Custer weekly chronicle. [volume] (Custer City, S.D.) 1890-1931, 1916-12-09

precisely what memory is, whether
it is mere habit of the mind, or the
principal of association, or a separ-
ate faculty sitting apart and making
a record of things seen, heard, thot,
felt and one, but we know something
of its power in bringing up every
thing from the past for our pleasure
or our pain, our profit or our loss.
We are constantly astonished at
what it can do; even when it acts
involuntarily as mere memory. But
it is more wonderful when it acts
voluntarily as recollection, going
about and collecting again the things
that belong to the past. BY this de-
liberate effort il is marvellous what
the memory can do. Robert Hou-
don's memory was cultivated till he
could fix his attention on many OBJ
jects, and then recall them after
wards with unvarying precision.
Passing through a room with hun
dreds of books on the shelves, he
could so fix his mind upon them as
to be able to tell you exactly what
book was on given shelf and at
certain distance from the end. 1t
seems that We cannot forget. One
may deliberately drive certain
thing from the mind by calling in
something else, but il is in the mind
all the time. One may not be able
TO recall what he wants at the right
time, but some day he may easily
recall il by means of something
with which it is associated in his
mand.
"Lulled in the countless chambers
of the brain
Our thoughts lie linked in many a
hidden chain,
Awake but one, and 10 what myriads
arise,
Each stamps its image ere the other
flies"
We seem to forget, but we do not
forget what we have really seen or
done CoIeridge tells of a servant
girl in Germany, who, during ner-
vous fever and delirium recited
passages of a classical and rabbin-
icial writings which she used to hear
minister. in whose house she lived
read aloud Re- Timothy Flint says
that when prostrated with malarial
fever he recited aloud passages from
Virgil and Homer that he had never
formerly committed to memory.
Well did the old Morse mythology
represent memory by two ravens,
that sit on Odin's shoulders and
whisper to him to refresh his mind.
The old Vikings are represented as
taking the ravens with them on
their long voyage. One raven seem
ed to attend on the poet Poe through
all his dark life, and it follows us,
too, everywhere on land and sea, the
! lonely bird haunting and shadowing
us as with fiery eyes" it burns in
to your bosom's core" walks into
our day and into our night Try to
drive it away,
And the raven, never fitting,
Still is sitting still is sitting"
Memory never dies. Some things
come back more vividly than others,
especially when that which we re-
member was first experienced with
/ deep feeling and branded upon our
hearts as with letters of fire. Some
| things come up very feebly, and some
usually come not at all unless we
search for them, but come they will
some day. One is not apt to forget
| those early experiences in which his
hearts deepest interests were involv-
ed, and he is not apt to forget either
! the times or places connected with
those experiences. Nor will he like
| ly forget times of loss and pain, as
when a playmate was taken away or
parent was torn from his helpless
childhood or youth. The echo of that
pain haunts him always. A strain
of music will call up whole life his
tory A picture will bring up faces
| that have been fixed in death, or
seemingly lost in forgetfulness for
years. A piece of statuary may re-
ceiye long forgotten histories and
crowd the present with the forms
and experiences of the past. A face
seen on the street will remind of one
long gone out of life, and bring all
the bygone hours into the experience
again. An odor of flower brings
up the day of death with it's oppres-
sive gloom, or the glad marriage day
with its bright joys and dreams or
the graduation day with its heroic
and sublime visions of "aii the Won
der yet to be-" We are glad that
memory is not wholly dependent up
on such accidents as chance strain
of music. an door or flower, or a
face seen on the streets, but it works
in accordance with laws that are
more or less within our comprehen-
sion and control.
When time. who steals our years
away,
Shall steal our pleasures, too.
The memory of the past will stay
And half our joys renew"