Certainly the notion of the corruption of the soul over time is an important theme in our time, especially given the assertion that family values are going downhill fast. But Lamb’s poem does not say that the yellowing of the soul can be prevented – like the aging of a piece of paper, it is an inevitable process, one that we may not like to acknowledge (as the narrator refuses to do; at the end of the poem, he clasps the book shut because he doesn’t want to see any more), but one that occurs, none the less. A piece of paper exists to have writing placed upon it; that is the reason for its being. So, too, is it with the soul: its reason for being is to experience things.

The use of an art form to simultaneously discuss the relationship of life to art is something that would be expected in our own time, when art about art is commonplace. Then again, given the change in sonnet styles of people like Charlotte Smith, such a close relationship between form and content should have been expected by 1828, the publication date of “Verses for an Album.” The use of art to describe both art and the soul was also done by Kurt Vonnegut in his book Breakfast of Champions, when one of his characters describes his painting of a thin, blue line as a metaphor for the soul. The postmodern world is awash with art about art (take, for example, Stephen King's book On Writing, which is about the writing process and how to write well).

Lamb's experience-based philosophy speaks to our own time, where we feel that man is inherently good. As Abraham Maslow might say, we are not bad people; we just do bad things. Also, given the current debate about nature and nurture (due to our attempt to understand how genetics influences us), Lamb’s commentary would be welcome in the camp of people who feel that experience is the most influential part of being human.