“A person,” cried Isabella, “can’t, surely, be vain—what we, in English, call vain—of not remembering any thing.”
“Is it, then, impossible that a person should be what you, in English, call vain, of not remembering what is useless? I dare say you can tell me the name of that wise man who prayed for the art of forgetting.”
“No, indeed, I don’t know his name; I never heard of him before: was he a Grecian, or a Roman, or an Englishman? can’t you recollect his name? what does it begin with?”
“I do not wish either for your sake or my own, to remember the name; let us content ourselves with the wise man’s sense, whether he were a Grecian, a Roman, or an Englishman: even the first letter of his name might be left among the useless things—might it not?”
“But,” replied Isabella, a little piqued, “I do not know what you call useless.”
“Those of which you can make no use,” said Mad. de Rosier, with simplicity.
“You don’t mean, though, all the names, and dates, and kings, and Roman emperors, and all the remarkable events that I have learned by heart?”
“It is useful, I allow,” replied Mad. de Rosier, “to know by heart the names of the English kings and Roman emperors, and to remember the dates of their reigns, otherwise we should be obliged, whenever we wanted them, to search in the books in which they are to be found, and that wastes time.”
“Wastes time—yes; but what’s worse,” said Isabella, “a person looks so awkward and foolish in company, who does not know these things—things that every body knows.”
“And that every body is supposed to know,” added Mad. de Rosier.