Life, 1912-05-02 · page 34 of 58
Life — May 2, 1912 — page 34: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This is a short story by Juliet Wilsor Tompkins about Mrs. Lawrence's frantic preparation for her husband's arrival home. The cartoon shows a domestic scene where a man stands while a woman sits at her dressing table. The satirical point targets the labor and manipulation underlying "feminine" domesticity. Mrs. Lawrence rushes through an elaborate beauty regimen (hair styling, makeup, corseting), then frantically manages household details—instructing the cook, adjusting lighting, starting fires—all to present herself as effortlessly attractive and her home as perfectly comfortable when her husband arrives. The story's title ironically suggests that "what every woman knows" is the performative nature of domestic life: that a wife's value depends on invisible work that must appear natural and unstudied. Her "race" won when he rewards her with warm approval reveals the transactional nature of marriage. This critiques early 20th-century expectations that women's labor—both physical and emotional—should go unacknowledged.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
ATTER, MY DEAR?” on, I'M PERFECTLY 1 PRESENT 15. TRYING TO TELL AUTIFUL WE THINK ITER MORRID OLD WEDDING THAT GOTROX PERSON HOW What Every Woman Knows BY JULIET WILDOR TOMPKINS RS. LAWRENCE emerged from her shampoo with a sleck, fat little head and a plain face. It was not a stupid face, nor an unpleasing one, but there was no suggestion of good looks; and just now the striking of a clock had startled it into the solemnity of alarmed but intelligent haste. She lost no time in berating herself or consulting other clocks. The lights by the dressing table flashed up, and curling tongs were set to heat while her feet sprang from high-heeled pink mules to bronze slippers: then the tongs had to be violent! to cool them, and an odor of scorched paper arose. The room had been open and the cold went up the lace sleeves of her dressing jacket and into its open neck, and laid chill fingers about her silken ankles, but her concentrated speed ignored everything but the busi- ness in hand. Gradually, layer on layer, her dejected hair rose into soft billows, breaking over forehead and ears, mounting and piling under adroit fingers until the drowned flatness had been resurrected into a swelli aureole and a pretty woman looked back from the glass. Then, with a poised stillness that was the apotheosis of haste, she held a hand mirror six inches from her eyes and took a clear survey; an expert accountant going over a strange firm's books could not have been more impartial. She used no unlawful aids, unless a touch of powder be condemned, and yet she emerged from behind the mirror a still prettier woman: a markedly pretty woman, in fact. There was a swirl of white lace over her head. A hand dived mysteriously, and a concealed pull resulted in a straighter, slimmer outline, a more gracious carria Then, struggling into a complicated gown, she ran down to the kitchen, hooking on the way such outlying por- tions as she could reach. She arrived ith one arm pinned firmly behind her yan overzealous hook and an end of and had to be untangled by moist, scamy fingers. “ Now, Clara, you won't have it well- done to-night, w1' you?” she began earnestly, holding herself still by main force while the big hands fumbled. “Mr. Lawrence will be so disappointed it is. It spoils the whole dinner for him, And then he won't eat it cold, either, and it takes me so long to work through it. Did you order the can- dies? O Clara! We can’t have that hideous overhead light. See if you can tind—well, I think those will go for one more time, if you don’t light them till the last minute. (Did you finish?) We can take our coffee into the drawing room. And make it strong. Mr. Lawrence couldn't drink it last there's: A whistle had sounded from the Mrs. Lawrence flew to the drawing room, turned on the electric Jamps, started the fire, and was at the front door in time to open it for her husband, His eyes lit at sight of her, lit and warmed and rewarded. She had won her race—she had received her carn- ings. Bland, victorious, with all the (Continued on page 941) night, it was so weak, Oh, street.