Wednesday, January 21, 2026
Forgetting
Thomas De Quincey (1785-1859), Confessions of an English Opium Eater (London: Dent, 1960; rpt. 1967 = Everyman's Library, 223), pp. 235-236:
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Of this, at least, I feel assured, that there is no such thing as ultimate forgetting; traces once impressed upon the memory are indestructible; a thousand accidents may and will interpose a veil between our present consciousness and the secret inscriptions on the mind. Accidents of the same sort will also rend away this veil. But alike, whether veiled or unveiled, the inscription remains for ever; just as the stars seem to withdraw before the common light of day, whereas, in fact, we all know that it is the light which is drawn over them as a veil, and that they are waiting to be revealed whenever the obscuring daylight itself shall have withdrawn.
