Chapter M: B. Banks writes a missionary lesson after the style of “Mother (14)

“What did I do with that memorandum?” said a
distinguished-looking man, speaking half to himself but with his
eyes on the clerk, who stood waiting for his order in a large
city grocery. “What I’ve done with that memorandum this time I
really can not imagine. But you just wait a minute.”

He began searching his pockets. From each of them came scraps of
paper, big and little, old letters with pencil notes on them,
envelops similarly decorated, two or three small note-books, a
theater program, and a number of pieces evidently torn from the
margin of a newspaper and covered with writing. He examined the
scraps one after another and restored each bunch to its separate
pocket. The clerk waited, and a customer farther along the
counter eyed the display with curiosity.

“Gone,” said the gentleman, with an air of finality. “I’ll have
to trust to memory.”

The clerk nodded.

“Six eggs?” he said, with an interrogative inflection.

“Right,” said the gentleman.

The clerk wrote it down. “A pound of butter?” he continued.

“A pound of butter,” agreed the gentleman.

“Bread?”

“Three loaves.”

“Coffee?”

The gentleman hesitated. “No,” he said, with decision. “Coffee
enough on hand to last the rest of the week.” He smiled
contentedly, watched the clerk write a name and address at the
top of the order, and then went out of the shop whistling.

“How did you know what he wanted?” asked the other customer of
the clerk.

“He lives just around the corner in an apartment, and he and his
wife get their own breakfasts. Always the same things--never any
change--but he always has to have it written down.”

“Do you know who he is?”

“His name is Bertini, I think. He’s a kind of professor. I
believe he has a kind of memory system he teaches to people who
can’t remember things.”

The other customer smiled, but the clerk was quite serious. He
had no sense of humor.--_The Youth’s Companion._

(2006)

See ABSENT-MINDEDNESS.

MEMORY AND DISEASE

Many strange defects of memory are known to exist, and of these
an interesting example may be given.

A business man of keen mind and good general memory, who was not
paralyzed in any way, and was perfectly able to comprehend and
engage in conversation, suddenly lost a part of his power of
reading and of mathematical calculation.

The letters d, g, q, x, and y, tho seen perfectly, were in this
case no longer recognized, and conveyed no more idea to him than
Chinese characters would to most of us. He had difficulty in
reading--was obliged to spell out all words, and could read no
words containing three letters.

He could write the letters which he could read, but could not
write the five letters mentioned. He could read and write
certain numbers, but 6, 7, and 8, had been lost to him; and
when asked to write them his only result, after many attempts,
was to begin to write the words six, seven, and eight, not being
able to finish these, as the first and last contained letters (x
and g) which he did not know.

He could not add 7 and 5, or any two numbers whereof 6, 7, or 8
formed a part, for he could not call them to mind. Other numbers
he knew well. He could no longer tell time by the watch.

For a week after the beginning of this curious condition he did
not recognize his surroundings. On going out for the first time
the streets of the city no longer seemed familiar; on coming
back he did not know his own house. After a few weeks, however,
all his memories had returned excepting those of the letters
and figures named; but as the loss of these put a stop to his
reading, and to all his business life, the small defect of
memory was to him a serious thing.

Experience has shown that such a defect is due to a small area
of disease in one part of the brain.--_Harper’s Weekly._

(2007)

=Memory Elusive=--See HEADS, LOSING.

MEMORY FACULTY IN FISHES

Experiments recently made at Tortugas show that fishes have the
faculty of remembering for at least twenty-four hours.

The fish studied at Tortugas are gray perch, whose favorite food
is the little silver sardine. The experimenters painted some of
the silver sardines light red; then they offered them to the
gray perch mixed with the unpainted sardines. The perch snatched
the silver sardines and ate them, then very deliberately and
cautiously they nibbled at the painted sardines. Finding that
the fish were the same whether red or silver, they devoured the
red fish.

Having given proof of their intelligence, they were permitted
to rest twenty-four hours. The experimenters offered them
silver sardines, sardines painted red, and sardines painted
blue. The perch quickly devoured the silver fish, then, without
an instant’s hesitation, they devoured the red fish. Finally,
gliding cautiously up to the blue fish, they took a bite and
darted away. As the taste was favorable they returned to the
blue fish, nibbled again, and devoured them.

