“They bewitch the memory, having once caught it, and insist on saying themselves over and over.”

Capturing the way memorable poetry continues to sound inwardly long after reading · Essay, Robert Herrick, in Ponkapog Papers (1903)

• Language
• Memory
• Poetry

“Oblivion likes especially to get hold of occasional poems.”

A witty observation on how quickly poetry written for particular occasions can be forgotten · Essay, Robert Herrick, in Ponkapog Papers (1903)

• Humour
• Memory
• Poetry

“The earlier sorrow has faded out of the hour, leaving a softened solemnity.”

Describing how public grief can evolve into quieter remembrance across generations · Essay, Decoration Day, in Ponkapog Papers (1903)

• Grief
• Memory
• Time

“In such tragic spots the twilight always lays a dark hand on the imagination, and prompts one to invoke the unappeased spirit of the past that haunts the place.”

Evoking the way historic landscapes can make the past feel almost physically present · Essay, A Note on L'Aiglon, in Ponkapog Papers (1903)

• History
• Imagination
• Memory

“The idea of repeopling old battlefields with the shades of vanished hosts is not novel.”

Reflecting on the enduring imaginative power of places marked by warfare and death · Essay, A Note on L'Aiglon, in Ponkapog Papers (1903)

• Imagination
• Memory
• War

“A man's voice is almost the only part of him entirely obliterated by death.”

A poignant reflection on mortality and the particular fragility of the spoken voice · Ponkapog Papers, Leaves from a Note Book (1903)

• Death
• Memory
• Mortality

“We often read of wonderful manifestations of memory, but they are always instances of the faculty working in some special direction. It is memory playing, like Paganini, on one string.”

Distinguishing exceptional feats of recollection from a genuinely broad and retentive memory · Ponkapog Papers, Leaves from a Note Book (1903)

• Knowledge
• Memory
• Mind

“The thing one reads and likes, and then forgets, is of no account. The thing that stays, and haunts one, and refuses to be forgotten, that is the sincere thing.”

Defining lasting emotional impression as a test of genuine literary power · Essay collection, Ponkapog Papers (1903)

• Literature
• Memory
• Reading