Now Emerson:--

"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