Recollects

“ If recollecting were forgetting,
Then I remember not,
And if forgetting, recollecting,
How near I had forgot,
And if to miss, were merry,
And to mourn, were gay,
How very blithe the fingers
That gathered this, today! ”

“ It is pleasant to look back upon past pleasures, to recall the beautiful scenes we have once witnessed, the smile of friendship, the tear of sympathy, the glance of affection, the tone of love, or to listen again to the thrilling sounds of soul-enrapturing music, that has once delighted us. But so varied is our pathway of life, that a thorough retrospection must ever be fraught with sad as well as pleasing reflection. Is memory thus faithful to her trust? ”

“ I am reporting it as an experience in life; those who understand will understand. And thus out of my journeys I have words which bring back to me with indescribable poignancy the particular impression of a time or a place. I prize them more highly than almost any other of my possessions, for they come to me seemingly out of the air, and the remembrance of them enables me to recall or live over a past experience with scarcely diminished emotion. ”

“ What an interesting and varied picture do these dates present to my mind's eye, and how many remembrances are associated with them of joy and sorrow, of trial and happiness! I could willingly spend hours in recalling all in detail, and I feel as if it would do us both good, should I do so; for I find that, in the full occupation of the present, the lessons of the past are losing their power over me. Their voice cannot be heard in the busy bustle of life ”

“ And with the memories which that picture called up I may well bring these Recollections to a close. It is something to remember, amid the bustle and bitterness of active life, that one once had youth, and hope, and eagerness, and large opportunities, and generous friends. A tender and regretful sentiment seems to cling to the very walls and trees among which one cherished such bright ambitions and felt the passionate sympathy of such loving hearts. ”

“ Thus we find the aged invariably attached to the days that are gone, more than to those that are passing, or to come; even recollected pain loses its anguish, and the traces of memory though broken and imperfect are delightful to the eye that has grown dim to the illusions of hope. But to us, my young friends, who have never felt affliction to disgust us with life, or age to paralize the ardour of fancy, still to us memory opens a full source of pleasure. ”

“ Memory! Who has not felt its influence! Who of us would wish to part with its delights and quiet teachings! Beautifully adapted is the twilight hour to the cherishing of the recollections of the past. It is then that the hum of busy life is hushed, and all nature seems resting from its toil. Then, in undisturbed peace, rise before us the loved ones we have cherished, and whose memories, like guardian angels, always attend us. ”

“ He remembered, cursing the memory, the sleek, plausible figure in its black tights and broadcloth, the spotless frill at its bosom, the smile on its prosperous face, the pen travelling in its plump fingers while the voice went on, even, polite, and interested. To be signing away so inhumanly the fortune, the happiness, the soul of a fellow-creature, and never all the while to flush or falter. ”

“ When memory thus becomes the depository of grief, how faithfully is the charge kept!—and how much superior are the touches of one who paints from the life, and the heart, and the senses,—to those of one who dips his pen in his ink-stand, and casts his eye on a heap of musty parchments, to glean his facts or his feelings from them! ”

“ In a little we are upon our way again, a lessening memory at our backs; growing ruddy and merry, laughing, deriding, scoffing, enjoying, taking the blandishments of the moment with a heart of the lightest. ”

“ Even the times of separation or of bitter quarrel, the aching heart whereon the keepsake lies, the spasms of jealousy, the tenterhooks of doubt; remembrance looks upon them all as treasures of a golden age. ”

“ What a task, to watch the light of reason quivering in the eye, or with agonizing expectation to catch the beam of recollection; tantalized by hope, only to feel despair more keenly, at finding a much loved face or voice, suddenly remembered, or pathetically implored, only to be immediately forgotten, or viewed with indifference or abhorrence! ”

“ The memory that obtrudes is of a clouded page in my life—a chapter which I fatuously hoped had been closed and laid aside forever—something to be regretted, to stand as a warning in the future, and yet inclining me to a greater charity. This I know is the experience of many men. ”

“ And to my more than three-score years and ten
Brought back my youth again.
The heart hath its own memory, like the mind,
And in it are enshrined
The precious keepsakes, into which is wrought
The giver's loving thought. ”

“ Let us all take care, as the daily life rolls swiftly on, that we lay up happy memories, or at least pleasant memories, when that daily life has become the past,—the past which, when it was the present, was, alas! ”

“ Croakers to the contrary notwithstanding, there is in the record of our past lives, or in the prophecy of our future, another word than grief or care; it is joy. My friend, could your history be truthfully written, and printed in the old style, are there not many passages that would shine beautifully in golden letters? I say truthfully written; for we are so apt to forget our joys, while we remember our griefs. ”

“ Conquer in your wisdom the claims of kinsmanship and the memory of a noble and generous character, a memory which must always recall something beyond painter’s art or rhetorician’s skill. Repel the assault of sorrow by the thought of Him who wisely administers all the affairs of men, with perfect knowledge of the future and right guidance of it for our good. ”

“ On every side are mementos of a happy past, and all, though mute, speaking to me in a language whose power stirs the depths of my soul. Wherever the eye may turn, it meets with a silent greeting from an old friend, and the whole shrouded in a weird gloom that lends to the most common object an air of melancholy mystery. ”

“ Memory, that scourge of the unlucky, revived the very stories of the past, and even distilled a few drops of honey into the proffered draught of venom—and all this, too, simply to crush a man with the consciousness of his mistakes, and make him love this past and deprive him of hope in the future. ”

“ How hard it is to remember what is most memorable. We remember how we itched, not how our hearts beat. I can sometimes recall to mind the quality, the immortality of my youthful life, but in memory is the only relation to it. ”

