He remembered, too, being in the
hospital, and meeting Phoebe, and every succeeding incident; but as
respected the more distant past, he could not recall it by any effort
of his will. His mind could only go into that remoter past by material
stepping-stones; and what stepping-stones he had about him here led him
back to general knowledge, but not to his private history.
In this condition he puzzled them all strangely at the farm; his mind
was alternately so clear and so obscure. He would chat with Phoebe, and
sometimes give her a good practical hint; but the next moment, helpless
for want of memory, that great faculty without which judgment cannot
act, having no material.
After some days of this, he had another great sleep. It brought him back
the distant past in chapters. His wedding-day. His wife's face and dress
upon that day. His parting with her: his whole voyage out: but, strange
to say, it swept away one-half of that which he had recovered at his
last sleep, and he no longer remembered clearly how he came to be at
Dale's Kloof.
Thus his mind might be compared to one climbing a slippery place, who
gains a foot or two, then slips back; but on the whole gains more than
he loses.
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