University of Virginia Library

ALBUMS.

—Sands.

Albums are one of the greatest nuisances of modern
times. They waylay you, or rather are laid
in your way, in every house in the city, in which
a young lady turned thirteen, happens to reside.
They are as numerous and tormenting as flies at
midsummer, and, like flies at midsummer, the irritating
evil cannot be grappled with; for, in both
cases, it is apparently so trivial, that all serious opposition
and resistance become mighty ridiculous.
Yet human happiness is, for the most part, made
up of trifles; and it is to be feared that the deduction
from the sum total, during the ensuing summer

months, on the score of flies and albums, will far
exceed that created by anxiety for the temporary
welfare of our friends, or our own spiritual concerns.
Petty evils and insect troubles frequently
vex a person more than substantial grievances.
The insignificance of an annoyance gives it a ludicrous
character that is very provoking, and frets
one to think that he can be so easily fretted. Many
a man's nerves are so strung that the tickling of a
straw will set him almost crazy; while a heavy
contusion brings him to his senses, and he smiles
at the pain it occasions. Suppose, for example, a
corpulent, choleric old merchant, preparing to take
his after-dinner nap in an easy chair, on a sultry
day in August—suppose sleep gently descending
on his eyelids, and gradually and deliciously overclouding
his faculties—suppose, at this critical moment,
a rascally blue-bottle fly effecting his entrance
into the room, and commencing to amuse itself by
tickling the old gentleman. He hears its ceaseless
buzzing in his ears, and anon feels it promenading
across his forehead, leaving an intolerable itching
wherever it treads. Half asleep and half awake, he
impatiently jerks his head, and for a moment puts
the enemy to flight; but it is only for a moment,
for scarcely has he composed himself to sleep, when
he again feels his friend taking a walk down his
cheek and across his chin; he instinctively attempts
to crush his tormentor, and slaps his own face,
while all the time his nerves are acquiring a preternatural
irritability. At last, a final attack upon
the sensitive organ of smell puts sleep and patience
to flight, and he starts from his chair in a highly
sublimated degree of rage, chasing the disturber of
his peace around the room in a perfect phrenzy.
Suppose at this instant the door to open, and the
servant to present a letter, informing him of the
loss of a richly-laden vessel. He becomes immediately
calm and collected. This is a misfortune
worth struggling against. He braces himself up for
the encounter, and determines to “bear it like a
man.” Thousands meet death with perfect calmness,
but we have high authority that

It is the smallness of the evil, which seems so
easily to be got rid of or avoided, but which cannot
be got rid of or avoided, that destroys our equanimity;
and, it is upon this ground that albums are
afflictions of the first magnitude. The person who
first invented them has much to answer for. They
and steam-boats are the greatest curses and blessings

of the present age; the one has been productive
of as much trouble and inquietude as the other
has of comfort and convenience.

A certain gentleman, who takes ten glasses of
brandy per diem, justifies himself by saying, that it
is not the use but the abuse of stimulants that is
hurtful; and every young lady who keeps an album,
at the same time complains that they “are
so common.” She seems to think that all her sex,
excepting herself, are taking liberties to which they
are not entitled. A respectable widow in this city
has eleven daughters, each of whom maintains an
album; and any unfortunate visitor who is caught
fairly within her doors, may think himself lucky if
he escape with the loss of five effusions. The senior
portion of these misguided young ladies are
fast verging towards a state of hopeless single blessedness,
I am half inclined to believe merely on
account of the cultivation of this pernicious habit.
They have frightened away their oldest friends, and
no male creature ever ventures within their reach.
Indeed, what person in his senses would visit a
house where a yard of poetry was required to be paid
down as a tribute? Though not exactly carried
on to the same extent, there are few dwellings in
New-York into which a person not gifted (or cursed)
with a knack of rhyming can safely venture. It

is in vain that a man of an anti-poetical temperament
pleads that he “is no poet.” “Never mind,”
cry the fair inexorables, “any thing will do;”
though, at the same time, they expect their victim
to try his very best. The fearful album is placed
before him, he seizes a pen,
and in a fit of desperation he “writes himself an
ass,” for the amusement of all future visitants.
Now it is unfair that a man should be violently
forced into a state of authorship against his better
judgment—heaven knows there are enough and to
spare who voluntarily expose themselves, and feel
no shame in so doing. To such ought to be left
the filling up of these records of folly.

There is much in a name, and “album” has
now become a hateful sound; yet the idea is not
in itself bad, of a young and intelligent beauty
preserving the scattered effusions of genius or memorials
of friendship in this form. It is pleasant
to see such a book carefully cherished, and shown
only as an especial favor to those who may be
thought worthy of looking over its treasured pages;
but to have innumerable volumes of manuscript
scrawls, with which genius and friendship have
no connexion, continually thrust upon you—to be

obliged to listen patiently, smilingly, politely, and to
profess yourself pleased with the recitation of two
or three dozen desperate attempts at poesy—to have
the beauties of the several compositions pointed out
to you, and to be asked your candid opinion of each,
when you dare not for your soul speak an iota of
truth—and in the end to be required to add your
mite to the collection, “suppose it be only two or
three verses,” are very disagreeable indeed, besides
the disgrace of the thing; for nine-tenths of the
albums are nothing better than discreditable receptacles
for disreputable pieces of prose and poetry
that cannot, by any stretch of the imagination, ever
hope to attain the dignity of print, or be incorporated
in a book form in any other shape.

The alarming increase of these plagues has probably
arisen from that love of flattery which has
been inherent in every man, woman, and child
since the fall; particularly, it is said, in women,
though on that head there may be reasonable
doubts entertained. But certainly in the majority
of cases where a young lady requests you to write
in her album, it is only a more delicate way of asking
to be flattered. If she be pretty, she likes to
have it put on record; if not, she well knows that
poets never intentionally speak the truth. A person

in the album-way, will have abundant opportunities
of seeing the justice of this remark. I have
in their pages met with the most glowing and outrageous
compliments, and have invariably ascertained
that they were indited by people as cold-blooded
as tortoises; so true it is that the affectation
of passion is ten times as violent and high-sounding
as passion itself. One is at present lying
before me, a few extracts from which may amuse
the reader.

Algernon Augustus Wilkinson Price

The following is of a more grave and unhappy
character, and the construction of the blank verse
is almost equal to that of—. It displays a fine
vein of morbid feeling, and the insignificant parts

of speech with which the lines terminate, have an
unostentatious and natural effect:

Romeo O. Higgs.

It will be seen how strictly the amiable author of
the foregoing has adhered to the only sure and certain
rule of making blank verse, that is, being particular
in having ten syllables per line. Nothing
is easier, and by attending to this simple rule, an
auctioneer's advertisement may be taken out of
the newspapers, and made into unimpeachable
blank verse without any sort of trouble. The
manner in which Shakspeare and Milton have
occasionally departed from this fundamental principle,
is unpardonable. It was my purpose to
give twelve or fifteen pages more of extracts, but I
defer doing so in consequence of the heat of the
weather.

If all, or a portion of the above remarks, should
be offensive to the feelings of any lady who keeps
an album, I hope she will do me the justice to believe
that I certainly meant hers to be an exception
to these general observations.