“ I might live a thousand years, but when memory grew weary of its heavy task, it would still turn fondly to the scene before me now, and I would see myself in fancy a youth with an ideal—an ideal that sealed his lips—and broke his heart. ”

“ What a wondrous sensation it is to feel that a chance expression we have used, a few stray words, have been stored up as precious memories! Is there any flattery like it? What an ecstasy to feel that we could impart value to the veriest commonplace, and, without an effort, without even a will, sit enthroned within some other heart! ”

“ Thou, upon whom thy years fourscore
So lightly sit, thou hast a store
Of memories such as they alone
May have whose hearts all truth have known.
Now may this year bring thee no less
Than all the past of happiness! ”

“ And upon no spot in the review of the past does one's memory dwell with so much intense emotion, as upon that thorny and tangled labyrinth through which the spirit wandered, 'bewildered, but not lost,' at the period when the necessity and duty of proving its own character first roused it to a sense of its responsibilities. You say most truly, that it is good to look at things at a distance, from new and various points of view. ”

“ Dimly out of the past would appear the faces of men and women—long since dead and already only vaguely remembered—the companions of his youth, once individually vibrant with the current of life, now moldering alike in forgotten graves. ”

“ If memory, instead of softening all the traces, gave us back the original lines of life in their native harshness, who could live on to old age? for the catalogue of broken hopes, and disappointed wishes, and pleasures snatched from us never to return, would be more than any human mind could bear. ”

“ Then how necessary that we should improve each moment, as it glides along into the unbounded ocean of eternity, that it may bear a good record to the future hour. And, O, how necessary that we should so spend our lives, that when we come to be laid upon our death-bed, in the last agonies of expiring nature, if reason does not forsake her throne, and memory still proves true to her trust, it may bring up the pleasing recollection that life has been well spent. ”

“ But there is one object to which the mind and eye turn back yet again, and which by associations variously tender, pathetic, or amusing, lead memory off for a while to wander in the dreamy mazes of the past. ”

“ What a wonderful faculty is memory!--the most mysterious and inexplicable in the great riddle of life; that plastic tablet on which the Almighty registers with unerring fidelity the records of being, making it the depository of all our words, thoughts, and deeds--this faithful witness against us for good or evil; at the great assize that hereafter must determine our eternal fate, when conscience, at his dread command, shall open up this book of life! ”

“ In short, the reader must have known the luxury of tears, must have felt the silent pangs of a passing memory, the vision of a dear yet far-off Shade,—memories which bring regret for all that earth has swallowed up, with smiles for vanished joys. ”

“ I choose words with reverence but speak from recollection, and one day does not utter to another its own wisdom. Our highest moments in life are often those of which we hold thereafter the vaguest memories. ”

“ While the waves of time have borne year after year away, each one replete with change, we have been tossing upon the stream till we again stand in the same place from which we then departed, and while the grief of that hour is fresh in the memory, we will again turn sadly away from the spot teeming with so many remembrances, and where were instilled the first principles of virtue and religion. ”

“ Now and then through life when the memory of a particular one arises, it has been accompanied by regret at the thought of our eternal separation, and by the consciousness that I was offering him an eternal worship of which he could never know. ”

“ Yet if you should forget me for a while
⁠And afterwards remember, do not grieve:
⁠For if the darkness and corruption leave
⁠A vestige of the thoughts that once I had,
Better by far you should forget and smile
⁠Than that you should remember and be sad. ”

“ Of cheering perfume streams,
Till with a lifted heart we tread
The pleasant land of dreams.
Make friends of potent memory,
Oh! young man in thy prime,
And with her jewels bright and rare,
Enrich the board of Time ”

“ Every life-memory, every life-experience, is a common possession, and with a tone, a look, a gesture, a silent motion, as much of joy, sorrow, or reflection is aroused in their bosoms as we can bring about through long expositions and spluttering declamations. ”

“ My Father, I pray that it may be mine to have the recollection of happy deeds, and not the memory of unkept promises. Help me to remember that one act is worth a thousand intentions, and that memory is the storehouse that supplies old age. ”

“ Memory adding itself to memory until I had all the leading facts of her story—that fatal, insignificant, desperate accident—then, mockingly too late, her love for myself—her so strangely happy life, its fulness now to be turned into a superabundance by her voluntary taking up the care of a weak-minded woman—all, all her happy-unhappy story. ”

“ As we advance in life, the literature which has charmed us in the circle of our friends becomes endeared to us from the reflected remembrance of them, of their individualities, their opinions, and their sympathies, so that our memory of it is a many-colored cord, drawn from many minds. ”

“ The true argosy of memory is not facts, but a perfume compounded of all the sunsets we have ever seen, all the joys and friendships, pleasures and sorrows we have ever known, all the emotions we have felt, all the brave and mean things we have done, all the broken hopes we have suffered. ”

“ Like the dying echo of the last tones of the departed, it is full of hallowed memories, and cherished associations, that haunt the inner chambers of the imagination, and linger with a mournful tenderness about the better feelings of the heart. ”

“ Fresh be the wound, still-renewed be its smarting, So but thy image endure in its prime. But, if the steadfast commandment of Nature Wills that remembrance should always decay— If the loved form and the deep-cherished feature Must, when unseen, from the soul fade away— Me let no half-effaced memories cumber! ”

“ Such then is the circle of my commemoration and so much these free and copious notes a labour of love and loyalty. We were, to my sense, the blest group of us, such a company of characters and such a picture of differences, and withal so fused and united and interlocked, that each of us, to that fond fancy, pleads for preservation, and that in respect to what I speak of myself as possessing I think I shall be ashamed, as of a cold impiety, to find any element altogether negligible. ”