against involving outsiders in personal matters. The page's overall tone is satirical commentary on literature, gender, and social behavior typical of Life magazine's approach.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
What Zangwill and other clever men of his time are kicking against is the tyranny of accumulated information. “George Elio! “ failed as soon as she began to substitute intellectual concepts for the vivid impressions of carly memories.” When she “ fell back on intuition and her library she produced ‘Daniel Deronda.’ Nevertheless, there is more to be said “for the permanent value of * Daniel Deronda” than for the heaps of novels by women writers of to-day. whose whole equipment seems to be their observation of the disagreeable facts of life. A litte culture would not come amiss to some of your writing- he sa: countrywomen, Mr. Zangwill! Drock, MORAL: NEVER CALL IN A THIRD PERSON IN A LOVE AFFAIR. “A FULL HOUSE.” LOOKING BACKWARD. OLLY had insisted all along that it was an inspiration —“‘inspiration” was her word for it—but 1 knew from the beginning that it was foolishness, the worst sort of fool ishness, and would lead to no end of trouble, to say nothing of a probable illustrated supplement in one of the dreadful Sunday papers —if not all of them—with details ad nauseam, And yet the whole thing that I fully realized as I read over the fantastically-printed card of invitation that was stuck in my dressing-mirror: “Mr. and Mrs. Twiller Van Twiller request the pleasure of your company on St. Valentine's Eve. “Bal Poudré. there was a certain humor about “It is requested that all guests come in the cos- tume of the earliest ancestor of whom they have any definite knowledge. There was “richness” in this, no doubt, and 1 couldn't help chuckling to myself as Patterson helped me solve the intricacies of a major of dragoons’ uniform in the Continental army, and strapped on the identical sword that had flashed so effectively in the hands of | Major John Oliver at Long Island, Monmouth Prince- | ton. /could afford to frankly avow my ancestry, and so could Polly as a prim Puritan. How many others among the four hundred r nts of invitations would dare to be sc ingenuous, though? The more I thought of it, the more I thought that perhaps it was an inspiration on the fart of Mrs. Van Twiller. (The mirror certainly showed me a rather fine- looking young rebel, if I do sa yself. And I could easily see that Patterson's cr were satisfied.) And surely she had nothing to gain, if she dug faithfully down to the roots of Aer family tree. At any rate," We are safe,” I said, mentally, as I adjusted the plumed hat on my white periwig and threw the long military cloak over mv regimentals.