"And presently the sky is changed; O world!
What pictures and what harmonies are thine!
The clouds are rich and dark, the air serene,
So like the soul of me, what if't were me?"
We find this idea of confused personal identity also in a brief poem printed among the "Translations" in the Appendix to Emerson's Poems. These are the last two lines of "The Flute, from Hilali":—
"Saying, Sweetheart! the old mystery remains,
If I am I; thou, thou, or thou art I?"
The same transfer of personality is hinted in the line of Shelley's "Ode to the West Wind":
"Be thou, Spirit fierce,
My spirit! Be thou me, impetuous one!"
Once more, how fearfully near the abyss of the ridiculous! A few drops of alcohol bring about a confusion of mind not unlike this poetical metempsychosis.
The laird of Balnamoon had been at a dinner where they gave him cherry-brandy instead of port wine. In driving home over a wild tract of land called Munrimmon Moor his hat and wig blew off, and his servant got out of the gig and brought them to him. The hat he recognized, but not the wig. "It's no my wig, Hairy [Harry], lad; it's no my wig," and he would not touch it. At last Harry lost his patience: "Ye'd better tak' it, sir, for there's nae waile [choice] o' wigs on Munrimmon Moor." And in our earlier days we used to read of the bewildered market-woman, whose Ego was so obscured when she awoke from her slumbers that she had to leave the question of her personal identity to the instinct of her four-footed companion:—
"If it be I, he'll wag his little tail;
And if it be not I, he'll loudly bark and wail."
I have not lost my reverence for Emerson in showing one of his fancies for a moment in the distorting mirror of the ridiculous. He would doubtless have smiled with me at the reflection, for he had a keen sense of humor. But I take the opportunity to disclaim a jesting remark about "a foresmell of the Infinite" which Mr. Conway has attributed to me, who am innocent of all connection with it.
The mystic appeals to those only who have an ear for the celestial concords, as the musician only appeals to those who have the special endowment which enables them to understand his compositions. It is not for organizations untuned to earthly music to criticise the great composers, or for those who are deaf to spiritual harmonies to criticise the higher natures which lose themselves in the strains of divine contemplation. The bewildered reader must not forget that passage of arms, previously mentioned, between Plato and Diogenes.