Life, 1898-08-11 · page 14 of 20
Life — August 11, 1898 — page 14: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This is a satirical story from *Life* magazine about romantic courtship, presented in the fashionable "epigrammatic" (witty, philosophical) style of the era. The main illustration shows a figure on a penny-farthing bicycle labeled "AHEAD OF THE HOUNDS"—likely depicting Cupid or a lover racing ahead competitively, a visual joke about modern romance as a kind of chase or conquest. The text is mockery of overly intellectual Victorian/Edwardian courtship dialogue. Two characters, Ruth Fairfax and Arthur Hodges, engage in absurdly pretentious philosophical debate about love, emotion, and marriage—trading paradoxes about whether men are "synthetic," whether women's hearts are "categorical," and whether marriage is "the ultimate sacrifice of man's implicit belief in woman." The satire targets the pretentiousness of educated people who intellectualize romance into meaninglessness, turning a simple marriage proposal into incomprehensible jargon. It's mocking both affected speech and gender-war rhetoric of the period.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
114 -LIFE- A Caprice of Cupid. A VOYAGE OF CONQUEST. Being a Love Story after the Fashion of the Modern Epigrammatic School. THE aiet sat by the window dreamtly as the twilight shadows tn columns drew their wavering lines across the lawn, to lose themselves at last beneath the great old trees. She was thinking of the fnture, for within an hour Arthur Hodges was to come for the answer she nised to have ready for him, It 1 seemed to Rath Fairfax to be an tusk {o settle the question which would change the tenor and trend of two lives, but when she had brought herself to confront the condition before her with ts Infinitude of possibilities and tmpossthi 1 discov. been presented to her whose solution was beyond her unalded powers. One and Cupid do pot constitute a majority. It was thus she sat in her perplexity at the twillght hour, awaiting te appearance of the unknown quantity in the compound equation of hearts, At last he came, and as he took her hand in greet- Ing she trembled. very heart has its own intelligences, What a sweetly unutterable twilight,” he sald, as he looked out upon the beavy, cool shadows marking the lawn with the coming of the night, “ As if in some deep forest dell,” she responded, In pertect accord with his spirit and the hour. As he took the chair at the opposite side of the window she smiled. There is so much of the untranslatable in a sintle, “ Have you thought of me since our last meeting #"* he asked, presently. “More than T ever did.” * And you love me?” he followed, tmpulstvely, as a lover might. “Nay, T did not say as much,” she stghed, restraining him by a motion of her band. “ What ts lover”? * Love 13," he replied, studying a moment, “ the great ndirigibie.” “ And La It not as well the incommunicable infinttuder” «Possibly It 1s that, I know it ls woman's last analysis.” “ And why not man’s?” “ Man ts synthetic." “But man ts not lesa human than woman? Le Is more #0." “Then why should not love be an elemental emotion, ringtng Its changes on the chords of his heart?” * Man ts an emotional incapabie."” «Are ail men so?” “Some men are born with hearts, some men achieve hearts, and some inen have hearts thrust upon them.” “Are women not in that category?" “Women are not categorical. A woman's heart 1s.a problem, a heterogenelty, with no twoallke, and yet no two essentially dissimilar.” * Would you marry such a woman?” “Men do not analyze the cructal test of thetr affections, They marry.” “Is marriage the test #" “It is the ultimate sacrifice of man’s tinplicit and unexpressed belief In woman. “Do you mean thot marriage ts the incomparable Btness of the divine essence and the human materi- AHEAD OF THE HOUNDS. ality on the altar of man’s tacompattbuity 7 she comicbooks.com