Life — February 16, 1922 — page 3: what you’re looking at

What you’re looking at

# "A Valentine" - Life Magazine Analysis This page presents a poem titled "A Valentine" by George K. Denny, contrasting romantic ideals from 1852 versus 1922. The left stanza expresses Victorian sentimentality about a beloved's physical beauty and charm. The right stanza, dated seventy years later, satirizes how modern women have changed—"knees now peep out," fashion has abandoned modesty, and women are more athletic ("pulses throbbing"). The accompanying illustration shows people on frozen ice with a "DANGER" sign, depicting ice-skating. The caption "How much'll ye gimme to come off the ice?" suggests the cartoon mocks either the recklessness of modern youth or changing social norms around courtship and propriety. The satire critiques how dramatically women's fashion, behavior, and social roles had shifted in the early twentieth century.