Sunday, June 24, 2012

why can't you forget the past?

 SCENES BEYOND THE WESTERN BORDER

"Why ever look behind, and cherish the unhappy, profitless past? Why hug delusion and disappointment to the soul?"

"Ask the pale plant," I replied, "why it stretches forth in darkness, toward the ray of light."
--Scenes Beyond the Western Border - May 1853; and Scenes and Adventures in the Army (1857)

  BENITO CERENO
"... But the past is passed; why moralize upon it? Forget it. See, yon bright sun has forgotten it all, and the blue sea, and the blue sky; these have turned over new leaves."

"Because they have no memory," he dejectedly replied; "because they are not human."  
--Putnam's Monthly Magazine - December 1855; and The Piazza Tales (1856).


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