Democratic Sentinel, Volume 17, Number 20, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 2 June 1893 — Tricks of Memory. [ARTICLE]

Tricks of Memory.

“A man never realizes how much of everything is stored up in the human mind until he begins to draw on it for a continuous period of time,” said Marvin Temple. “And these two things come back-to one when entirely forgotten, and one really imagines that now here is something new and original until one learns better. This is especially true with old songs. Airs that at one time filled in moments of loneliness and gloom, but with 100 other little details have long since passed out of mind, return. One stops and wonders at the beauty of them, and not having heard them before, according to memory, one takes credit for originality. I did this once. One morning I awoke with something pretty running through my brain. I framed in my mind a jingle, and I could -hear it just as plain, but to save me I could not give it sound. Finally, after fretting about an hour and having completed my toilet, I sat down before the tire and began to rock. “Then all at once the power came, and I hummed my new air over and over again with extreme delight. Visiting an old chum that evening, I brought up the subject of music. Then I whistled my new tune and asked him if he did not think it pretty. ‘I like that tune especially because my sister, who has been dead some 13 years, sang it for me when I was still a schoolboy.’ I eyed him with astonishment. ‘You never heard that before,’ I said. ‘Why that’s origi, nal.’ ‘Original nothing,’ came the re joinder; ‘l’ve got the piece in my trunk.’ And, sure enough, after rummaging through a great stock of useless treasure he produced a faded piece of sheet music—my very tune, and with words to it. Then I gave myself up to reflection, and eventually recalled the song as I bad known it years before.”—[St. Louis Globe-Democrat.