56 



RELICS OF POPULAR SUPERSTITIONS. 



doubt of the wedding's prosperity, as a spae-wife, both, deaf and 

 dumb, had marked out their figures in chalk, and the winding- 

 sheet for the husband had been duly spun. Untempted by the 

 " tea-dinner," or substantial late breakfast designed for the bridal 

 feast, the travellers returned to their own tenement to discuss the 

 many ceremonies by which popular superstition still decorates an 

 event sanctified by the kirk only with austere simplicity. 



" These superstitions," said the good old minister, " are part of 

 the poetical instinct of human nature. We, in this age of reason, 

 have been, perhaps, too busily employed in tearing them from a 

 class of heinous to whom mere reason is not much use. Their 

 harmless appeals to fairy ministers, and rehance on unseen agents, 

 spring not merely from idle curiosity, but from that unsatisfied 

 ambition in our minds which inclines us to seek a communion 

 with higher beings, and is part of our finest principle. Since men 

 will create an imaginary importance for themselves, I love to see 

 them connect the interference of thtiir unknown friends with the 

 social affections and simple incidents of domestic life. Let them 

 give these aflfections and these incidents all the sanctity they can 

 by the help of supernatural agents. I wish the days could return 

 when men were persuaded that a witness sat in every tree, and 

 the spirit of human feehng in every bird." 



" It would not be very advantageous to quote Dr. Johnson in 

 Scotland," said the fair widow, " else I could remind you that 

 even he has said, nothing would be so tiresome as to live by mere 

 reason. When I was as young in matrimony as pretty Elspy in 

 the cot-house below, the Provost's brother tried to make me find 

 a reason for every thing, but he soon found I had too many. Yet, 

 after all, how very little that we do, think, or wish to have, would 

 bear reasoning ! What can we call the every-day ceremonies of 

 our gilt cards, our visits of etiquette, and formal parade, but su- 

 perstitions of a kind not quite so cheap and diverting as those of 

 Hollowe'en and St. John's Eve ?" 



Proud of this encouragement from his aunt, the young clerk 

 ventured to add — 



" The superstitions of vanity have no end to their varieties, but 

 the superstition of affectionate hearts seems to have been alike in 

 all ages, and the ceremonies it has created differ very little. The 

 Indian Cupid's bow of sugar-cane and his five arrows are the 

 same as his Greek cousin's. The chief of the South Sea Isles 



