ON THE ABEYANCE OF MEMORY. 153 



lose all recognition of, and faith in, ourselves and our 

 surroundings. 



But however much we imagine we remember con- 

 cerning the details of any remarkable impression which 

 has been made us by a single blow, we do not remem- 

 ber as much or nearly as much as we think we do. 

 The subordinate details soon drop out of mind. Those 

 who think they remember even such a momentous 

 matter as the battle of Waterloo recall now probably 

 but half-a-dozen episodes, a gleam here, and a gleam 

 there, so that what they call remembering the battle 

 of Waterloo, is, in fact, little more than a kind of dream- 

 ing so soon vanishes the memory of any unrepeated 

 occurrence. 



As for smaller impressions, there is very little of 

 what happens to us in each week that will be in our 

 memories a week hence ; a man of eighty remembers 

 few of the unrepeated incidents of his life beyond those 

 of the last fortnight, a little here, and a little there, 

 forming a matter of perhaps six weeks or two months 

 in all, if everything that he can call to mind were 

 acted over again with no greater fulness than he can 

 remember it. As for incidents that have been often 

 repeated, his mind strikes a balance of its past remini- 

 scences, remembering the two or three last perform- 

 ances, and a general method of procedure, but nothing 

 more. 



If, then, the recollection of all that is not very 

 novel, or very often repeated, so soon fades from our 

 own minds, during what we consider as our single 

 lifetime, what wonder that the details of our daily ex- 



