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Show MEMORY. Why We Remember Some Things and Forget Others. (Notes and Queries.) This is a subject regarding which a good deal of nonsense is habitually talked. We often hear people say that I hey have a good me'mory for certain things, but a bad one for other things. This I believe to be a delusion. A man's memory may be good or it may be bad, but it cannot well be good for one thing and bad for another thing. It .might as well be said that a bottle is good for holding brandy, but had for holding whisky. In the case of a feeble intellect all its faculties will.be feeble memory, judgment and ill the rest but they will not be feeble for one purpose and vigorous vigor-ous for another purpose. The fact is that our memory is in itself equally powerful or feeble for all purposes, but we remember remem-ber best those- thinjrs which interest us most, and so say that we have good memories mem-ories for such things; while we forget thoac things which do not interest us, and we1 say. accordingly, that wc have bad memories for those things. Horace Walpole used to say that his memory was all-retentive as to the names of persons and of places, but that it was absolutely impotent in regard to dates. It has be--n said of him by Macaulay, I think that hQ could tell you the name of the grandaunt of King Ethelwald, but that he could not tell you whether she lived in the year 300 or in the year 1500. The truth was that he took an interest in name.! and genealogies, but none in dates. Similarly, in hia introduction to "Anne of Geierstein." Scott aptly says: "I have through life been entitled to adopt old Beatti? of Mikledale's answer tc his parish minister when the latter was eulogizing him with respect to the same faculty: 'No. doctor,' said the honest hon-est border laird. I have no command of my memory: it retains only what happens hap-pens to hit my fancy; and like enough. sir. if you were to preach to me for a couple of hours on end, I might be unable un-able at the close of the discourse to remember re-member one word of it.' Perhaps there are few men whose memory serves them with equal fidelity as to many different classes of subjects, but I am sorry to say that while mine has.xarely failed me as to any snatch of verse or trait of character char-acter that bad once interested my fancy, it has generally been a frail support not c-.nl j- as to names and dates and other minute technicalities of history, but as to many more important things." No, it is pretty certain that we have not got good memories for this and bad memories for that. In any other ensc .than that we remember that, which interests inter-ests us and forget that which interests us not. I will not insult readers of "N. & Q." by reproducing here the good old chestnut chest-nut as to Dugald Stewart's contribution to Cie conversation of certain of his fri?uds who were comparing notes as to their earliest recollections. But it may be lawful to recall Fred Locker's capital verse rendering of It: I recollect a nurse called Ann Who carried me about the grass; And one fine day a fine young man Came up and kissed the pretty lass. She did net make the le.-.st objection: Thinks I. "Aha! When T can talk I'll tell mamma." And that's my earliest recollection. 1 |