Life, 1909-04-22 · page 14 of 32
Life — April 22, 1909 — page 14: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This satirical story by Mrs. Wilson Woodrow uses personified punctuation marks to mock two contrasting female archetypes of the early 1900s. The **Letter O** represents traditional, conservative womanhood: motherly, modest, practical, wearing the same clothes for years, concerned with domestic matters (her hens). The **?** (Question Mark) embodies the "New Woman"—a progressive, intellectual, restless figure who pursues causes and self-discovery, dismisses marriage, and speaks of women's awakening consciousness. She's fashionable, mysterious, and obsessed with eternal questions. The joke satirizes both types: the O for her dull domesticity and moral rigidity; the ? for her pretentious idealism and rejection of practical concerns. Their conversation—where even hens supposedly embrace "new ideas" and stop laying—mocks how thoroughly progressive ideology supposedly pervades society, suggesting the feminist awakening is becoming absurdly pervasive and impractical.
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Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
554 “LIFE: The > and the Letter O BY MRS. WILSON WoopRow HE ? and the Lotter O were having afternoon tea to- gether. Following the invariable law of natural selec tion, The ? was drinking coffce, while the Letter O sipped chocolate and whipped cream, In accord with the same law they also fell into conversation, although they had not previ- ously met The Letter O was a motherly person with a stout figure, : round, red face and a placid smile. She wore a head cover ing of which she had spoken affectionately as “my winter hat" for the last five years. Her gown was a serviceable two-picce garment which she had laid away in moth balls in June and November for ten years or more, and she always referred to it as “my tailor. suit.” be unimpeachable The ?, on the other hand, was excessively tall, and as ad hung on the clothes line the first two days in Her boots proclaimed her morals to thin and sinuous as a whalebone. Her gown clung to her like a snake's skin and her hat threw the upper part of hee face in Rembrandt shadow to the bridge of her nose; a mysterious perfume floated about her, and her jewels were weird, quaint, Oriental and weighed a ton, “Let us waste no time in banal chatter.” said the >, “ but let us each get at once to the real of each. I beg that you will not let yourself be overcome by cither my fame or my beauty, for the world says I have both, but utter freely to me your most sincere thought.” “I'd like to know,” said the Letter O. “why the hens don’t lay? E are so dear that we could make a fortune if they'd only behave themselves.” I'M VERY SOKLY, MADAM, BUT UNDER THE CIRCUMSTANCES, LL HAVE TO RE IDENTIFIED” SERIOUS INTENTIONS “Who knows!” the ? replied with a wan, subtle smile. “ Perhaps all through the animal kingdom, even to hens, may be felt the great awakening of the feminine consciousness. Woman is finding herself and her wonderful, wonderful soul is revealed.” “Oh, dear!" sighed the Letter O. “I'm always been such a comfort to think that no matter in what condition your soul might be, it didn't show on the outside; but if it's coming 10 the surface like this, no telling what the cighbors will Would you consider it impertinent if I ask what kind of a soul you have “Mine is the secking kind,” answered the ?, with an cestatic, upward glance. “I must ask, inquire, knock at every door; ever propound the eternal question.” “And what do you seck particularly—a husband?” Mbt" the ? shuddered. “No wonder your frock has suth a mossy look! ‘That pursuit is all out of fashion. We want a cause 10 die for. Look at our sisters in England! And here,” her voice thrilling with indignation, “ our pusil- lanimous men give us everything we want terly, “that they will give us th and no show at a martyr’s crown.” “L've got all the struggle I want trying to induce those hens to lay,” sighed the Letter O. “The more I think of it, the more I believe they have taken up these new ideas. No more nice, lazy dust baths for theirs, I notice, but standing around in groups as if they were discussing something. I wonder if Dr. Lyman Abbott wouldn't come down and talk to them. He's an Anti, isn’t he?” Reactionary!" hissed the ?. Radical!” laughed the Letter O, ly takin: another fattening gulp of chocolate and ercam. “ Make hay This is your hour. Mine will come. The carth roll around to me again.” This is indeed my hour,” said the ?, rising haughtily and drawing her rich furs about her. “Do you really mean to say,” incredulously, “that you do not know me?” The Letter O shook her head. “ You spoke of your fame, but—— Ah,” with another rapturous glance upward, “my fame It is, indeed, mine, and in great store. I know the artist's joy in creation, for I, too, have my individual expression. Ah, Letter O, go back to your hens, but first bend low, and let me whisper it to you. You have to-day met and talkee, with the inventor of the best selling picture puzzle on the H™ inconsistent women are; They'll shrick and scream at mice, And then go ‘round with large sized rats, And think them very nice. M. R. Garrettson Andrew. » sorry. It's I'm sure,” bit- ballot without a struggle, comicbooks.com