Life, 1915-12-02 · page 58 of 100
Life — December 2, 1915 — page 58: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page satirizes pretentious bohemian affectation among wealthy women. The top dialogue mocks "Hermione," an aesthete who claims financial hardship while seeking money for a concert, yet complains when a wealthy friend ("Aurelia") gives her only $127—calling her a "tight-wad." The joke: Hermione's affected concern for her "soul" masks simple greed. The bottom section, "A Bargain," ridicules intellectual feminism. A "highbrow" woman with glasses lectures another about women's evolution and higher missions, then asks if she believes in "pickling and preserving." The punchline mocks the gap between feminist rhetoric and domestic reality—the intellectual woman's lofty ideals collapse when confronted with actual homemaking duties in the kitchen. Both pieces target educated, privileged women: one for performative poverty, the other for disconnected theorizing. The satire is fundamentally anti-intellectual and anti-feminist for a 1910s-era audience.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
1086 Christmas Life certs, love. But I must have money . . . and I suppose I will have to let you and my other friends arrange a concert for me. ... It is so. de- grading, dear ... to drag one’s Soul into the market-place! You can- not know how I suffer from the notoriety! Avretia (soothing her): There, there, dear. . . . Could you use any little trifle now? Heratione (sobbing): Oh, don’t! You make me feel as if I had asked for money! Auretia (taking roll of bills from her bag and laying it on the tea- table): There, dear . . . just a loan. . . . You can repay me from the concert, you know . . . I'll go now. . . . (Tiptoes out to leave the sthetic Soul alone with its Grief.) Hermione (after she has gone rises and examines the roll of bills): Only a hundred and twenty-seven dollars! Really, these rich women are getting almost impossibly cautious. ... I may have to give a concert after all. . . . What is that frightful slang word ... tight-wad? ... I'm afraid dear Aurelia is getting to be a tight-wad. ote “0 yin PONE Ae Sg ‘ wee wy, A “NOW, WHAT ELSE DO I WANT?” A Bargain mission of woman, in which all our in- ' Fa lies tellectual longings will be satisfied and ARE you a feminist? . we shall be evolved out of our present The highbrow lady with the vulgar state into a new world of Be- tortoise-shell glasses sat in the front ing?” room of the woman who had a family The other woman grabbed her and of six children, took her out into the kitchen. “Are you?” she repeated. “Do you believe in pickling and pre- “No.” serving?" she asked. “CONDUCT UNBECOMING AN OFFICER” “Do you not believe in the higher “TI don’t understand.”