Life — November 16, 1922 — page 7: what you’re looking at

What you’re looking at

# "Ballade of the Cheerful Liar" — Life Magazine This page presents a satirical poem by R. Le G. celebrating "the best wife is a cheerful liar." The poem ironically praises a wife who uses deception to maintain domestic happiness—lying about her husband's faults, hiding financial troubles, and using humor to dispel gloom. The illustration depicts a boy at a window speaking to someone inside, proposing to skip school by claiming illness ("I'll let ye have the measles cheap"), a crude transaction of dishonesty. Together, text and image mock both domestic deception and youthful dishonesty as normalized social practices. The satire suggests early-20th-century anxieties about integrity in marriage and child-rearing, while humorously endorsing small lies as pragmatic solutions to life's difficulties.