The Art of Memory When we can traverse the plains of memory, stopping at each fire to warm ourselves before we start again on our journey, there is a world inside a world that keeps going on to infinity. If we are lucky enough to hear the eternal melody that is at work in these moments, many fine hours may come upon us. But sometimes the solace and hospitality are too much and we live with our new found companions, taking them along wherever we go, as a shadow upon our eyes. The memories of Thoreau, or the early frontier narratives of Indian captivity, are something that I have felt eternal and unchangeable in human nature, not for any piece of information they have given me, but because my melancholy has always found peace in their environment. For some the world is old or the world is new, but the point is that we tend to look at it through memory. One memorable event confounds all future celebrations; we remember so as not to forget, but we do not remember that we are able t
April 12th, 2013 Part 2 Let it not be inferred that reasoning or any frame of logic be useless; rather, reasoning and logic do not at all times pertain to significance; and if there were a way that something could exist, and constantly catch our eye, so that we were aware of its becoming, though no change to us appeared, we would not need proof to tell us what our eyes had already seen. But before we know it, the truly taxing method of our lives has been prepared: the day becomes divided up according to our or another's need, or the nourishment of mind and body, and then of slumber, and we have not seen anything but the far-fetched and constant repetition of daily life. It is such a strange phrase 'daily life' and so hard to define, yet I think it not too different for any one of us to answer its questions, so much so that our concern almost wholly lies not with its particulars, but with the stress of living up to that phrase alone. Long ago we had our rituals an