Life, 1903-12-10 · page 23 of 58
Life — December 10, 1903 — page 23: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
**Top Cartoon:** A man asks a woman what she wants most in her Christmas stocking. She replies "probably bounteous nature"—a witty non-answer that avoids directly naming a gift, playing on the era's social expectation that women should appear modest and uninterested in material goods. **"Love's Calendar":** This longer piece satirizes the disconnect between what lovers *say* and reality. A couple in a beautiful spring garden complains everything is miserable (cold, dreary flowers dying), yet claims it's December. Later, in actual winter snow and freezing cold, they claim it's lovely and warm, insisting it's really May. The joke: love makes people see conditions opposite to reality, or lovers will agree with each other regardless of truth. **Final Joke:** A father defines a coquette as "any girl my son that a man wants but can't get"—mocking both the social game of romantic pursuit and the father's cynical worldview. All three pieces mock romantic pretense and social dishonesty in courtship.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
She: OW, 1 WAY LOTS OP CHRISTMAS PRESENTS, BUT WHO DO YoU ATPPORR PUT THE MOST IN MY STOCKING? Love's Calendar. L MAN anda maid ~~ entered together a garden of green grass and bine skies, sweet with a thousand scents of blooming flowers, and musical with the songs of many birds. They had come to bid each other a last farewell, and slowly and dejectedly they crossed the sunlit spaces until they stood beside a gleam- ing, rippling fountain. “What is that mournful sound?” asked the girl, listlessly. “A bluebird, I think.’ answered the man. ‘Dreary, isn’t it?” “ WELL, PROBABLY BOUNTEOUS NaTUKE.” “Tam so cold,” shivered the girl. “Small wonder,”’ he replied. "It is snowing,” as the light wind tossed a shower of cherry blossoms about their heads. “No,” she corrected ; “raining, I think,” as a drop from the fountain plashed against her cheek. ‘* Misera- ble her.” “ Wretched,"’ corroborated the man. “There is frost in the air, All the flowers look if ti were dying. Strange, so late in Me *May?" cried the thought it was December. ul. maid, “1 O* a day when the skies were lower- ing and overcast, when the ther- mometer slid down its scale as down a toboggan slide, and the air held the sharp sting of a thousand electric needles, the man and the maid again entered the garden, and floundered through the snow until they stood, laughing and happy, beside the now frozen fountain. “What lovely weather !"’ cried the «So invigorating !"" “Splendidly fresh and bracing,’’ answered the man. ‘ How musical is the sound of the fountain,’’ as the wind howled through the leafless trees. ‘Indeed, yes,’’ responded the maid, dreamily. ‘The sun 1s warm, too. Listen !” suddenly.“ What are those bells?” “Christmas bells,” he answered, “Christn bells? Absurd! Why, this is Ma He pondered deeply. ‘* Nay ; it feels like May. But I think—I am quite sure that it is December.”” Mra, Wilson Woodrore, “PAPA, what is a coquette?” “ Any girl, my son, thata man wants but can’t get.” comicbooks.com