Sir Joshua and the Tumbling Walls

by Theodore Dalrymple (June 2015)

The association of ideas is itself an idea that has fallen into comparative desuetude of late because of its supposed lack of explanatory power, but it still seems to me useful as a way of describing how one idea evokes another. Certainly I seem very rarely to read a book nowadays without it calling forth in my mind memories or other kinds of associations: perhaps this is merely testimony to the length of my life, or alternatively to my choice of reading matter.  more>>>