Life — September 13, 1923 — page 5: what you’re looking at

What you’re looking at

# "As It Was in the Beginning" by Baird Leonard This satirical poem compares modern women to Eve, suggesting they share similar weaknesses for material temptation. The speaker—apparently a melancholic man—contrasts Eve's fall through forbidden fruit with contemporary women's susceptibility to fashion and consumer goods: "A new fur or some snappy shoes / Can absolutely change my views." The illustrations show fashionably dressed women with a serpent motif framing the text, explicitly linking Eve's biblical temptation to modern consumerism. The satire targets both women's shopping habits and the emerging consumer culture of the era, suggesting that what once was spiritual corruption is now merely commercial manipulation. The tone is cynical mockery of female materialism disguised as philosophical comparison.