Life, 1897-03-04 · page 8 of 20
Life — March 4, 1897 — page 8: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
# Page 170 of Life Magazine - Satirical Story with Illustrations This page presents a humorous narrative about a devil attending a theater performance. The top illustration shows a woman in bed wearing an enormous, ornate feathered hat—the story's central joke. The devil demands she remove it, but she refuses, cursing him to wear it permanently as punishment. The satire targets the absurd fashion of oversized women's hats that were apparently common in the era when this was published. The bottom illustration shows a dinner scene, suggesting the hat's social prominence. The joke relies on period readers' familiarity with excessively large, decorated hats as a real fashion problem—so ridiculous that even the devil finds them unbearable. The punishment humorously inverts the fashion excess back onto the wearer.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
aay BARRERA CARAS e couldn't remove it on going to bed. Twas a wide-rolling brim, and a high-peakéd crown, And black feathers stood up and black feathers hung down; And bla direction, Without any visible scheme of connection. ked with rare flowers of a marvelous size, feathers waved wildly in eve Twas de And colors that seemed to bedazzle the cyes Sete And each vacant space Was {filled in witn ace, And twenty-three birds in the ribbons found place. And as this arrangement quite shut off his view, The devil was nonplussed to know what to du. And although he is not very often amazed, Upon this occasion he found he was phased. But, looking around, He very soon found fair ladies, as gorgeously gowned, Held their hats in their laps, Or still better, perhaps, lad left them outside in the room with their wra And assuming at once a society air, Me leaned over the back of the fair stranger's chair And with manner well-bred, ‘Beg pardon,” he said, “Will you please take that awful thing off of your head?” When what do you think! The lady addressed Indignantly stared, and politely expressed A decided refusal to grant his request. And the poor devil sat Behind that big hat, So mad that he didn't know where he was at. a thing that took place on the stage, ‘That many He could not se And he worked himself into a terrible rage. He murmured quite low — But she heard him, you know — ‘Lady, since you refused to remove that chapeau, You're condemned now to wear it wherever you go. Since you won't take it off when a duty you owe, You shall not take it off when you wish to do so. Alas for the lady! The devil has power, And the rest of her life, from that terrible hour, The curse of the devil compelled her to wear That enormous be-flowered and be-feathered affair Her lot was a sad one. If you'll reckon o'er The times when a hat is a terrible bore, ‘She wore it at dinners.”