One of the more amusing points about having a massive library is stumbling across truly odd things, such as this:

Here is the dedication:

“To Alice: When the golden sun is setting and your life is free from care, When over a thousand things you are thinking, Will you some times think of me. There are few friends in this wide world that love is fond and true, But friend when you count them over place me among the few.”

A lovely dedication, yes? (aside from a ‘that’ which grammatically ought to be a ‘whose’)  Presumably on a book of poetry or maybe on a novel?  Er, no.

Rather it is found on the fly of: ‘The Legislative Manual for the State of New York. 1859’  A drier tome cannot be found, it is essentially an address book listing such gripping items as all the current postmasters for the state, population tables for towns, updates on law cases, and so forth.

Who was Alice? Furthermore, who wrote the dedication, and why? Were they copying it from something else in haste because they liked it? The cover of the book is stamped: H.R. Selden from A. Perry.  If A. Perry is Alice, why is the dedication on a book she gave?  Who is H.R. Selden?

The emotion is known, the reasons will be forever unknown.