A DOUBLE PURPOSE

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 53, Issue 3802, 31 August 1936, Page 6

A DOUBLE PURPOSE

USE AND ABUSE OF MEMORY. Men and women ate ever moving on to the final rendezvous of the human race, wherever that rendezvous be. They pass through many experiences on the way; the years turn lhe experiences into memories, some sweet, same bitter. We have just passed through a period of memories and experiences in combination. Throughout the Christmas and New Year festivities Age has joined with Youth in trying to make the season happy. But, if there- were honest confession, it would probably be disclosed that at times the elderly found the exuberance of the children just a trifle tiresome. The fact, however, was bravely kept hid, for the older generation realised that a double purpose was being served. The children were consciously enjoying immediate experiences; they were also unconsciously accumulating precious memories, memories which, in distant years and it may be in distant climes, will reinforce the joy of many Christmases to come. The Scot sings Auld Lang Syne with almost religious fervour. But he has also infected the entire English-speaking world with the refrain. Its popularity is due neither to its widespread poetic worth nor to its special musical quality. Its spell lies in the fact that it is supremely a hymn of memory. It is doubtful whether there is any other human faculty to which there attach so many exceptions and reservations. Some quite ordinary people possess a memory at once capacious and tenacious. In numerous instances absence of memory has been characteristic of the highest genius. There are equal divergencies between the memories of men and women. The average man could not tell you The colour of the suit he was wearing the year before last.

The average woman will recall in detail every dress thdt not only she has herself worn, but that every woman of her acquaintance has worn within the past twenty years. Over each of us memory can be ruthlessly tyrannous. It is all very well for the poet to write that “we forget because we must.” Hosts pf people would rejoice if it were as easy as that. But memory will not let them go. The sedate-looking citizen We hold in such high respect will carry with him to the grave the memory of one hour of madness which secretly disfigures the seemingly unbroken rectitude of his life. The demure wife, and mother, once a heartless flirt, does not hope to be forgiven for the cruel word with which she marred another life; but, if only she could, how gladly she would forget. Even where only life’s ordinary incidents are concerned it

seems indisputable that memory is a gramophone-like record, exact, indelible, eternal.

No item passes into complete oblivion. Some trifle will serve to disclose that memory has been only asleep, not extinct. A snatch of an old melody, a whiff of some special scent, and instantly there become vivid scenes and persons whose existence we thought we had entirely forgotten. Although memory can remain long quiescent and keep its resources latent, it is a highly cultivable faculty. It can, indeed, be cultivated to a degree prejudical to the free exercise of other mental powers. Some people seem able to card-index in their memory every idea they have heard expounded. Yet they have never been known to evolve one single idea of their own. There are persons whose brains are alert and sarong, but are characterised by a certain untidiness. A similar untidiness afflicts some people’s memories. They are ever remembering the right thing at the wrong time. When, in company especially, they start being reminiscent, they are certain to stir memories that will lead to someone’s embarrassment. And yet the embarrassments so caused are certain to be slight compared with those awaiting us when the recording angel starts his work. The day of judgment is likely to furnish most of us with a series of surprises demonstrating the defectiveness of our memories.

Over a wide area, however, memory is within our control. It can be wisely used or foolishly abused for our heart’s happiness or our mental dispeace. Striking anomalies are, of course, associated with the uses to which different people put it. This woman can repeat without a slip the whole of the 119th Psalm, and the achievement doubtless affords her much spiritual solace, piingled probably also with some degree of secret pride. That man can repeat the name and performance of every horse that has won the Melbourne Cup since it was first presented. His whole life’s calendar consists of a series of Cup winners; according to each he dates practically every event that has ever happened to him. W'e are all of us more or less slaves to memory, since to it belongs the power to affect our emotions at any moment. Let it be by chance in some direction stirred, and instantly feelings of gladness and of gratitude are awakened. We recall green places at which our life’s caravan at different stages halted and those who cheered us and guided us on our way.

Memory may also be trusted to remind us of incidents that summon us to remorse. The occasions are certain to be numerous, and penitence becomes us. But few things are more calculated to make' life morbid than indulgence in vain regrets. Probably none escape memories that are bitter, but some people so nour-

ish their bitterness that their lives ecome a record of barren cynicism, hose who are wise enough and merous enough to avoid such erjrs are certain to discover that emories are the sweetest fruits of .’e’s autumn. They enable us to ze at will in two different worlds—;e world that is real, the world we n recall. Memory is the side door i rough which we are ever free to iss into the environment of the disi nt scene into the company of those • e loved long since and have lost : vhile. This culminating fascina- :■ on of ,such memories, however, is not simply that former joys can be in come measure relived, but the abundant encouragement they give to the hope that some time, somewhere, these joys will be in full measure restored. •