Life, 1905-02-02 · page 29 of 40
Life — February 2, 1905 — page 29: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This illustration satirizes American domestic life and upper-class pretension. The sketch shows an elegantly dressed couple at a round breakfast table surrounded by servants and attendants in an ornate, curtained room—depicting what Life presents as an idealized "cozy" breakfast scene. The satire lies in the contrast between the caption's modest claim of coziness and the illustration's obvious display of wealth, formality, and excess. A truly "cozy" breakfast would be intimate and informal; instead, this scene is stiff, servants-attended, and ostentatious. The cartoonist mocks the American wealthy for their self-deception about luxury—calling their elaborate, impersonal domestic arrangements "cozy" reveals their disconnect from authentic comfort. This appears as filler content between book reviews, using visual humor to critique contemporary upper-class American manners and self-awareness.
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Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
indeed, is a close shot at a shining mark, but when the hero's father says of him that “if he were a little queerer he might be a genius, but as it is, he is only a fool,” ke unwittingly describes the book. Mr. E. Phillips Oppenheim’s novel, The Betrayal, is in reality an excep- tionally well-handled detective story, but as the perplexing leakage in gov- ernment secrets, which keeps the reader guessing throughout the book, is ex- plained without the aid either of Scot- land Yard or of any amateur sleuth of Sherlockian intuitions, one hesitates to saddle it with this much-abused defi- nition, There need be no hesitancy, how- ever, about applying this definition to The Millionaire Baby, by Anna Kath- erine Green. In Mr. Oppenheim's novel we are curious about the solution of the mystery because of our keen interest in the people concerned. In Mrs. Green's GLIMPSES OF SOME AMERICAN HOMES A COZY BREAKFAST ROOM. tale we endure the uninteresting people, if we do endure them, through curios- ity about the mystery. Between the two attitudes there is a great gulf fixed. The tragic fate of President Mira- flores, of the Republic of Anchuria, the home of the banana, the maiiana and the revolution, is the foundation of a series of informal digressions called Cabbages and Kings, by O. Henry. The American colony at Colario, the daily traffic in business and opera bouffe, and the author's trick of vivid and humorous narration, make a re- freshing novelty in current fiction. ‘The volume upon Guns, Ammunition and Tackle, in the American Sports- man’s Library, is one of the best of the series, It profits by a happy combina- tion in that it is not only written by experts, but by experts who can write. It includes articles on the shotgun by A. W. Money, on the hunting rifle by Horace Kephart, on the pistol and re- ili! Jil} ink Hi Ni i volver by A. L. A. Hemmelwright, and a remarkably compact summary of the scientific theory of rifle shooting by W. E. Carlin, The volume upon Photog- raphy for the Sportsman Naturalist, by L. W. Brownell, is said by the au- thor to be intended for beginners, and it is perhaps necessary to emphasize the qualification in describing this handbook of a difficult and interesting sport. J.B. Kerfoot. The Amateur Spirit, By Bliss Perry. (Hough- ton, Miffin and Company. $1.25.) The Gray World. By Evelyn Underhill, (The Century Company. $1.50.) The Betrayal, By E. Phillips Oppenheim (Dodd, Mead and Company. $1.50.) The Millionaire Baby. Wy Anna Katherine Green, (The Bobbs-Merrill Company, Indianapo- lis, $2.0.) Cabbages and Kings. By O. Henry. (McClure, ips and Company. $1.50.) Guns, Ammunition and Tackle, By A, W. Money and others. (The Macmillan Company. $2.00) Photography for the Sportsman Naturalist. By L. W. Brownell, (The Macmillan Company. $2.00.) comicbooks.com