JUNE 161 



XXXIX 



The researches of the Spanish physiologist, Ramon 



of Cajal, have lately elucidated the structure of a cer- 

 tain May- 

 of the human brain, a marvellously minute fly 



and complicated machinery, whereby every experience 

 is converted into a reminiscence. Death or disease 

 alone can destroy the impression. It is there, and the 

 effort of memory consists merely in directing a force, 

 probably a streamlet of blood, to the spot where the 

 impression is stored; forgetting is the inability to 

 distinguish that spot amid myriads of others. A 

 mayfly Ephemera the creature of a summer day 

 a single image amid countless companies of its 

 fellows is perhaps an object less calculated to make a 

 lasting impression than most others in this crowded 

 world. Even a midge so it plants its proboscis in 

 the right place may raise its own monument, and be 

 remembered beyond the setting of many suns ; but a 

 mayfly might surely flutter past, innocuous and un- 

 noticed, and never obtain place in the recollections of a 

 wayfarer. Yet has an individual of this race type of 

 all that is light and fleeting fixed itself more firmly in 

 my memory than many other things which it would be 

 more profitable to bear in mind. 



The vine-dressers of the Loire were losing all heart 

 about their prospects. May had been miserable ; June 

 had opened joyless; the vines were not pushing in at 

 all satisfactory form. All morning ragged rain-clouds 

 had swept from the west over the grey town of Blois ; 



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