The pause had seemed terribly long to me, but I
was surprised afterwards to find that it had been so brief as to be
generally unnoticed or regarded as an artful way of emphasising a point. I
let it go at that, but I knew myself that in that moment I had lost my
memory.
Even distinguished and expert orators have been known to suffer from this
absolute lapse of memory. The Rosebery incident--was it in the Chesterfield
speech?--is perhaps the best known, but I once heard Mr. Redmond, the
calmest and most assured of speakers, come to an _impasse_ in the House of
Commons that held him up literally for minutes.
We are creatures of memory, and when, as in the Keighley case, memory is
gone personality itself has gone. Nothing is left but the empty envelope.
The more fundamental functions of memory, the habits of respiration, of
walking and physical movement, of mastication, and so on, remain. The
Keighley man still eats and walks with all the knowledge of a lifetime. He
probably preserves his taste for tobacco.
Pages:
257
258
259
260
261
262
263
264
265
266
267
268
269
270
271
272
273
274
275
276
277
278
279
280
281