Life, 1915-07-15 · page 17 of 48
Life — July 15, 1915 — page 17: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
The page contains two distinct pieces of satire: **Top cartoon:** "Aunt Chloe Returns from a Visit to the Athens Modistes" depicts a woman in elaborate, impractical classical Greek-style drapery surrounded by cherubs and admirers. This mocks the fashion trend of adopting Greco-Roman aesthetics—"modistes" (fashionable dressmakers) were creating exaggerated classical-inspired garments. The satire ridicules both the absurdity of wearing such impractical clothing and the pretension of fashionable society imitating ancient styles. **"The Tent" article:** This is humorous camping advice that exaggerates practical problems into absurdity—casually mentioning moose attacks, cyclones, and mosquitoes while recommending concrete foundations and railroad iron for a tent. The tone suggests satirizing both the camping craze (apparently popular at the time) and overwrought outdoor-living advice manuals. The lower cartoon shows a weary railway worker, illustrating the text's practical concerns about outdoor hardship, though the connection to tenting is unclear.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
Brain e AL), Ro Cushing SUMMER FASHIONS, B. C. $00 AUNT CHLOE RETURNS FROM A VISIT TO THE ATHENS MODISTES. The Tent Lives in tents is now the order of the day and night. A tent is an instrument devised for the purpose of bringing mankind into contact with nature, fresh air and gnats. Also other carnivora too numerous to mention. Nothing is more adventurous, when in the deep of some lovely Canadian woods you are sleeping soundly, than to have some joyous, deep-throated, horn-crested and muscle-bound moose come capering into your tent, making the welkin ring with his gay carol. Learning to live in a tent is like living in certain kinds of society—something to be acquired by practice. After you have spread your tent to the ample breeze be sure and peg down the corners tightly. To have a playful cyclone come along in the mid- dle of the evening and pull up your tent, leaving you, as Shakespeare so fitly remarks, to the mercy of the rude blast, is distressing. In preparing your tent for the night it is much better to place under it a concrete foundation, which can be obtained for a small sum at any German hardware store. Thus nothing can reach you from below. Also carry along a quantity of railroad iron over which to lap the bottom of your tent. You will find these “HERE, You'VE BEEN ON DUTY NINETEEN HOURS—LET ME implements useful in knocking out mosquitoes. TAKE THE THROTTLE” comicbooks.com