"Sweet it is to Scan"

"When amid life's surging battle
Reverie its solace lends
Sweet it is to scan the faces -
Picture faces - of old friends
...
Some have passed the mystic portals
Where the usher Death presides
Some to distant climes have wandered
Borne on Time's relentless tides;
Some, perchance, to paths unholy;
Some to deeds without a name
But the faces in the album
Are for aye and aye the same.
...
Picture faces! Oh what volumes
Of unwritten life ye hold:
Youthful faces! pure, sweet faces!
Dearly prized as we grow old"

M.C. Duncan, Frontispício de PENLAKE, Richard, Home Portraits for Amateur Photographers, 1899, in HOLLAND, Patricia, 'Sweet it is to Scan...' Personal Photographs and Popular Photography, capítulo III de AA.VV. - Photography: A Critical Introduction. WELLS, Liz, ed. lit. 3ª edição. Londres [Reino Unido]: Routledge. 2005. 381 p. ISBN 0-415-30704X