" 'There seems something more speakingly incomprehensible in the powers, the failures, the inequalities of memory, than in any other of our intelligences. The memory is sometimes so retentive, so serviceable, so obedient-at others, so bewildered and so weak-and at others again so tyrannic, so beyond control!-We are sure to be a miracle in every way-but our powers of recollecting and of forgetting do seem peculiarly past finding out.' "
- Jane Austen, Mansfield Park