Life — July 4, 1912 — page 7: what you’re looking at

What you’re looking at

# "A Murder" - Life Magazine Satire This page presents a poem titled "A Murder" by Nathan Haskell Dole, accompanied by an illustration depicting a formal garden scene at Morganidge Towers (identified as the country estate of the Duke and Duchess of Dertford, formerly Miss Bertha Doodle of Pittsburgh). The poem's title and melancholic tone suggest the "murder" is metaphorical—likely the death of conscience or moral principles. The text references Puritan ancestry, inherited sternness, and the speaker's renunciation of life's joys in favor of righteousness. The illustration shows well-dressed figures in a stately setting, apparently depicting the social world the poem critiques. The satire appears to target American society's adoption of rigid British aristocratic values and the spiritual cost of such conformity.