Life, 1926-03-25 · page 24 of 40
Life — March 25, 1926 — page 24: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This is a satirical diary entry from Life magazine's "Gay Nineties" series, mocking 1890s social pretensions. The illustration shows a drawing room scene where a slender young woman stands among fashionably dressed guests—the cartoon's point is stated in the subtitle: she's "too slender ever to be stylish." In the 1890s, the ideal female body was full-figured and corseted; thinness was unfashionable and socially disadvantageous. The diary entry itself parodies upper-class affectation through the narrator's pretentious references (quoting Walter Scott's "Rokeby," invoking the Statue of Liberty and Venus de Milo) while describing a meager lunch of fish and vegetables—absurdly modest fare presented as if noteworthy. The satire targets both the era's arbitrary beauty standards and the hollow social climbing of wealthy women, suggesting that even wealthy families couldn't escape the tyranny of fashion's demands.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
THE GAY NINETIES A FAMILY LIABILITY IN THE BUXOM NINETIES—THE DAUGHTER WHO IS TOO SLENDER EVER TO. BR STYLISH Hee Pye Diawy The mornii essing, owing to the March he morning post very depressing, owing arrival of invoices for articles I purchased last Ist month whilst suffering from temporary delusions of grandeur, but a fine letter from Mistress Mary Jordan, who did head the English Department of Smith College when I was a student there, went far to mitigate the gloom. Awaiting my breakfast, I did amuse myself by chanting detached passages of verse, and when I came to “Come one, come all, this rock shall fly From its firm base as soon as 1,” Sam, mixing himself a bromide inst his revelry at the Smiths’ last night, quoth, The outcome of such boasting would have been disastrous if Roderick Dhu had had a few drinks inside him, and when I did announce that kind hearts were more than coronets and simple faith than Nor- man blood, he did demand to know more than what, so I gave up and fell to the journals, wherein I read of a project to equip the Statue of Liberty with an illuminated wrist watch and was reminded of the Venus of Milo with a clock in her stomach which I once saw at an exhibition. To luncheon at the Colony Restaurant with Lydia Loomis and Nell Gifford, and albeit we had amongst us nought save three meagre portions of sole, two of endive salad, one of Julienne potatoes and two (Continued on page 34) + comicbooks.com |