Huntsville gazette., 1894-09-01
LITERARY DERELIcTS.
Gcrapbooks. Their Value and the Changes
In Taste Which They Show.


in Taste Which They Show.
Who so keepeth scrapbook keepeth
a good thing, and the manner in which
it is kept is an indication of the pres
ence or absence of certain qualities in
the keeper" as order, perseverance,
continuity of purpose and fixedness of
memory. A scrapbook is, moreover, an
index of literary taste and feeling, and
a scrapbook. or a series of scrapbooks
kept for number of years, shows how
that taste may change, broaden and
new ideas and Impressions Could we
have all the scrapbooks of one lifetime
extending from youth to age. we should
have literary history of that life.
Those scrapbooks are most interest
ing and valuable which may be classi-
fed as PERSONAL kept by some one in
dividual for personal use and behoof;
which record the workings of one brain
and, in a way, the emotions OF one
heart. These, preserved, become in
time histories and autobiographies.
Next in interest to these private scrap
books are those which are kept for a
purpose: to collect and preserve facts
in regard to some event in history;
some historical character, as Washing
ton or Napoleon, or better yet, some
contemporary parsonage. From these
the biographer of the future may col
lect his choicest material: for be it
known that newspapers from which
scrapbooks are generally made are no
longer the abstract and brief chroni-
cles'' of the time, but are extended and
even diffuse chronicles, telling all
there is to tell. Anyone who has
had occasion to write post-mOrtem
sketch of any modern statesman has
found his facts stated at length, not in
books, but in newspapers. And yet
newspapers are eyanescent and perish
able. Out of the one hundred thou
sand copies newspaper issued on a
certain day, it is quite possible that
every copy may have disappeared in a
few days, except the half dozen pre-
served on files. 1t is well, then, that
the scrapbook keeps the cream, the
gem, the one poem, or sketch, or
speech. or story that made certain
copy of the newspaper sought after and
valuable for clipping purposes.
1T is fact that every reading person
must have noticed, that there is not in
the world a perfect book of quotations.
Complete as the work on hand may be,
it frequently does not contain the line,
the verse, the eloquent extract one
is looking for Scrapbooks, old scrap
books, are the repositories of these
things; these poems by unknown au-
thors; by the poets who wrote but one
poem each, and never got credit for
that. These are very often reSurrect-
ed from antique scrapboolzs and sent
on their anonymous round through the
newspapers, to be again secured in the
scrapbooks and again for time for
gotten.
The scrapbook, or rather the keeping
of it, is an aid to the memory. One
does not entirely forget that which he
takes time to cut out of book or
newspaper and fasten to the receptive
page, and perhaps (as he should) record
in an index. He retains a portion OF
it. a scrap of the scrap, as it were, in
his mind, so that in any event he
knows where to find it. The practice
of keeping scrapbooks, considered by
many persons old-fashined, is not the
less an excellent fashion: preserving to
us in our youth: keep for another time
what one day made us smile or weep;
a biography, history, journal writ
ten by thousand other hands and yet
our own.-Kansas City Star.