FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE. 269 



transformed us so. Do you remember the 

 quandary of the little old woman ? 



&quot; But if it be I, as I do hope it be, 



I ve a little dog at home, and he ll know me ; 



If it be I, he ll wag his little tail, 



And if it be not I, he ll loudly bark and 



wail! &quot; 



Home went the little woman all in the dark, 

 Up got the little dog, and he began to bark, 

 He began to bark, so she began to cry, 

 &quot; Lauk-a-mercy on me, this is none of I! &quot; 



But, alas ! I am afraid it must be I, all 

 the same, or what is left of the I that was, 

 out from which may have gone so much 

 virtue, or so much weakness. Is the in 

 dividual but a passive instrument, a medium 

 only, through which power passes to effect 

 its end, as the wire bears the electric cur 

 rent ? Does he not sometimes transmute 

 the force, so that motion, as it were, be 

 comes heat, or electric power or attraction ? 

 Is he not a solvent, and may not his pres 

 ence now and then cause a rearrangement 

 of the atoms, and precipitate the fine gold ? 



Helmholtz is dead, he whose strong 

 hand reconstructed, or constructed ab initio, 

 the theory of the persistence of force. 

 Think of it ; since he published his paper 

 upon the &quot;Conservation of force &quot; in 1847, 



