Japanese folding screen depicting a scene from the Tale of the Heike, seventeenth century. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Mary Griggs Burke Collection, gift of the Mary and Jackson Burke Foundation, 2015.

Memory

Volume XIII, Number 1 | winter 2020

Miscellany

According to a biographer, Honoré de Balzac called out on his deathbed for Dr. Horace Bianchon, a fictional creation that appeared in thirty-one of his stories. “Send for Bianchon,” the novelist said to his attending physician.

Anyone who in discussion quotes authority uses his memory rather than his intellect.

—Leonardo da Vinci, c. 1500