Essex County herald. [volume] (Guildhall, Vt.) 1873-1964, 1873-02-22
GUILDHALL VERMONT SATURDAY, FEBRUARY
Veins of Superstition.

We laugh at that lower order of peo-
pie who believe in the supernatural,
and boast that we are free from the
shackles of superstition. But. after
all, how few there are who are wholly
free from these shackles Who is not
ambitious to commence a new year
well, for instance? must be at my
Office early tomorrow morning." says a
friend. " 1t is the first day of the new
year." "I have met with loss," says
another. " Had it occurred yesterday
1 should not have cared so much but
on the first day of the new year It is
bad omen" And so the wheel turns.
Again, when our grandmothers told us
that that the dropping of table-fork,
or the falling of a dish-cloth, or the
passage of person through the house
going in at one door and out at another,
or the growing of cock on the door
step, is "sigG" that the family is to
"have company, wa have often laugh
ed in our sleeves and said nothing, for
fear that we might be set down as
heretics in the good old lady's memoir
andum-book. Yet we have puzzled our
brains not little to prove that none of
these things were "signs." We have
felt little delicacy about winding a
ball of yarn through q knot-hole after
hearing how the old maid felt the yarn
pull, and on asking who was there was
answered by gruffvoice, "The Devil. -
Nevertheless, we had some faith in the
testimony of others, and thought that
if our neighbors did not see the shade
of friend coming across the field on
the very hour that he died in a distant
city, nor did not see blood on the door
step, nor hear the " death watch" tick
in the fireplace, then it was equally
strange that they should sag so. If no
one was talking about us when our ears
burned, and no good luck awaited us if
we sneezed before breakfast, and no
crying was done before night on the
day when we sang tune in bed before
rising, why, we might be exceptions,
and the signs hold good as a general
rule. To be sure, we had sat on the
dining table, and had carelessly placed
three lights in a row, before we thought
of getting married, yet, as we aftel-
ward did SO, our theorizing favored the
signs. Our dog howled toward the
east on the night our dearest friend
died, and SO he did in every other
direction, for we had given the poor
animal no dinner nor supper yet we
felt that we had somehow made a mis-
take when an old lady said that if she
had been present she should have look
ed out and ascertaine if he faced
toward the east. Now one would think
it an easy matter to prove that all these
things are not signs but it is not so,
because so many people testify in THEN
favor. Yet there is a necessity for this
proof, for the trouble borrowed on
account Of " signs" has been the cause
of death in many household ; and
when we think of the weary, wan faces
which flushed at every "sign," and
then suddenly dropped out Of life's
pathway, we begin to hate superstition
with keen intensity. Still their lives
proved the signs to be true, as the
monomaniac who thinks he has con.
sumption is sure to die of it. Here,
again, the weight of the evidence is OF
the side of superstition. Now we ap.
peal through this mere suggestion OF
the subject, to all readers, are these
signs we talk of every day, true? or are
they not true? Who can prove either
proposition