Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1902-03-18
..In the golden chain of friendship, re-
gard me as a link.

..In the golden chain of friendship. re-
gard me as link"
These few selections will, think, suffice
to show what the writer of album verses
could do. The genius OF this class OF
of the autograph album. 1t Is sad to
think that it could ever have descended
thereafter to such a middle flight as
the elegy. or the ode to Spring.
Fortunately not all who wrote in auto
graph albums chose to patronize local
talent Many went farther in their
search for suitable literary offerings. It
cannot be said that they Jared worse. 1t
is interesting to see, as one turns the
leaves of many albums, the same quo
tation appearing again.
Pope's glittering little couplets were
favoriteS with some of the older people,
especially these two lines:
Honor and shame from no condition
rise;
Act well you part. there all the honor
les
IT'S education forms the common mind
Just as the twig is bent. the trees in
clined.'
Longfellow's psalm of Life" supplies
variety of quotations varying in length
from BE hero in the strife" to several
entire stanzas. 1.-The Builders" is also a
mine of sentiment for the writer in al
buns. Miss Proctor is a great favorite,
too. One is almost as sure of finding her
lines.
One by one thy duties wait thee,
Let thy whole strength go to each,'
in well-filled autograph album as we
used to be of having IAN honest endeavor
is worth ten promises" on the first page
of our copy-bOoks.
Cowper, Burns, Pope, Whittier. Long
fellow and Miss Proctor seem to have
supplied the greater number of selec-
lions for the village autograph albums.
Shakespeare with all his wealth Of
household words is not frequently
quoted, and verses from the Bible are
not numerous. These, when they do oc-
cur. are usually in the prim handwriting
of some old fashioned relative of the au-
tograph-seeker, or in that of the village
minister or the veteran Sunday school
superintendent.
Turning the leaves of an old autogra phi
album, one finds much to interest him
aside from the character of the selections
in themselves. For instance. 1t is odd
that cynical reflections upon the vanity
of life and the rarity of friendship and
consistency should come from the pen of a
happy. merry-hearted girl. who has not
yet known greater disappointment than
missing a picnic or sleighing party. II
provokes smile to read:
but pleasures are like peoples spread,
You seize the flower, the bloom is shed. y
in the dashing hand of the village scape-
grace, VINO WdS IO SoOIeT OUT VI Out
sorry escapade than he plunged into a
sorrier one. Here is the Shylock of the
town. who grudged every penny that de-
parted from him, who schemed and
grasped for dollars and got them. urging
the merits of cheerful giving and pro-
claiming the deceitfulness of riches.
And here We have the loafer at the cor
ner store. not to be outdone, intoxicating
the principles of industry and thrift.
Honest industry brings its own re-
ward" writes one of these individuals
whose delight it was to live laborious
days upon the nail kegs and soap boxes at
the grocery store, impartially reviling
each administration of the government at
Washington.
Sometimes, however, there is more Of
obvious fitness in the quotation. Here is
some bold chirography that John Han
cock need not have been ashamed of:
"And all may do what has by man been
done" In the light of after events this
has an almost prophetic note. For the
writer of it has gone on, by sheer force
of the power within herself, to the
| impossible.
Here some gentle old lady, ones Sun
| day school teacher in those early days.
has written:
II pray the prayer of Plato old. God
| make thee beautiful within"
| Here, in delicate. precise Handwriting q
Is the name of that teacher of the village
| oClUOI, ucdI " q StHtIdllOI VI UOyS dEu
girls. That teasing boy who sat just
| across the aisle has recorded here his
good wishes and assurances of change.
| less friendship. He has been dead now
almost as many years as he had lived
when he wrote those lines.
The kindly old minister. who always
seemed to keep the warmest corner of his
heart for little folks, and was never too
busy or too tired to welcome them to the
shabby parsonage. always wrote the same
thing in every album:
Though the mills of God grind slowly
yet they grind exceeding small,
Though with patience He stands waiting,
with exactness grinds He ALL
The old minister has passed from the
scene of his labors and privations, but
the memory of his deeds abides the flight
of years. He had no need to fear God S
justice, or to dread those mills of Cod
of which he loved to write. -.
The children do not bring you auto
graph albums to write in now. Instead,
they come with birthday books. Shake
day books, Tennyson birthday books,
there may even be Dante birthday books
for aught l know. But they are all Il
snare and cause of stumbling, for you
are expected to write the date of your
birth in them, which makes 1t possible for
anyone who can do a little subtraction to
tell how old you are. Then you have to
accept the sentiment that the compiler
dSSISHeu 10 you. HlS Is
sometimes. In one birthday book which
l had in my keeping for a while a stat
wart youth of my acquaintance had writ
ten his name opposite the line, "A perfect
| woman, nobly planned"
Yet you will write in them. You cam
help doing it. A dear little blue-eyed girl
| brought one to me not long ago, and !
| wrote my name in 1t, and the year of
| my birth, too, and felt as If had re-
ceived a kindness. And so would you
have done, II she had offered it to you.
But, after all, could never feel toward
| the birthday book as ! do toward that
| foolish old autograph album of the days
| when plush and gilt had power to charm
take it out. and read the old names
and see once more the faces that knew
| For in this wise, wise world 1t is pleas
| ant to be foolish now and then.-Boston
Transcript.