To memorize, then, is to restore intimacy.—Joseph Brodsky, “Nadezhda Mandelstam: An Obituary”Great is this power of memory, exceedingly great, O my God, a spreading limitless room within me. Who can reach its uttermost depth? Yet it is a faculty of my soul and belongs to my nature. In fact I cannot grasp all that I am. Thus the mind is not large enough to contain itself: but where can that part of it be which it does not contain? Is it outside itself and not within? How can it not contain itself? As this question struck me, I was overcome with wonder and almost stupor. Here are men going afar to marvel at the heights of mountains, the mighty waves of the sea, the long courses of great rivers, the vastness of the ocean, the movement of the stars, yet leaving themselves unnoticed.—Saint Augustine, Confessions, Book X, “Memory,” translated into German by Romano Guardini and from the German into English by Elinor BriefsPerhaps everybody has a garden of Eden, I don’t know; but they have scarcely seen their garden before they see the flaming sword.
What do You think about In The Light Of What We Know?
