Unconscious Association

One morning I was whistling to myself the air “In Sweetest Harmony” from Saul. Jones heard me and said:

“Do you know why you are whistling that?”

I said I did not.

Then he said: “Did you not hear me, two minutes ago, whistling ‘Eagles were not so Swift’?”

I had not noticed his doing so, and it was so long since I had played that chorus myself that I doubt whether I should have consciously recognised it. That I did recognise it unconsciously is tolerably clear from my having gone on with “In Sweetest Harmony,” which is the air that follows it.