OF THE PERSONAL SIMILITUDE OF THE AGENTS OR MEMBERS OF THE CRAFT.
It is well known, that no sooner do men or women enter on this
profession, than there is a striking change in their personal
appearance. Their countenances are no longer the emblems of human
nature, but the sign-posts of malice and bad luck. “Looking like a
witch” is a proverb that has been always descriptive of the most
exquisite ugliness; and whoever has seen the frontispiece of a Highland
witch will be satisfied with its force and propriety.
The face is so wrinkled, that it commonly resembles the channels of
dried waters, and the colour of it resembles nothing so much as a piece
of rough tanned leather. The eyes are small and piercing, sunk into
the forehead, like the expiring remains of a candle in a socket. The
nose is large, prominent, and sharp, forming a bridge to the contacting
chin. These are represented as the amiable features of a witch. The
wizard’s appearance differs very little from that of his amiable sister
the witch, only that his face is covered over with a preternatural
redundance of hair, and that he wears beneath his chin a bunch of hair
in the manner of a goat.
It has been long a subject of tough controversy to what cause this
striking deformity is justly to be ascribed. Some logicians rationally
enough maintain, that the characteristic deformity of the order arises
from their frequent interviews with Satan; that the tremor of the
limbs, the horror of the aspect, and stare of the eyes, with which they
are always seized during the season of their noviciation, are rendered
habitual to them by the force of custom, which is justly called a
second nature. And, in support of this doctrine, we are told it is a
fact, that, whenever we behold a ghost, or any other _uncanny_ being,
our features become contracted exactly the same way. But, be this as it
may, it is an acknowledged fact, that ugliness was, from the beginning
of their cast, their distinguishing characteristic.