612 Mr. Charles Merrier on Memory. [May 3, 



verse presents itself; or some visual scene : a bit of seashore seen in 

 a long past holiday ; the front of the house that we lived in twenty 

 years ago ; a room of the college in which we used to study, comes 

 before the mind. It comes with no imperious clamour, but it rises, 

 as it were, half-way, and gently but repeatedly solicits attention, 

 until in the end it has to be attended to. I have often compared 

 these unsolicited, unattached memories to flakes of bran in a boiling 

 pot. They rise to the surface, brought up by currents that we 

 cannot discern, they float for a while, and then subside, and give 

 place to others that come similarly out of the depths. Trivial as 

 these observations may appear, I believe that they are really by no 

 means unimportant. They form, I believe, the bases of many of our 

 dreams ; and such successions of unconnected memories are often 

 recognisable in delirium and in mania. In all of these states the 

 content of consciousness is characterised by its disconnectedness. It 

 is mainly composed of memories, and of memories that are not brought 

 into the mind by association, but arise by their own spontaneity, and 

 by their inherent vigour capture the wandering attention. 



[C. M.J 



