Fayette County herald. [volume] (Washington [Washington Court House], Fayette County, O. [Ohio]) 1860-1???, 1878-02-14
DO We Forgett

lore the mind perfect panorama of the
| events of his previous life, down to the
minutest incidents ofchildhood and youfb
The most Of these events had been com
pletely forgotten, but in that terrible
flight to the doors of death some mighty
power, hitherto unfeIt and unknown,
touched the hidden springs of the soul
and the long-buried past was renewed
and became vivid and startling present,
Such experiences are not uncommon.
| They may be read in most of works de-
voted to the analysis of the mental facul-
ties, and there are many persons who can
verify them by what they themselves
have felt under similar circumstances.
Instances are on record where men, fall
ing from the yard-arm of ship into the
sea, or into deep pit, or down a precip-
itous elf, have had flashed before them a
picture of every action and almost every
thought from earliest infancy. Not un-
frequently. too, the last hours of the dy-
ing are marked by the same wOndrous
revelation. Faces long since turned to
coffin dust will Feappear; voices long
since hushed in the grave will be heard;
lessons learned at the mothers knee will
come again to the heart of the gray-hair-
ed son; songs sung in the bright days OF
dawning manhood, and unrecalled since
then, will distill their music in ears soon
to be closed forever; and while passing
through the valley of the shadow of death
the old life will arise, as if to take last,
long, lingering look at its departing own
er. Only a few weeks ago, in an adjOin-
ing State, a venerable gentleman on the
borders of four-score was prostrated by
dangerous illness; from which, however,
he Fortunately recovered. While rela-
tiyes and friends were gathered round
what was thought to be the bed of the dy-
ing, they saw the pale lips move, and
bending over they heard the old man re-
peating the Lords Prayer in Latin.
When restored to health and told of the
incident, he said there must be some mis-
take, as he had not looked into Latin
book for fifty years, and had forgotten
the language entirely. But there was no
mistake. He had done, while trembling
on the verge of another world, what he
could not do when drawn back to this.
Classical scholars are familiar with the
curious manuscripts called paIimpsests.
Parchment was precious material before
the invention of paper, and so the writers
of the middle ages were compelled to be
very economical in its use. They would
take, let us say, a scroll containing a por-
tion of Cfcero's de Repubgtsa, and, erasing
the original words as far as possible, sup
ply their places with an extract from st.
Augustfne's commentary on the Psalms.
The scroll would afterwards fall into less
pious hands, and then, by the same.pro-
cess, the theology of the great bishop dis
appeared, to make room, perhaps, for
gay romance or the tender verses of a
troubadour. Modern chemistry has dis
covered way by which all that has been
written upon this parchment since it was
first employed can be extracted, so to
speak-leaving behind only the priceless
original of the Roman orator. Verses,
romance, commentary, are swept away,
and beneath them-faint, yet sufficiently
distinct to be deciphered by trained eye
are the glowing sentences of him whose
-eloquenee has survived the shock of more
than eighteen centuries. The Ciceronian
gem was there all the while, but it re-
quired the magic wand of science to re-
move the rubbish which overlaid it. The
parchment had forgotten Cicero; chem
strv forced it to remember him.
The human memory is a palimpsest on
an immense scale. The parchment
can carry at most not more than two or
three different records, but the memory
can carry millions of them. There is, in
deed, no such thing as forgetting. We
say we forget, and we believe we forget,
but forgetfulness is a fiction and oblivion
a mere deIusion. How often do we lose
name or date which we once knew. At
ter trying, it may be for days, to recall
the wanderer, we finally abandon the
search-we haYe forgotten it. Weeks,
months, perhaps years pass, and then un-
sought, unasked for, the name or date
leaps into our mind. Had it been utterly
obliberated it could not have returned.
Then it was not obliterated, it was not
forgotten; it was hidden beneath our
mental acquisitions, like Cicero upon the
parchment The reader, we doubt not,
has frequently been brought to a stand
SLl1l III COIlNOISdllOll O4 ttlN JOoA
of a needed fact or figure, which an in
slant before was on his tongues end. He
changes the subject and forgets his en-
barrassment In the midst of an entirely
different train of ideas, the lost fact or
figure is shot into his brain, as it were.
He has not been conscious of looking for
it; nevertheless the fingers of the mind
have been groping round in the dark
corners of the memory quite independ-
emily of him-and, finding the missing
link. restore it. The memory has not lost
tit was only concealed; lying close and
waiting to be searched for by those mys-
terious agents which let nothing escape,
though they permit much to be thrust
out of sight.
We do not mean to say that all mental
impressions are equally strong, but we do
| believe that all are imperishable. We do
not believe that even the lightest mark
made upon the memory can ever be eff
faced. 1t may be practically blotted out
for half lifetime, but it is liable any
moment to be revived, and sooner or later
it will be revived in spite of all our efforts
to the contrary. 1t is not altogether pleas
ant to know that we are thus at the mercy
of the something within which no eye has
ever seen or scalpel touched; that our
bosoms inclose volume with page for
avarv dav from the cradle to the grave,
and that upon these pages, written in in
delible ink, is our history from beginning
to end Temporary forgetfulness we do
obtain, else who could bear the weight of
accumulated and accommodating sorrOw?-
but permanent forgetfulness the Creator
has not thought best to bestow. Moment