Life, 1904-02-18 · page 13 of 26
Life — February 18, 1904 — page 13: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page contains multiple satirical pieces mocking women's magazines and fashion culture of the early 1900s. **"The Wonders of Art"** (main illustration): Three fashionably dressed women display absurdly elaborate clothing. The caption satirizes women's magazine advice—one woman attempted to follow magazine recipes and household tips literally for a month, resulting in her hospitalization, bruised and starved. The satire targets the impracticality of magazine advice and women's blind devotion to such publications. **"The Dear Girls" and "More Than He Could Afford"**: Brief comic exchanges mocking courtship and materialism—a man admires a woman's health (actually hand-painted makeup), and a brother cannot afford an expensive picture frame for a pretty girl. **"Fashion"** (essay): A pseudo-academic definition treating fashion as a psychological disease endemic to Paris, affecting women more than men, with "starvation" as the only cure. This mock-serious tone satirizes both fashion obsession and intellectualized social commentary. The overall point: ridicule of women's susceptibility to magazine trends and fashion's wasteful, impractical demands.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
163 she clasped her magazines to her heart with pitiful, scarred hands. THE WONDERS OF ART. “AND THEN, MY DEARS, 1 AM GOING TO HAVE FLUFFY LACE ALL DOWN THE FRONT, 50 A8 TO MAKE ME LOOK LIONT AND ainy.”? stove would have a dainty, epicurean meal ready to serve. When not en- gaged in the restful recreations of cooking and washing dishes, one of the bachelor maids wrote brilliant bits of fiction, the sale of which afforded her a handsome income ; the other painted water-colors, which people came from Japan and San Francisco to buy. “How simple, how easy, how cheap!’ said the woman who read. “I too can paper a room with Sunday newspapers and have no end of fun in trying those delicious recipes the magazines so kindly give. The last ones, for instance,—that prune and tomato soufflé served with whipped cream and minced bananas, or the poached eggs with glacé nuts and chocolate sauce.” So enthusiastic was she that noth- ing could swerve her from her pur- pose—not the prayers of the righteous nor the counsels of the ungodly. For one month she tried her ex- periment, and then the ambulance stopped at the door, and they bore her out with tender hauds. She was bruised and battered from sleeping in a folding automobile, burned to a crisp from cooking behind a screen, starved in body, dazed and confused in mind ; but with the touching loyalty of lov- ing, trusting, self-sacrificing woman, The hospital surgeon wept at the sight. “Oh, woman's page, woman's page,”” he cried, ‘‘ what crimes are committed in thy name!” “Do not blame them,” feebly gasped the sufferer. ‘I failed; but all they advise can be done, if one have six pair of hands and a baker's dozen of brains.” Mra, Wilson Woodrow. The Dear Girls. ISS ROSEATE: Fred says he admires me because I am the picture of health. Miss Patuip: Yes, the silly fellow was always crazy for anything hand- painted ! More Than He Could Afford. ‘PoE SISTER: Why don’t you get possession of that girl? She is as pretty as a picture. Tue Brotuer: The frame is too expensive. Fashion. ‘i {,ASHION is that particular patho- logic perversity which developed from the originally benignant instinct of imitation, during that systematic distortion of primordially normal de- sires which man calls civilization. It is endemic in Paris and other congested centres, spreading thence with epi- demic virulence. The rich are more subject than the poor, women more than men, and Pharisees more than Philistines, The only known cure is starvation. The only immunes are philosophers, ancestors, and the fourth dimension. A SPANKING TEAM. comicbooks.com