Memories and Recollections

There is nothing like the dead cold hand of the Past to take down our tumid egotism and lead us into the solemn flow of the life of our race.

And suddenly the memory revealed itself. The taste was that of the little piece of madeleine which . . . my aunt Léonie used to give me, dipping it first in her own cup of tea or tisane.

It doesn’t matter who my father was; it matters who I remember he was.

And suddenly the memory revealed itself.

Nothing can be so perfect while we possess it as it will seem when remembered.

Of childish days is upon me, my manhood is cast Down in the flood of remembrance, I weep like a child for the past.

 

The true paradises are the paradises that we have lost.

There are perhaps no days of our childhood we lived so fully as those we believe we left without having lived them: those we spent with a favorite book.

One day, in retrospect, the years of struggle will strike you as the most beautiful.

Better by far you should forget and smile Than that you should remember and be sad.

Perhaps being old is having lighted rooms Inside your head, and people in them, acting. People you know, yet can’t quite name.

The world has changed. I see it in the water. I feel it in the Earth. I smell it in the air. Much that once was is lost, for none now live who remember it. J. R. R.

So, like a forgotten fire, a childhood can always flare up again within us.

For this is action, this not being sure, this careless Preparing, sowing the seeds crooked in the furrow, Making ready to forget, and always coming back To the mooring of starting out, that day so long ago.

Never such innocence again.

Les souvenirs sont cors de chasse

The true tomb of the dead is the heart of the living.

Women still remember the first kiss after men have forgotten the last.

And remembering… Remembering, with twinklings and twinges, As they lean over the beans in their rented back room that is full of beads and receipts and dolls and cloths, tobacco crumbs, vases and fringes.

—And Friday, my dear Friday, died of measles seventeen years ago come March.

When I am dead, my dearest, Sing no sad songs for me; Plant thou no roses at my head, Nor shady cypress tree. Be the green grass above me With showers and dewdrops wet; And if thou wilt, remember And if thou wilt, forget.

Men forget but never forgive. Women forgive but never forget.

Petersburg! I still possess a list of addresses, Which will help me to hear the voices of the dead.

 

I hibernated in my past. 5