PEOPLE AND THINGS
By HAROLD NICOLSON
F ever I become demonstrably insane, the collapse of my faculties will be heralded by panic of a curious kind. It is not of losing my memory that I am frightened ; what terrifies me is that I might suddenly find it all at once. Few of my friends share, or even understand, this phobia. Swift would have understood it ; Dr. Johnson (had one men- tioned it to him) would have been struck dumb with gloom. Baudelaire understood it: "Tai plus de souvenirs," he ex- claimed in agony, "que si favais mule ans." But Baude- laire, even if alive, would be sour comfort. Surely this phobia is natural. We know that in the folds of our tiny human brain is stored every single memory of our lives. Fortunately for us the vast majority of our impressions, once they reach their pigeon-hole, slumber silently until we die. Supposing, however, that something occurred to arouse this tiny but enormous columbarium and set the pigeons of memory swirling in their millions around the brain? Madness (if death delayed) would be inevitable. I regard it as strange that other people do not share so sensible an apprehension.
Previous page
