Life, 1899-11-30 · page 6 of 20
Life — November 30, 1899 — page 6: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
# "At the Agency" - Social Satire on Marriage and Employment The central cartoon depicts a domestic employment agency scene. A man in formal dress presents himself to female staff, stating he wants "a girl who can cook, wait on the table, sew on buttons, who is willing, obliging, cheerful, and not tired at night and not afraid of work." The satire targets the absurdly unrealistic expectations men held for wives during this era. The man's demands—combining domestic labor, emotional cheerfulness, and constant availability—mock the entitled attitudes many husbands possessed. The agency setting frames marriage as transactional employment, highlighting how women were expected to be perpetually available servants within their marriages, with no legitimate claim to fatigue or personal boundaries.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
426 Fearful! F. Marion Crawford ts writing a story entitled “In Olt Madrid,” which will be sertaltzed, the first portion appearing in January, 1900. Literary Notes. OMEHOW, wo've never realized Just what 'tis to be “seriall But now the thing’s materialized We hope we won't be drearilized, Three Kinds of Dialect. TPPHERE is no particular literary virtue in bad spelling, and yet very fow books of fiction are written in straightaway He; NEVYR OUT NIGHTS AND NOT APRALD OF WOKK. “SURE, 80R, YOU WANT A WIPE," English, You must get color into your characters, and when you show what they are by dialogue, you must get color into thoir speech, Dialect is a dovice, and most readers say that they detest it, but many books would be dull without it. Irish and Dutch comedians can't “do their turns” in correct English. Imagino Jool Chandlor Harris's “ Planta- tion Pageants" (Houghton)and Chronicles of Aunt Minervy Ann” (Scribner) translated into perfectly correct ‘English! Aunt ‘LIFE Minercy's fable ot “Brer Rabbit and tho Goobvers” would interest neither child nor grown-ups {If told in plain specch, But when Minercy embroiders it with ber delightful “nigger talk,” Brer Rabbit roaches the dignity of a real personage. ‘Those stories by Mr. Harris show what a consummate teller of tales he is. Ho is as simple and straightforward in his methods asa fireside talker, He seldom soems to strive for an effect, but ho makes it with ease. Ho never fails to got his reader into the atmosphere of bis stories. While you read them you are a Southerner and look at things in his way, . . . T is « long way from the Plantation to Chicago, from the mellow dialect of Minercy to tho * Fables in Slang" (Stone) of Georgo Ade. ‘Tho slang of the strvets is AT THE AGENCY. not pretty. Thero is always a touct. of vulgarity in its smartness, its bluster, ite air of “getting the better” of the other follow. Its expressive, and it “gets there every timo” —but it {s irritating. In these Fables Mr. Ado has condensed the wisdom of tho smart city youth. He has done it acutely, and with admirable irony. Thore is a cynical air about the Fables — puncturing shama, jeoring at social striving, and laughing at those who assume to be something, One of tho best of tho Fables is that of tho Blue Dyspeptic, who discovered that all booksof fiction area Mockery. He divided them into ten efassee. Mr. Ado's book belongs to No. 3—"' The Book that runs into a snarl of Dialect on the third page and never gots out.” . . . HIE dialect of Devonshire pervades “On Trial” (Seribner),a new story by Zack (the author who won recognition with her short stories in “Life Is Life.”) It isa curious tale, founded on a delicate pay- chological motive, and yet without any fino-spun analysis in it. Tho hero is a coward, who tries to face a situation into which his cowardice has brought him. Tho talo Is very simply developed —so simply that the inevitablo tragedy happens as a matter of course, Thero is a remorseless, logic in all that the strange ‘group of charactors do, Tho heroine who steals to save hor lover from going to India as a soldier, and buys 1 AM LIVING IN BACHELOR APARTMENTS, AND T WANT 4 GIRL WHO CAN COOK, WAIT ON THE TABLE, SEW ON BUTTONS, WHO 18 WILLING, OBLIGING, “a Savery RalseR.” comicbooks.com