Page:A happy half-century and other essays.djvu/265

 Rh and fly unto the uttermost parts of the earth, there will albums be.' New Holland has albums. The age is to be complied with."

"Ask for this little book a token of remembrance from friends, and from fellow students, and from wayfarers whom you may never see again. He who gives you his name and a few kind words, gives you a treasure which shall keep his memory green."

So wrote Goethe—out of the abyss of German sentimentality—in his son's album; and the words have a pleasant ring of good fellowship and unforced fraternity. They are akin to those gracious phrases with which the French monarchy—"despotism tempered by epigram"—was wont to designate the taxes that devoured the land. There was a charming politeness in the assumption that taxes were free gifts, gladly given; but those who gave them knew.