n. The traveller visits in age those countries through which he
rambled in his youth, and hopes for merriment at the old place. The man
of business, wearied with unsatisfactory prosperity, retires to the town
of his nativity, and expects to play away the last years with the
companions of his childhood, and recover youth in the fields, where he
once was young.

From this inattention, so general and so mischievous, let it be every
man's study to exempt himself. Let him that desires to see others happy
make haste to give, while his gift can be enjoyed, and remember that
every moment of delay takes away something from the value of his
benefaction. And let him, who purposes his own happiness, reflect, that
while he forms his purpose the day rolls on, and _the night cometh when
no man can work_.

No. 44. SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 17, 1759.

Memory is, among the faculties of the human mind, that of which we make
the most frequent use, or rather that of which the agency is incessant,
or perpetual. Memory is the primary and fundamental power, without which
there could be no other intellectual operation. Judgment and
ratiocination suppose something already known, and draw their decisions
only from experience. Imagination selects ideas from the treasures of
remembrance, and produces novelty only by varied combinations. We do not
even form conjectures of distant, or anticipations of future events, but
by concluding what is possible from what is past.

The two offices of memory are collection and distribution; by one images
are accumulated, and by the other produced for use. Collection is always
the employment of our first years; and distribution commonly that of our
advanced age.

To collect and reposite the various forms of things, is far the most
pleasing part of mental occupation. We are naturally delighted with
novelty, and there is a time when all that we see is new. When first we
enter into the world, whithersoever we turn our eyes, they meet
knowledge with pleasure at her side; every diversity of nature pours
ideas in upon the soul; neither search nor labour are necessary; we have
nothing more to do than to open our eyes, and curiosity is gratified.

Much of the pleasure which the first survey of the world affords, is
exhausted before we are conscious of our own felicity, or able to
compare our condition with some other possible state. We have,
therefore, few traces of the joy of our earliest discoveries; yet we all
re