The Van Buren press., 1894-09-08
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LITERARY DERELiCTS.
Scfabb0Oks, Their Value and the Changes
In Taste which They Show.

6cfapb0Oks, Their Value and the Changes
In Taste which They Show.
Who so keepeth a scrapbook kec peth
II good thing, and the manner in which
II is kept is All indication of the pres
ehce or absence OF certain qualities in
the "keeper," as order, perseverance,
continuity of purpose and fxedness Of
memory. A scrapbook is, moreover, an
index of literary taste and feeling, and
q scrapbook. or series Of scrapboolss
kept for number Of years, shows how
that taste may change broaden and
rise with reading and the reception Of
new ideas and Impressions. Gould 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 belioof;
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 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 personagc. From these
the biographer of the future may col
lect his choicest materials; 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 a post-mortem
sketch of any modern statesman has
found his facts stated Mt length, not in
books, but in newspapers. And yet
newspapers are evanescent and perish
able. Out of the one hundred thou
sand copies a newspaper issued on u
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 certain
copy of the newspaper sought after and
valuable for clipping purposes.
1t is fact that every reading per son
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 fol
that. These are very often resurrect
ed from antique scrapboolxs and sent
on their anonymous round through tht
newspapers, to be again secured in the
scrapbooks and again for time for
gotten.
The scrapboolx, or rather the keeping
of it, is an aid to the memory. One
does not entirely forget that which h'
takes time to cut out of book o,
newspaper and fasten to the receptive
page, and perhaps las he should) record
in an index. lie retains a portion o1
it, scrap of the scrap, as it were, in
his mind, so that in any event hs
knows where to find it. The practice
of keeping scrapbooks, considered by
many persons old-fashined, is not the
less an excellent fashion; preserving te
us in our youth; keep for another time
what one day made us smile or weep
a biography, history, II journal writ
ten by thousand other hands and YET
our own.-Kansas City Star.