MODERN SUPERSTITIONS. 233 



will not attempt an important task on Friday. The horseshoe still 

 hangs behind or over the door in the Highlands, and in some places 

 much less removed from the centres of civilization. East-coast fisher- 

 men will yet occasionally burn, or otherwise destroy, a boat from 

 Avhich the lives of any of the crew have been lost, no matter how sea- 

 worthy or valuable the boat may be. A hare crossing the path of 

 one of these hardy sons of the sea will cause him to forego an in- 

 tended journey or voyage. To rustic and fisherman alike a concourse 

 of magpies is an evil omen. As for dreams, the belief that they are 

 the forecasts of events is perhaps the strongest of all the forms of 

 their superstition. We might multiply examples, but have said enough 

 to suggest that the follies of their great-grandfathers have still no 

 slight fascination for the ignorant, in spite of the strides which intelli- 

 gence has made. 



But have superstitious beliefs quite left the more intelligent ranks 

 of society ? On the very subject of dreams itself is there not a sneak- 

 ing credulity which goes far to prove the contrary ? True, any one 

 of us is quite able to account in a natural way for his or her dreams. 

 Nevertheless, the lady who chides her children for repeating the in- 

 terpretation which the housemaid has put upon their sleeping vagaries, 

 and sagely instructs them on the subject of imperfect digestion and 

 its effects upon the brain during sleep, is not ashamed to impart to 

 her husband any morning the particulars of her own shocking dreams, 

 or to piously express the hope that something untoward is not about 

 to happen. Her better-half pooh-poohs the matter, doubtless, as be- 

 comes his superior dignity, but is visited none the less with a vague 

 sense of uneasiness when he remembers that he himself had a vision 

 of losing a tooth or seeing a house on fire. Having courageously 

 quizzed his wife at the breakfast-table on the folly of her augury, and 

 bidden her and the children good-by for the day, he inwardly de]dores 

 the unlucky omen of having to turn back for his forgotten umbrella 

 or pocket-book ! 



How many curious but innocent little customs too are still current, 

 and with the sanction of the wisest ! An old slipper is still cast after 

 a bride : it is considered necessary to christen a new ship with a 

 bottle of wine : a fine day is still royal weather : and so on. These 

 and many others most of us would indeed be sorry to see extinct. 

 They are not only harmless, but, in their very departure from strait- 

 laced common-sense, give an agreeable and perhaps even healthful 

 relief to the prosiness of ordinary life. To sacrifice them to the strict 

 letter of reason, would be to sacrifice much of the sentiment of life, to 

 banish imagery from poetry, to take the perfume from the rose, to 

 guide into a Dutch canal the current of human affections, which left 

 free will gush and eddy, prattle and murmur by rock and meadow, 

 carrying music and health throughout its living course. 



Would that modern superstitions never took less innocent shapes ! 