The experimenters then tied sea-thistles to the blue sardines.
The perch nibbled, then, disagreeably surprized, darted away.
For twenty-four hours not a fish approached the painted blue
fishes. They remembered the sea-thistles. But their memory
is short; the day following again they snatched the blue
fish.--_Harper’s Weekly._

(2008)

MEMORY, MOURNFUL

Renan, in one of his books, recalls an old French legend of a
buried city on the coast of Brittany. With its homes, public
buildings, churches and thronged streets, it sank instantly into
the sea. The legend says that the city’s life goes on as before
down beneath the waves. The fishermen, when in calm weather they
row over the place, sometimes think they can see the gleaming
tips of the church-spires deep in the water, and fancy they can
hear the chiming of the bells in the old belfries, and even
the murmur of the city’s noises. There are men who in their
later years seem to have an experience like this. Their life
of youthful hopes, dreams, successes and joys has been sunk
out of sight, submerged in misfortunes and adversities and has
vanished altogether. All that remains is a memory. In their
discouragement they seem to hear the echoes of the old songs of
hope and gladness, and to catch visions of the old beauty and
splendor, but that is all. They have nothing real left. They
have grown hopeless and bitter.

(2009)

MEMORY RENEWED

Instances are on record in which those who had heard passages
from a foreign and perfectly unintelligible tongue, which
seemed, of course, to have passed at once from out their
recollection, as the breath fades off from the polished
mirror--have afterward recalled these in delirium or death, or
at some moment of extraordinary excitement, with the utmost
clearness and fullness of detail. And the instances are
frequent, within our observation, in which aged men recall with
vivid distinctness the poetry they recited, the problems they
studied, the games they played, in the freshness of youth, or
the arguments they made in the prime of their manhood; altho
a thousand intervening events had taken a prominence before
them since that, these never had seemed to have submerged those
forever in their thoughts--RICHARD S. STORRS.

(2010)

MEMORY REVIVED BY SICKNESS

A case cited by Dr. Abercrombie confirms the suggestive theory
that the stimulus which fever gives to the circulation (sign
of the disease tho it is) may bring dormant mental impression
into temporary activity. A boy at the age of four had undergone
the operation of trepanning being at the time in a state of
stupor from a severe fracture of the skull. After his recovery
he retained no recollection either of the accident or of the
operation. But at the age of fifteen, during an attack of fever,
he gave his mother an account of the operation, describing
the persons who were present, and even remembering details
of their dress and other minute particulars.--RICHARD A.
PROCTOR, New York _Mail and Express_.

(2011)

MEMORY, UNUSUAL

Pepys tells us of an Indian who could repeat a long passage
in Greek or Hebrew after it had been recited to him only
once, tho he was ignorant of either language. This man would
doubtless have been able to repeat, so far as his vocal
organs would permit him to imitate the sounds, the song of a
nightingale or a lark, through all its ever-varying passages,
during ten or twenty minutes, and with as much understanding
of its significance as of the meaning of the Greek and Latin
words he recited so glibly. We certainly need not envy
that particular “poor Indian” his “untutored mind,” tho as
certainly the power he possest would be of immense value to a
philosopher.--RICHARD A. PROCTOR, New York _Mail and
Express_.

(2012)

=Memory, Verbal=--See ROTE VERSUS REASON.

MEN

It would be difficult to think of a time when the sentiment exprest in this poem by J. G. Holland would not be appropriate. The important thing, however, is that it applies to our time.

God, give us men! A time like this demands
Strong minds, great hearts, true faith, and ready hands;
Men whom the lust of office does not kill;
Men whom the spoils of office can not buy;
Men who possess opinions and a will,
Men who have honor, men who will not lie;
Men who can stand before a demagog,
And damn his treacherous flatteries without winking;
Tall men, sun-crowned, who live above the fog
In public duty and in private thinking;
For while the rabble, with their thumb-worn creeds,
Their large professions and their little deeds,
Mingle in selfish strife, lo! Freedom weeps,
Wrong rules the land, and waiting Justice sleeps!

(2013)

=Men are Gods=--See CHILDREN’S RELIGIOUS IDEAS.

MENACES TO CIVILIZATION

In ancient Athens the Cave of the Furies was underneath the rock
on whose top sat the court of the Areopagus.

May not modern civilization have an underside that harbors many kinds of moral furies?

(2014)

=Menagerie, A Moral=--See SELF-CONFLICT.

=Mental Device=--See PATIENCE.

=Mental Quickness=--See PRESENCE OF MIND.

=Mental States and Dress=--See DRESS AFFECTING MOODS.

MENTALITY, DEVELOPMENT OF