Life, 1923-07-26 · page 8 of 42
Life — July 26, 1923 — page 8: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page from *Life* magazine presents "Mrs. Peps Diary," a domestic humor column mocking upper-middle-class social anxieties. The diary entries describe trivial concerns: anxiety over modest income, complaints about household help and fashions, and petty social drama at the Ziegfeld Follies and golf outings. The accompanying cartoon satirizes marital dynamics. A husband tells his wife there's "no reason why you can't stay over the week-end, if your wife's away"—a sexually suggestive double entendre about infidelity. The wife responds tartly about getting "Sunday dinner for the canary," implying the husband's priorities are absurdly misplaced. The satire targets the self-absorbed concerns and marital tensions of affluent leisure-class couples.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
LIFE Lay late, reflecting upon many things, in especial how easily I could do with a larger income. That my: immediate forbears did not ‘put a popular beverage on the market or invent a superior garter clasp will always be a source of disappointment to me, for an they had, I should spend less time over ac- counts. Were I thrifty with what I have, my spirit would be tranquil, but it is not my nature to hoard, and I have ob- served that those who save up for a rainy day do not even gamble with their store when the anticipated inclement weather forces them to stop in the house....In the evening Sam and I to the Arrowhead Inn with the Ban- nings, who had with them a pink but potent concoction which inspired Sam with an inclination to catch one of the goldfish in the fountain, but I advised him against it. July 2st July 20th To the Ziegfeld Follies again this afternoon, and a girl who sat in front of me kept re- moving her back comb and replacing it until I was at some pains not to lean forward and speak to her, having counted the gesture eighty-seven times before ty | (Ap rt | Gr the curtain went up....To Greenwich for the week-en:! with Frank and Florence Kimbley. A great company come for dinner, all very merry, and we fell a-talking of the younger generation, and one woman said that when she reminded her growing son, complaining of his last year's evening clothes, that the boy in “Seventeen” not only had to wear his father’s suit but to steal outside to put it on, he did respond that he would cheerfully dress on the lawn if she would provide him with raiment corresponding to his measurements ter over gaining twelve dollars, but he did pick up a kit- ten as we were strolling through the garden before going to bed, and it scratched him, and Lord! from his goings- on I should have thought him bitten by a Bengal tiger. July Early up, in order to reach the links 22nd before Sam, since he will not let me (Lord's Day) drive with an iron, nor can I see what dif- ference it makes whether you strike a ball with a wooden club or a metal one, so long as it travels a respectable (Continued on page 32) comicbooks.com