The Note-Books of Samuel Butler

When asked to remember “something” indefinitely you cannot:  you look round at once for something to suggest what you shall try and remember.  For thought must be always about some “thing” which thing must either be a thing by courtesy, as an air of Handel’s, or else a solid, tangible object, as a piano or an organ, but always the thing must be linked on to matter by a longer or shorter chain as the case may be.  I was thinking of this once while walking by the side of the Serpentine and, looking round, saw some ducks alighting on the water; their feet reminded me of the way the sea-birds used to alight when I was going to New Zealand and I set to work recalling attendant facts.  Without help from outside I should have remembered nothing.