I’m struck, when I reflect back on my education — years in grade school, high school, college, law school — by the things I remember. From all those years of study, what do I retain? Not much. But at odd moments, a random fact or snatch of poetry or phrase will float into my mind.

For instance, I can never see a daffodil without thinking of a line from Milton’s “Lycidas”: “And Daffadillies fill their cups with tears.” Now, why do I remember that? I don’t even remember reading “Lycidas,” but that one line I remember.

This morning, I caught myself thinking about something I read in Erasmus’s The Praise of Folly. I read this passage many years ago, and have never looked back at it, until just five minutes ago, but I’ve never forgotten it.

I’m quite impressed myself that I remembered where I’d read this idea; in fact, it isn’t even in The Praise of Folly itself, it’s in a footnote that explains a reference in the text to “the argument of the growing heap.”

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