Ode to the Alphabet, Earlier 19th Century Manuscript Tribute to the Useful, Pleasant, and Ever-Unfolding A,B,C's handmade pouches The balls are tight in

The balls are tight in the cage and prone to getting stuck in one spot

and which I find just gorgeous

where one finds "Life's fairest lot be thine"  preceded by handwritten verse: Then hasten time / The happy day / When we shall meet / To Part no more

one fit inside the other to create a tiered form

which softened/eroded with use

Ode to the Alphabet, Earlier 19th Century Manuscript Tribute to the Useful, Pleasant, and Ever-Unfolding A,B,C's handmade pouches The balls are tight inFound digging deep in a pile at Brimfield certainly this one would attract little attention for the looks of it, but for me it was a delight to find, an ode to the alphabet itself! Earlier 1800s, black in on faded blue paper, like the alphabet somehow managing to endure. Among the curious, useful and pleasant thing of the world nothing seems to unfold so much respecting all ages as the Alphabet and might be rightly termed the fountain which sends