Life, 1903-10-01 · page 9 of 36
Life — October 1, 1903 — page 9: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page contains a satirical illustration titled "Unkind" showing a horse pulling a plow with the caption "The Fox: 'I beg your pardon, sir, but when did they get your brush?'" The cartoon appears to be social satire about beauty and vanity. A fox addresses a horse, questioning when the horse lost its "brush" (tail). The joke likely mocks someone who has lost their attractiveness or dignity—the "brush" serving as a metaphor for beauty or status. The left side features poetry about love, describing it as "irresistible" and "a disease" among friends. The right side contains "A Misplaced Admonition," a prose piece about a young woman whose beauty was destroyed by scandal, warning against vanity and the destructive nature of lost reputation. The combined elements suggest satire about superficial beauty and social standing.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
The For : Love. You recover. Everybody does. NDEFINABLE. Irresistible. A disease, Not fatal, But wearing. Your friend catches it. He talks. You catch it. You talk, Your friends have like opinions. They are right. Your friend recovers, It is a nightmare, A hideous nightmare. Don’t dream. A Misplaced Admonition. BEAUTIFUL young girl, about to enter a complexion parlor, was ac- costed by a haggard woman who sold shoe- strings upon the street corner, and who urged her to pause a moment and listen to the remarkable story of her life. The girl, who was as kind as she was fair and, because a woman, curious, consented ; and the sobbing creature poured forth her story. “Just one bright year ago," she began, “Twas an heiress in my own right and as young and beautiful as yourself, As usual, I had spent the summer by the sea and mountains and had laid in a store of d, ruddy health. On returning to vy, I happened, in an evil moment, to chance upon the woman's page of a Sunday newspaper, and what I read therein has proved my undoing. I learned that the sun and the wind and the sea that I bad loved so well were but malign destroyers of my beauty; that the sun painted me an unlovely brown ; that the wind blew too a 1 DEG YOUR PARDON, Sin, BUT WHEN DID THEY OFT Your Bresu? much sparkle into my eyes and too much red into cheeks, and that the sea robbed my hair of its lustre. I further learned that the only way to restore my loveliness was to go in search of the beauty doctors. “I did so, and they sighed as they looked at me; for you must know that the real artist ever co the work of his hands; but after study- ing my case, they told me that to restore in re my beauty, would take time, systematic treatment and much money.” At this, the wretched woman fell to sob- bing afresh. ‘Alas! Alas! It has!” she cried. “ But being a woman and in the pur- suit of beauty, nothing could daunt me, and Within six months,” her voice sinking toa hollow whis per, “Iwas bankrupt, penniless, my last bit of property gone, and, in place of my once radiant beauty, you see these terrible ravages, —necrosis of the bone of the nose from having paraffine injected to build up a and, @ measure, re- I gave them carte blanche. comicbooks.com