"I raised my eyes, and never shall I forget the scene which I saw before me. The greater part of the smoke had risen, and hung, suspended like a canopy, twenty feet above the redoubt. Beyond a bluish vapor, we could see behind their half-destroyed parapet the Russian grenadiers, with muskets raised, immovable as statues. I think I still see each soldier, his left eye fixed on us, his right hidden behind his musket. In an embrasure, some feet from us, a man, holding a match, stood beside a cannon.
"I shuddered, and I thought that my last hour was come. 'Now the dance is about to begin!' said my captain. 'Good-night!' These were the last words I heard him speak.
"A roll of drums resounded through the redoubt. I saw them lower their muskets. I shut my eyes, and then I heard a terrific discharge, followed by cries and groans. I opened my eyes again, surprised to find myself still unharmed. The redoubt was again enveloped in smoke. I was surrounded by dead and wounded. My captain lay stretched at my feet. His head was pounded by a bullet, and I was spattered with his blood and his brains. Of all my company, there remained alive only six men besides myself.
"A moment of stupor succeeded to this carnage. The colonel, putting his hat on the point of his sword, clambered up the parapet the first, crying Vive l'Empereur! and he was soon followed by the survivors. I have no distinct recollection of what occurred. We entered the redoubt, I don't know how. We fought, man to man, amid a smoke so thick that we could scarcely see each other. I must have struck like the rest, for I found my sabre all bloody. At last I heard the cry of 'Victory!' and, the smoke diminishing, I saw that blood and dead bodies almost covered the ground of the redoubt. The cannons were almost buried under the heaps of corpses. About two hundred men standing, in French uniforms, were grouped without order, some charging their pieces, others wiping their bayonets. Eleven Russian prisoners stood by them.
"The colonel lay stretched, all bloody, upon a broken wagon, near the defile. Some soldiers pressed round him. I approached. 'Who is the senior captain?' he asked of a sergeant. The sergeant shrugged his shoulders in a most expressive manner. 'And the senior lieutenant?' 'This officer who arrived to-day!' said the sergeant, calmly. The colonel smiled sadly. 'Come, sir,' said he to me, 'you command in chief. You must at once fortify the redoubt, and barricade the defile with wagons, for the enemy is in force; but General C—— will support you.' 'Colonel,' said I to him, 'you are seriously wounded.' 'F——, my dear fellow, but the redoubt is taken.'"
[MEMORY AND ITS CAPRICES.]
There is no faculty so inexplicable as memory. It is not merely that its powers vary so much in different individuals, but that every one has found their own liable to the most unaccountable changes and chances. Why vivid impressions should appear to become utterly obliterated, and then suddenly spring to light, as if by the wand of a magician, without the slightest effort of our own, is a mystery which no metaphysician has ever been able to explain. We all have experience of this, when we have striven in vain to recollect a name, a quotation, or a tune, and find it present itself unbidden, it may be, at a considerable interval of time, when the thoughts are engaged on another subject. We all know the uneasy feeling with which we search for the missing article, and the relief when it suddenly flashes across the mind, and when, as if traced by invisible ink, it comes out unexpectedly, bright and clear.
It is most happily ordered, that pleasing sensations are recalled with far greater vividness than those of a distressing nature. A charming scene which we loved to contemplate, a perfume which we have inhaled, an air to which we have listened, can all be reverted to with a degree of pleasure not far short of that which we experienced in the actual enjoyment; but bodily pain, which, during its continuance, occasions sensations more absorbing than any thing else, can not be recalled with the same vividness. It is remembered in a general way as a great evil, but we do not recall the suffering so as to communicate the sensation of the reality. In fact, we remember the pain, but we recollect the pleasure—for the difference between remembrance and recollection is distinct. We may remember a friend, whose person we have forgotten, but we can not have forgotten the appearance of one whom we recollect. Surely a benevolent Providence can be traced in the provision which enables us to enjoy the sensations again which gave pleasure, but which does not oblige us to feel those which gave pain. The memory of the aged, which is so impaired by years, is generally clear as to the most pleasurable period of existence, and faint and uncertain as to that which has brought the infirmities and "ills which flesh is heir to;" and the recollection of schoolboy days, with what keen delight are all their merry pranks and innocent pleasures recalled, while the drudgery of learning and the discipline of rules, once considered so irksome, fill but a faint outline in the retrospective picture; the impressions of joy and gayety rest on the mind, while those which are felt in the first moments of some great calamity are so blunted by its stunning effect, that they can not be accurately recalled. Indeed, it frequently happens that the memory loses every trace of a sudden misfortune, while it retains all the events which have preceded it.
Of such paramount importance is a retentive memory considered, that the improvement of the faculty by constant exercise is the first object in education, and artificial aids for its advantage have been invented. So essential did the ancients regard its vigor for any work of imagination, that "they described the muses as the daughters of memory." Though a retentive memory may be found where there is no genius, yet genius, though sometimes, is rarely deficient in this most valuable gift. There are so many examples of its great power in men of transcendent abilities, that every one can name a host. Some of these examples would appear incredible, had they not been given on unquestionable authority. Themistocles, we are told, could call by their names every citizen of Athens, though they amounted to twenty thousand. Cyrus knew the name of every soldier in his army. Hortentius, after attending a public sale for the day, gave an account in the evening of every article which had been sold, the prices, and the names of the purchasers. On comparing it with that taken at the sale by the notary, it was found to agree as exactly with it as if it had been a copy. "Memory Corner Thompson," so called from the extraordinary power which he possessed, drew, in the space of twenty-two hours, a correct plan of the parish of St. James's, Westminster, with parts of the parishes of St. Marylebone, St. Ann, and St. Martin. In this were included all the squares, streets, courts, lanes, alleys, markets, and all other entries; every church, chapel, and public building; all stables and yards; all the public-houses and corners of streets, with every pump, post, tree, house, bow-window; all the minutiæ about St. James's Palace; this he did in the presence of two gentlemen, without any plan or notes of reference, but solely from his memory. He afterward completed the plans of other parishes. A house being named in any public street, he could tell the trade of the shop, either on the right or left hand. He could from memory furnish an inventory of every thing contained in any house where he was intimate, from the garret to the cellar.