Memory. How to avoid ennui.

Chapter LI.

Memory.

Diversity of the author’s pursuits - Superficial acquirements contrasted with solid - Variety and change of study conducive to health - Breeding ideas - How to avoid ennui - The principles of memory and fear - The author’s theory respecting the former and his motive for its introduction.

My pursuits from my earliest days have been right or wrong, all of my own selection. Some of these were rather of a whimsical character, others merely adopted pour passer les temps, a few of a graver and more solid cast. On the whole, I believe I may boast that few persons, if any, of similar standing in society, have had a greater variety of occupations than myself.

The truth is, I never suffered my mind to stagnate one moment, and unremittingly sought to bring it so far under my own control as to be enabled to turn its energies at all times, promptly and without difficulty, from the lightest pursuits to the most serious business, and for the time being to occupy it exclusively on a single subject.

My system, if such it may be called, led me to fancy a general dabbling in all sciences, arts, and literature, just sufficient to feed my intellect and keep my mind busy and afloat, without being overloaded; thus, I dipped irregularly into numerous elementary treatises, embracing a great variety of subjects - among which, even theology, chemistry, physic, anatomy, and architecture, to say nothing of politics and mathematics, were included. In a word, I looked into every species of publication I could lay my hands on; and I never have been honoured by one second of *ennui *or felt a propensity to an hour’s languor during my existence.

This fanciful - the reader may, if he pleases, say superficial and frivolous - species of self-education would, I doubt not be scouted with contempt by learned LL.D.’s, Bachelors of Arts, Fellows of Colleges, Wranglers at Universities, &c. These gentlemen very properly saturate their capacities with more solid stuff, each imbibing even to the dregs one or two dignified, substantial sciences, garnished with dead languages, and served up to their pupils with a proper seasoning of pedantry and importance. Thus they enjoy the gratification of being wiser than their neighbours without much troubling their organs of variety - a plan, I readily admit, more appropriate to learning and philosophy, and perhaps more useful to others; but at the same time, I contend that mine, and I speak with the experience of a long life, is conducive in a greater degree to pleasure, to health, to happiness, and I shrewdly suspect, far more convenient to the greater number of capacities.

A certain portion of external and internal variety, like change of air, keeps the animal functions in due activity, whilst it renders the mind supple and elastic, and more capable of accommodating itself with promptitude to those difficult and trying circumstances into which the vicissitudes of life may plunge it. I admire and respect solid learning; but even a superficial knowledge of a variety of subjects tends to excite that inexhaustible succession of thoughts which, at hand on every emergency, gives tone and vigour both to the head and heart, not infrequently excluding more unwelcome visitors.

All my life I perceived the advantage of *breeding ideas. *The brain can never be too populous, so long as you keep its inhabitants in that wholesome state of discipline, that *they *are under *your *command, and not *you *under *theirs; *and, above all things, never suffer a mob of them to come jostling each other in your head at the sate time: keep them as distinct as possible, or it is 100 to 1 they will make a blockhead of you at last.

From this habit it has ensued that the longest day is always too short for me. When in tranquil mood I find my ideas as playful as kittens; when chagrined, consolatory fancies are never wanting. If I grow weary of thoughts relating to the present, my memory carries me back 50 or 60 years with equal politeness and activity, and never ceases shifting time, place, and person till it beats out something that is agreeable.

I had naturally very feeble sight. At 50 years of age, to my extreme surprise, I found it had strengthened so much as to render the continued use of spectacles unnecessary, and now I can peruse the smallest print without any glass, and can write a hand so minute that I know several elderly gentlemen of my own decimal who cannot conquer it even with their reading-glasses. For general use I remark that I have found my sight more confused by poring for a given length of time over *one *book than in double that time when shifting from one print to another, and changing the place I sat in, and of course the *quality of light and reflection. *To a neglect of such precautions I attribute many of the weak and near visions so common with students.

But another quality of inestimable value I possess, thank Heaven, in a degree which, at my time of life, if not supernatural, is not very far from it - a memory of the greatest and most wide-ranging powers: its retrospect is astonishing to myself; and has wonderfully increased since my necessary application to a single science has been dispensed with. The recollection of one early incident of our lives never fails to introduce another, and the marked occurrences of my life from childhood to the wrong side of a grand climacteric are at this moment fresh in my memory, in all their natural tints, as at the instant of their occurrence.

Without awarding any extraordinary merit either to the brain or to those human organs that are generally regarded as the seat of recollection, or rather retention of ideas, I think this fact may be accounted for in a much simpler way, more on *philosophical *than on *organic *principles. I do not insist on my theory being a true one, but as it is, like Touchstone’s forest-treasure, “my own,” I like it, and am content to hold by it “for better or for worse.

The two qualities of the human mind with which we are most strongly endowed in childhood are those of fear and memory, both’ of which accompany us throughout all our worldly peregrinations, with this difference, that with age the one generally declines whilst the other increases.

The mind has a tablet whereon memory begins to engrave occurrences even in our earliest days, and which in old age is full of her handywork, so that there is no room for any more inscriptions. Hence old people recollect occurrences long past better than those of more recent date; and though an old person can faithfully recount the exploits of his schoolfellows, he will scarcely recollect what he himself was doing the day before yesterday.

It is also observable that the recollection, at an advanced period, of the incidents of childhood does not requite that extent of memory which at first sight may appear essential, neither is it necessary to bound at once over the wide gulf of life between 60 years and three.

Memory results from a connected sequence of thought and observation, so that intervening occurrences draw up the recollection as it were to preceding ones, and thus each fresh-excited act of remembrance, in fact, operates as a new incident. When a person recollects well, as one is apt to do, a correction which he received in his childhood, or whilst a schoolboy, he probably owes his recollection not to the whipping, but to the *name of the book *which he was whipped for neglecting; and whenever the book is occasionally mentioned, the *whipping *is recalled, revived, and perpetuated in the memory.

I once received a correction at school, when learning prosody, for falsely pronouncing the word *semisopitus; *and though this was between 50 and 60 years ago, I have never since heard prosody mentioned but I have recollected that word, and had the schoolmaster and his rod clearly before my eyes. I even recollect *the very leaf *of the book whereon the word was printed. Every time I look into a book of poetry I must of course think of prosody, and prosody suggests *semisopitus, *and brings before me on the instant the scene of my disgrace.

This one example is sufficient for my theory, and proves also the advantage of breeding ideas, since the more links to a chain the farther it reaches.

The faculty of memory varies in individuals almost as much as their features. One man may recollect names, dates, pages, numbers admirably, who does not well remember incidents or anecdotes; and a linguist will retain 50,000 words, not one-tenth part of which a wit can bury any depth in his recollection.

This admission may tend to excite doubts and arguments against the general application of my theory: but I aim not at making proselytes; indeed, I have only said this much to anticipate observations which may naturally he made respecting the extent to which my memory has carried the retention of bygone circumstances, and to allay the scepticism which might perhaps otherwise follow.

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