Life, 1920-01-08 · page 7 of 44
Life — January 8, 1920 — page 7: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page satirizes intellectual historians and philosophers. The upper poem mocks scholars who write extensively about history and European politics while remaining detached from real life—"half laughing through their tears" of abstract knowledge. The lower cartoon depicts a domestic scene where a woman asks her male companion if he'll quit his stage career when they marry. He responds he always does. This appears to critique the common theatrical practice of male performers abandoning their careers for domestic life, contrasting sharply with the "paper sages" above who theorize endlessly without practical commitment. The juxtaposition suggests satire of both ivory-tower intellectualism and gender-role expectations in mid-century American life.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
wonder if, in wiser OMETIMES 1 Historians, half laughing through their tears— Half weeping through their laughter Will reconcile their views of life ind ours ; Will recognize, in their all-wise here after, War's virtue in its ill directed powers Paper Sages, 1950 They, in their drab contentment, sordid ease, Contemptuous with too-familiar peace (No more in capitals, nor reverence!) Will speculate, philosophize and wonder— Will write long theses, mense, On Europe's bloody plunder. treatises im: greediness for Gray-lived satiates! (Sages, did you say? Well, paper sages!) Go, with paper play Your gentle, dry-brain history-gam.cs! But, when you moralize, our forgiving, Think not you've solved this genera- sins tion's aims. Oh, no, known no living! Gerald L. Kanfman, you haven't—for yo “AND WHEN WE'RE MARRIED YOU'LL QUIT THE STAGE, WON'T You?" “ WHY, OF COURSE; I ALWAYS DO, DEAR!” comicbooks.com