Revisiting the Earth

by James Langdon Hill

Now my kind, optimistic brother, I have a word here for you. You are traveling in blinders. You are a mechanical pace-setter. All your training is for the middle of the road. It is counted a physical deformity if a person cannot turn his head. It is an expression of opprobrium to find people stiff-necked. The chief office of a vehicle is to carry on, yet for use at home, a carriage that cannot be turned round would be extremely inconvenient.

Pausing for a Fore-taste

The observation car giving the best view to be had of the mountain landscape as it waltzes by, is placed at the rear of the train. The most extravagant demonstrations of joy and gratitude, our most hallowed feelings come from looking back on what has been done unto us and for us.

Hesitancy about revisiting the earth comes lastly from those who think they have lost their interest in days that are gone, that forgetfulness has done its sad work, that the dead past has buried its dead. It is to witness the miracle of a resurrection that we are uttering our cry.

Waymarks of the Journey

They assume that a fact or a name is gone into oblivion when, for example, they are unable by a repeated effort to recall it. The mind is a delicate organism. You cannot well force things. It has its own laws of suggestion. Once coming into the old surroundings, which rake up the past, standing again on a recognized corner, which carry one's thoughts back with delight into familiar haunts, the law of association will put on the tip of your tongue names and incidents that you supposed to be clean forgotten. If a person had asked me to give the name of the first barber that ever set foot in the town of my boyhood home, I would have believed it sunk in oblivion. In the summer coming upon the cross-roads, I said, "Here stood the first barber shop in town." The name of the negro, even, that kept it flashed on my mind. It was Stanbach, the last syllable as he pronounced it ended with the German guttural. His son, a little freckled mulatto, was called Johnnie Stanbach. When a little full-blooded negro appeared, Johnnie would not associate with him. He was "too black," "black enough to smut a body."

The Mind's Re-invigoration

When Hon. James O. Crosby, an eminent lawyer, in my native village, having a large practice in the courts of the county, met the father of John R. Mott of merited distinction, a living force, this was the dialogue: "How do you do, Mr. Mott!" "How do you do, Mr. Crosby!" and then taking Mr. Crosby's hand Mr. Mott said to him, "Your face seems familiar but I cannot seem to recall your name." This occurrence gives a volume of experience in revisiting the earth. When Mr. Mott badgered his mind to recall Mr. Crosby's name, his intellect balked, utterly, and continuously refused to act. The mind often halts, even as to common words. One's mental powers come to a sudden pause, like circus horses, and a man recovers their use, not by any effort of will, but by some sudden, and almost impulsive, suggestion. Recent events and dates are easily lost or pass into confusion while those of long prior time still hold firm root and their right place in remembrance. As we have seen, a quick, unerring, even unconscious mental spring, acting according to the laws of the association of ideas will unaided and without effort, bring a name, pent up in one's memory, promptly forward for his instant use. The value of this power is beyond estimation. Occurrences supposed to be forgotten are very much alive, when upon old familiar ground. Revisiting the earth is a simple string of these acts of spontaneous recollection. If you hear a few notes of music, the inseparable association, that exists in the mind, suggests the rest of the tune. That is a very apt expression, when a person says he is haunted by a tune. It implies an existence, in the chambers of the brain, that is making a stir and which he supposed to be dead. The simple act of thus recalling an event is in itself the most wonderful of all mental processes.

The Re-creation of the World

I heard of a man who had over-looked the fact that memory paints with fast colors, also that a recollection that is dim in one locality is bright in another. On reaching a scene of early associations, on picking up a thing, he found it was like one of the links of a chain, that one being stirred, others were moved and the man was found discoursing on How I improved my memory in one evening. On revisiting the earth, memories are awakened which, but for coming upon the old soil, would probably have slept silently to the end of life. It is given to me, to have a distinct testimony in this matter. Many others can corroborate these hints by startling facts in their own lives and without any stretch of their imagination. I was brought to the belief, that a person may not ever forget anything. The recollection turns out to be a faithful, painstaking, autobiographer. This almost scares a person. A wand seemed to be waved and forth came people and anecdotes and events that he supposed were in oblivion. There turns out to be, not only a recollection of the head, but also a memory of the heart. The process is different. On the one hand a boy commits to memory and learns by rote, on the other hand there are some things he loves. All these he knows by heart. This is an undying, imperishable recollection. It is the immortality of the affections. Vividness of feeling does it. All that pertains to home, he learns by heart. It is as indestructible as his eternal being. "Dot must be der vonderful blace Ohm, to make der British cry. I tink to myself, I vill go and see dis blace, Ohm, vot der vos no blace like. Vich is der vay to 'Ohm, Sweet Ohm?'" Where the affections have been unlocked and the whole inner man has been stirred,—a high water mark has been registered in one's memory that can never be eradicated. Your heart shall live forever, so shall all of your heart's histories. They give you something that the thieving years can never take away. I have pleasure in adding to the assurance of it.