Bassetts Scrap Book, Vol 3, No 3
Articles in this issue
- p. 2
A May opener featuring a Frank L. Stanton dialect poem welcoming the bluebird as a symbol of cheerful thanksgiving, followed by a collection of seasonal aphorisms on worth, ambition, worry, and the eternal fitness of things.
- p. 4
A historical note attributing the invention of the fan to a Chinese princess who, forced to remove her mask at the feast of lanterns, improvised by waving it rapidly in front of her face — a gesture so effective it spread across the empire.
- p. 4
The former US Ambassador to Germany identifies three European virtues America lacks and should adopt: Britain's criminal justice administration, Germany's theatre, and continental Europe's approach to governing great cities.
- p. 3
A moving poem about a small, frail boy who tells his uncle he plans to be a sailor or soldier when he grows up, saying all sickness will go away when he is a man — ending with the boy's sweet promise to carry his uncle to bed someday.
- p. 5
An explanation of the proverb 'castles in Spain' for fanciful, unreal ambitions, tracing it to the fact that Spain genuinely had no castles in ancient times — only scattered cabins — as a military precaution against Moorish raiders seizing strongholds.
- p. 6
A note tracing the word 'tips' to brass boxes hung at coffee-house doors engraved 'To Insure Promptness', with coins dropped in them guaranteeing faster service from the waiters.
- p. 4
A cheerful poem by Paul Lawrence Dunbar urging the reader to whistle a bit when skies are overcast and work feels grim, arguing that one's own small tune is a talisman against the grimness of toil.