uppose the man
he has wronged, pursuing him with a heart full of vengeance, gets him at
last in his power, but at the same time finds out that he has forgotten,
and can't be made to remember, the act he desires to punish him for."

"It would be very vexatious," said Henry..

"Wouldn't it, though? I can imagine the pursuer, the avenger, if a really
virulent fellow, actually weeping tears of despite as he stands before
his victim and marks the utter unconsciousness of any offence with which
his eyes meet his own. Such a look would blunt the very stiletto of a
Corsican. What sweetness would there be in vengeance if the avenger, as
he plunged the dagger in his victim's bosom, might not hiss in his ear,
'Remember!' As well find satisfaction in torturing an idiot or mutilating
a corpse. I am not talking now of brutish fellows, who would kick a stock
or stone which they stumbled over, but of men intelligent enough to
understand what vengeance is."

"But don't you fancy the avenger, in the case you supposed, would retain
some bitterness towards his enemy, even though he had forgotten the
offence?"

"I fancy he would always feel a certain cold dislike and aversion for
him," replied the doctor--"an aversion such as one has for an object
or an animal associated with some painful experience; but any active
animosity would be a moral impossibility, if he were quite certain that
there was absolutely no guilty consciousness on the other's part.

"But scarcely any application of the process gives me so much pleasure to
dream about as its use to make forgiving possible, full, free, perfect,
joyous forgiving, in cases where otherwise, however good our intentions,
it is impossible, simply because we cannot forget. Because they cannot
forget, friends must part from friends who have wronged them, even though
they do from their hearts wish them well. But they must leave them, for
they cannot bear to look in their eyes and be reminded every time of
some bitter thing. To all such what good tidings will it be to learn of
my process!

"Why, when the world gets to understand about it I expect that two men or
two women, or a man and a woman, will come in here, and say to me, 'We
have quarrelled and outraged each other, we have injured our friend, our
wife, our husband; we regret, we would forgive, but we cannot, because we
remember. Put between us the atonement of forgetfulness, that we may love
each other as of old,' and so joyous will be t