Volume 1

The lost senses / By John Kitto.

  • John Kitto
Date:
1845
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The lost senses / By John Kitto. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    the last twenty-eight years regarded with more than casual observation ; and of every scene upon which, during frequent and long-continued change of place, I bestowed more than the most cursory notice. It is something to say this, under the immense variety of new objects which, during a long period of time, were constantly passing before my eyes, like the moving panoramas of some London exhibitions. And it should be understood that what I mean by ££ cursory observation” is the seeing of a thing without looking at it; and therefore that I retain a clear impression or image of every thing at which I ever looked, although the colouring of that im- pression is necessarily vivid in proportion to the degree of interest with which the object was re- garded. I find this faculty of much use and solace to me. By its aid I can live again, at will, in the midst of any scene or circumstances by which I have been once surrounded. By a voluntary act of mind, I can in a moment conjure up the whole of any one out of the innumerable scenes in which the slightest interest has at any time been felt by me. I am not exactly aware of the extent in which this faculty may be common or not to others : but from the few opportunities I have had of comparing my own impressions with those of others, I think that where ordinary observation is limited to one or two prominent points in a set of circumstances, mine embraces the whole of the circumstances infwhich these prominent points were involved. If I wish to recollect a person, along with him comes all the scenery amidst which I beheld him, and all the persons who were at the same time associated with him ; and so, in like manner, if I wish to realize a scene, to conjure up the view of a place, it comes
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