Morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven [Conn.]) 1848-1894, 1890-10-18
THE FLEETING SHOW.

Written for the JOURNAL AND CoURIER.l
THE BOOK OF NOAH, THE NEcRoHANcER.
There are two thousand one hundred and
eighteen pages in the new International
Webster 1t will be harder than ever now,
spite of the ingeniously indexed pages, to
find the word one vants-there'n be SO
many more words coming in between and
enticing the searcher away from his quest.
Who has not known the allurement, the
seductiveness, of a dictionarys You start
Immediately after breakfast to find, let US
say, the word s'ephemeron" having been
requested to settle little dispute concern
ing the same You do not find it because
of the frolic malice of "epaulement,"
which holds your eye so that you have to
read its definition, and then are constrain
ed to look for "fascine" Here "fascicu-
lite" throws you off the scent and the next
you know you are over in Il, looking up
'thornblende," whence you make a long
leap to ''silica,'' but being caught on the
rod of the "silhouette" instrument, you
read on with great interest, remembering
that row of mysterious black pro-
files in dingy little frames that
furnished without ornamenting the high
mantel of the chest room" in the old farm
house and which you were once told rep
resented your grandmother, your step
grandfather and your great-uncle's wife,
a statement you received with mingled in
credulity and resentment, for you knew
very well that there were not then, and
never had been, any black people in the
family.
Returning from these wanderings through
the halls of memory you find it essential
to the complete understanding of the sill
houette machine that you should turn
backward to "gimbal" and then still fur
ther back to ''gemel-ring," but "gemep
attracts you, and soon you find yourself
over among the classified illustrations,
deep in the study of heraldry. This neces-
states a constant rumaging for explana-
tions of its nomenclature, words of an un-
known tongue, and at dinner you know no
more about "ephemeron" that you did at
breakfast, and become "a thing for laugh
ter, flouts and jeers."
The committee of revision, who are re-
ceiving 30 much praise for the cable and
thorough" manner in which their work
has been completed, ought, in addition, to
receive a vote of censure from the reading
public for having neglected to eliminate
this very exasperating, elusive quality of
the Book of Noah. 1t is unfortunately too
late to remedy this defect. Nothing but
the most intense concentration of mind
and the force of unconquerable will can
help us now.
AN OLD ALBUM
, An old album which Louise Chandler
Moulton describes in recent letter from
Wiesbaden, and on account of which she
confesses to fracture of the tenth COM
/ mandment, belonged, fifty years ago or
more, to Emma Isola, the every dear
young friend of that quaint and gentle
pair, Charles and Mary Lamb. Miss Isola
was an orphan child at school
when the Lambs became interested
in her and invited her to spend
the holidays with them; afterward
their home became hers; their love for the
bright and happy natured girl strength
ened with the years and for the rest of
their lives "Our Emma" as they always
tenderly called her, was to them as con-
siderate and affectionate daughter. Imag-
inc the happiness, the consolation she
must have brought to that devoted
brother and sister with whom. more than
with most, there was mot string at
tuned to mirth but had it's chord in melan.
choly," and over whom hung the gloomy
shadow of tragedy and the foreboding OF
madness!
When she was about to be married tc
Edward Moxon, the publisher. "with the
perfect approval and more than concur
renee" of Lamb, he wrote: "I am abou
to lose my only walk companion who's
mirthful spirits were the youth of oul
house." and it was to her he sent
the year before he died, the mes
sage SO characteristic of the tenderness
and unselishness of his nature: t'Tel
Emma every day love her more and mis-
her less" The small property accumu
lated during thirty three years of constan
labor was by his will directed to be applied
toward the maintenance of his sister, VIII,
survived him thirteen years, and subjec
to this primary object was vested in trus
; tees for the benefit of Mrs. Moxon.
It was for Emma's album that LAM
) wrote the lines entitled, "What is an Al
buma" beginning:
''Tis a book kept by modern young ladies fo
OF which their plain grandmothers nothing di
'Tis medley of scraps fine verse and fine pros,
And some things not very like either, Go
q and as hand and pen usually conspire
disgrace the writer in albums when moi
anxious to display his elegant chirograph,
4 80 did "the gentle Elias, !" for the lines d
: verging from the straight course tend fal
o ther and farther upward until they resc
an angle of nearly forty-fve degrees.
|
: Emma on her twenty-frst birthday" an
another beginning:
"By EnneId's lanes and winchmors's verda
j: This album was probably exempt fro
A. his dislike, often expressed, to books
this class SO popular in his day. 81 sha
!. die," he wrote. "of albophobia," and agail
Il eff 1 take the wings of the morning ar
y fly to the uttermost parts of the cart
:, there will albums be-"
But for all that the last production
70 his pen was the noble and affectiona
,e tribute to Coleridge written in an albu
d soon after Coleridge's death and only Fl
re- weeks before he himself passed away.
Inserted between the leaves is an engra
u ing of Charles and Mary Lamb with t
ct signatures of both, also picture of Charl
IN Scratched on copper from life in 1926
Il his friend Brook Pulham," probably t
~ caricature upon that s'head of amazi
re fneness" which SO enraged Barry Cornw
lie and of which the subject mildly wro
sd "The draughtsman has done his best
avoid fattery"
80 In this book; also, in the handwriti
of the authors, are a sonnet by Jo
Keats, stanzas, .To Emma Isola,"
I Walter Savage Landor, Proctor's lines &C
cd the Spirit Of Italy" and Wordswort