Life, 1919-11-20 · page 14 of 46
Life — November 20, 1919 — page 14: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page contains a satirical short story titled "Breakfast à la Modern Literature" and an unrelated cartoon. The story mocks overly-stylized modernist writing through a domestic scene where a husband repeatedly requests "cream and sugar" for cereal, while his wife responds with affected, literary silence and dramatic gestures. The humor lies in applying the self-conscious, minimalist, emotionally-laden prose style of contemporary "modern literature" to mundane breakfast conversation—suggesting such writing obscures rather than clarifies simple human interaction. The cartoon below, captioned "The Prince Visits America—As It Might Have Been," depicts what appears to be a royal visitor surrounded by American figures in period dress. Without visible dates or names, the specific reference is unclear, though it likely satirizes American reception of a foreign dignitary or parodies how Americans might stage-manage such visits.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
856 Breakfast ala Modern Literature ALPHONSE approached his matu- tinal cereal. ‘The cream and sugar, please,” he ventured. His wife smiled vaguely. ‘You said?” she responded. “The cream and sugar, please,” he repeated. “The cream?” she echoed. “And sugar,” he reiterated. “The sugar,” she agreed pleasantly, and passed it to him. Partial success spurred him on to fresh effort. His eyes sought hers and held them for a teeming, emphatic moment. “And the cream, too,” he insisted distinctly, masterfully. For an interval she sat pondering, her brow furrowed with exquisite concentration, her lips moving. And then, proffering the pitcher with a graceful gesture of surrender, she murmured docilely, “And the cream, too!” Ensued a poignant silence, broken only by the musical flow of cream into the dish, and subsequently by the rustle of paper as Alphonse sought to drown his emotions in the morning paper. At length, however, his wife queried diffidently, “One lump or two, this morning?” Tensely she awaited his decision until, warned by the unerring instinct of her sex that he had not yet mastered himself enough to speak, she seized the tongs with sudden daring, and “WHY, MARIA, ARE YOU MY AFFINITY, AFTER ALL?” cast in three! But hardly was the coup accom- plished when, attempting to waft bacon and eggs subtly before him, she paused, poised in mid-air. “You should—” She could get no farther. He found his voice. ‘‘I should?” “You should have eaten—”’ Aghast, she motioned to his plate. “T should have eaten?” They confronted each other. It was no time for evasion. Her reserve was shattered by something stronger than self. “You should have eaten that grape- fruit first of all!” He rose... Ruth Lambert Jones. Sad Stuff HAT’S the next film?” THE PRINCE VISITS AMERICA “A comedy, I infer. Every- AS IT MIGHT HAVE BEEN body looks resigned.” comichooks.cony