The Lafayette gazette. [volume] (Lafayette, La.) 1893-1921, 1894-10-06
LITERARY DEREL,cTs,
scropbooks. Their Value and the Change,
In Taste Which They Show.

! scrspboolks, Their Value and the Chance
In Taste Which They Show.
! Who SO keepeth a scrapbook l<eepetl
, good thing, and the manner in which
it is kept is an indication Of the pres
ence or absence of certain qualities il
the keeper" as order, perseverance
continuity OF purpose and fxedness O.
| memory. A scrapboolx is, moreover, NJ
index of literary taste and feeling, ant
a scrapbool, or a series of scrapbook.
kept for number of years, shows how
that taste may change, broaden and
rise with reading and the reception OF
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 scrapboolks are most interest,"
ing and valuable which may be CLASH
lied as personal; kept by some one in
dlvidua1 for personal use and behoof;
which record the workings of one brain
and, IN way, the emotions of one
heart. These, preserved, become in
time histories and autobiographies
Next in interest to these rrivate 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 vet. some
contemporary parsonage. From these
the biographer of the future may col
lect his choicest material; for be it
known that newspapers from which
are generally made arc no
longer the ''abstract and brief chroni-
Giles" OF the time, but are extended and
even diHuse chronicles, telling all
there is to tell. Anyone who has
had occasion to write a post-mortem
sketch of any modtrn statesman has
found his facts stated at length, not in
books, but in newspapers. And vet
are evanescent and perish
a bic. 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 we'll. then, that
The scrapbook keeps the cream, the
gem, the one poem, or sketch, or
speech. or story that made a certain
copy OF the neHvspa per sought after and
Valua ble for clipping purposes.
1t is a fact that every reading person
must have noticed, that there is not in
he world perfect book of quotations.
complete as the work on hand may be,
t frequently does not contain the line,
he verse, the eloquent extract one
$ looking for. Scrapbooks, old scrap
BOOKS, are the repositories of these |
hlngs; these poems by unknown au-
hors; by the poets who wrote but one |
'oem each, and never got credit for
d from antique scrapbool<s and sent
N their Il anonymous round through the
newspapers. to be again secured in the
crapboolSs and again for a time for
often.
The scrapbooz. or ratEer the keeping
It, Is an aid to the memory. One
|oes not entirely forget that which he
axes time to cut out of book Or
ewspaper and fasten to the receptive
age, and perhaps las he shoult) record
1 an index He retains portion of
> scrap of the scrap, as it were. in
is mind, so that in any event he
nows where to find it. The practice
keeping scrapbool<s. considered by
any persons old-fashined. is not the
IS an excellent fashion,; preserving to
; in our youth: keep for another time
hat one day made us smile or weep:
biography, history, Il journal writ
n by Il thousand other hands and vet
'r ovn.-Kansas City Star.