Life, 1927-06-23 · page 14 of 38
Life — June 23, 1927 — page 14: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page features a satirical diary entry and illustration mocking domestic life and superstition. The top cartoon shows an "Unsuccessful Angler" attempting to purchase fish for a hook, a absurdist visual joke about poor fishing luck. The main "Mrs. Pep's Diary" section critiques theatrical pretension—specifically Mrs. Wharton's "Twilight Sleep" (a real anesthetic procedure). The diary sarcastically describes a woman seeking a Pauline Manford-like character while discussing religious anxieties and hypochondria. The lower illustration depicts a woman telling her companion she's "superstitious" and afraid to light three candles on a match, while her companion dismissively wears a celluloid collar—a humorous visual contrast suggesting modern skepticism versus old superstitions. The satire targets middle-class anxieties about health, religion, and outdated beliefs.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
May [ay abed, a-reading of 31st Peilight Sleep,” hath naught to do with ob- stetrics as so many do think, the title being | figurative, and I could not but pon- der what splendid satire the central character would be did it have prototypes amongst us, but I do not believe there is any woman like Pauline Manford in all Manhattan, God knows there are plenty of us who would like anodynes from reality and who might be favorably inclined towards religions which reduced the hips along with salving the soul, but if the altruistic activities through which we sought oblivion did result in so crowded an engagement pad as Mrs. Manford’s, the remedy would be far worse than the disease. Consist- ent with her philosophy, however, was her considera- tion of Lita, her rebellious daughter-in-law, whom I should have slapped and sent to a Model Tenement. But in such a case, of course, Lita would have Mrs, Wharton's new book, which She: He: Unsuccessful Angler: 1 Waxt to Buy ABOUT HALF A DOZEN PISit THAT Fit THIS OOK, gone straight into the motion pic- There are indeed circles extant tures, and that, in Mrs. Wharton’s wherein signing a cinema printed world, would never, never do, y is equivalent to coming home without a wedding-ring in 1905....My husband, poor wretch, home all this day with an ailment which su- perinduced a melancholic state of mind, so that once he did inquire how things might betide should he sud- denly get religion, whereto I did respond that such an ac- quisition would be satisfac- tory to me if it would induce him to put the stoppers back into bottles and to admit that he snores, the latter reference unfortunately arousing him so that I did fear we should have to re- summon the chirurgeon, & chance and harmless re mark of Katie's to the effect that she had heard him breathing deeply from the distance of the pantry caus- ing him to accuse me of ha ing bribed her to make it Nat Willis in for t he did tell how an English- SUPERSTITIOUS, AREN’T YOU? AFRAID TO LIGHT man who had spent the holi- w THREE ON A MATCH? day with him on Long Isl- L, 'M NOT EXACTLY supERSTITIOUS, BUT I’M and had, upon awakening WEARING A CELLULOID COLLAR, (Continued on page 33) comicbooks.com