Israel Zangwill

“ He started the Clearing House forthwith. It began humbly as an attic in the Strand. The first number of the catalogue was naturally meagre. He was good enough to put me on the free list, and I watched with interest the development of the enterprise. He had canvassed his acquaintances for subscribers, and begged everybody he met to send him particulars of their cast-off memories. When he could afford to advertise a little, his clientèle increased. There is always a public for anything bizarre, and a percentage of the population would send thirteen stamps for the Philosopher’s Stone, post free. ”

“ Precisely; the principle of direct exchange is not feasible. What is wanted, therefore, is a Memory Clearing House. If I can only discover the process of thought-transference, I will establish one, so as to bring the right parties into communication. Everybody who has old memories to dispose of will send me in particulars. At the end of each week I will publish a catalogue of the memories in the market, and circulate it among my subscribers, who will pay, say, a guinea a year. ”

“ In the hands of honest students the invention might have produced intellectual giants, for each scholar could have started where his predecessor left off, and added more to his wealth of lore, the moderns standing upon the shoulders of the ancients in a more literal sense than Bacon dreamed. ”

“ Doubtless, in time, there will be a supplementary catalogue devoted to ‘Wants,’ which may induce people to scour their brains for half-forgotten reminiscences, or persuade them to give up memories they would never have parted with otherwise. ”

“ I wonder whether Geraldine—but let me finish now!
How well I remember that bright summer’s morning when, wooed without by the liberal sunshine, and disgusted with the progress I was making with my new study in realistic fiction, I threw down my pen, strolled down the Strand, and turned into the Clearing House. I passed through the selling department, catching a babel of cries from the counter-jumpers—“Two gross of anecdotes? Yes, sir; this way, sir. Half-dozen proposals; it’ll be cheaper if you take a dozen, miss. Can I do anything more for you, mum? ”

“ Politicians, clergymen, and ex-examinees soon became the chief customers. Graduates in arts and science hastened to discumber their memories of the useless load of learning which had outstayed its function of getting them on in the world. ”

“ So were the advertisements, which were required to have reference to the objects of the Clearing House—e.g.,
A PHILANTHROPIC GENTLEMAN of good address, who has travelled a great deal, wishes to offer his addresses to impecunious young ladies (orphans preferred) . Only those genuinely desirous of changing their residences, and with weak memories, need apply.
And now for the final and fatal “Eureka.” The anxiety of some persons to hire out their memories for a period led O’Donovan to see that it was absurd for him to pay for the use of them. The owners were only too glad to dodge remorse. ”

“ Some people who might otherwise have been good customers objected to losing their memories entirely. They were willing to part with them for a period. For instance, when a man came up to town or took a run to Paris, he did not mind dispensing with some of his domestic recollections, just for a change. ”

“ Widows and widowers presented themselves in shoals for treatment, with the result that marriages took place even within the year of mourning—a thing which obviously could not be done under any other system. ”

“ I asked the police to send for O’Donovan, and gave them the address of the Amnesia Agency, but O’Donovan denied the existence of such an institution, and said he got his living as secretary of the Shamrock Society.
I raved and cursed him then—now it occurs to me that he had perhaps submitted himself (and everybody else) to amnesiastic treatment. The jury recommended me to mercy on the ground that to commit a murder for the artistic purpose of describing the sensations bordered on insanity ”

“ Instead of issuing the projected supplemental catalogue of “Memories Wanted,” O’Donovan by this time saw his way to buying them up on spec. He was not satisfied with his commission. He had learnt by experience the kinds that went best, such as exam. answers, but he resolved to have all sorts and be remembered as the Whiteley of Memory. Thus the Clearing House very soon developed into a storehouse. O’Donovan’s advertisement ran thus:
WANTED! ”

“ It will change human life, it will make a new epoch, it will effect a greater economy of human force than all the machines under the sun. Think of the saving of nerve-tissue, think of the prevention of brain-irritation. ”