Life — September 5, 1901 — page 5: what you’re looking at

What you’re looking at

# "What Love Will Do" - Life Magazine, Page 185 This satirical illustration depicts a romantic dialogue between a couple. The caption presents a conversation where he asks where they'd live after marriage, and she responds that she'd be content anywhere—even in a modest twenty-thousand-dollar house on a side street with only three servants. The satire targets upper-class assumptions about wealth and "modest" living. What the woman describes as humble (a substantial house requiring three servants) would be luxurious to most readers. The joke exposes the disconnect between wealthy people's concept of frugality and ordinary people's actual circumstances. The dramatic lighting and serious composition contrast humorously with the trivial, self-absorbed nature of their romantic concern.