It is a difficult puzzle to reconcile the existence of certain
superstitions that continue to have wide influence with the
enlightenment of the nineteenth century. When we have read glowing
paragraphs about the wonderful progress accomplished by the present
generation; when we have regarded the giant machinery in operation for
the culture of the people—moved, in great part, by the collective power
of individual charity; when we have examined the stupendous results of
human genius and ingenuity which are now laid bare to the lowliest in
the realm; we turn back, it must be confessed, with a mournful
despondency, to mark the debasing influence of the old superstitions
which have survived to the present time.
The superstitions of the ancients formed part of their religion. They
consulted oracles as now men pray. The stars were the arbiters of their
fortunes. Natural phenomena, as lightning and hurricanes, were, to them,
awful expressions of the anger of their particular deities. They had
their _dies atri_ and their _dies albi_; the former were marked down in
their calendars with a black character, to denote ill-luck, and the
latter were painted in white characters to signify bright and propitious
days. They followed the finger-posts of their teachers. Faith gave
dignity to the tenets of the star-gazer and fire-worshipper.
The priests of old taught their disciples to regard six particular days
in the year as days fraught with unusual danger to mankind. Men were
enjoined not to let blood on these black days, nor to imbibe any liquid.
It was devoutly believed that he who ate goose on one of these black
days would surely die within forty more; and that any little stranger
who made his appearance on one of the _dies atri_ would surely die a
sinful and violent death. Men were further enjoined to let blood from
the right arm on the seventh or fourteenth of March; from the left arm
on the eleventh of April; and from either arm on the third or sixth of
May, that they might avoid pestilential diseases. These barbaric
observances, when brought before people in illustrations of the mental
darkness of the ancients, are considered at once to be proof positive of
their abject condition. We thereupon congratulated ourselves upon living
in the nineteenth century; when such foolish superstitions are laughed
at; and perhaps our vanity is not a little flattered by the contrast
which presents itself, between our own highly cultivated condition, and
the wretched state of our ancestors.
Yet Mrs. Flimmins will not undertake a sea-voyage on a Friday; nor would
she on any account allow her daughter Mary to be married on that day of
the week. She has great pity for the poor Red Indians who will not do
certain things while the moon presents a certain appearance, and who
attach all kinds of powers to poor dumb brutes: yet if her cat purrs
more than usual, she accepts the warning, and abandons the trip she had
promised herself on the morrow.
Miss Nippers subscribes largely to the fund for eradicating
superstitions from the minds of the wretched inhabitants of Kamschatka;
and while she is calculating the advantages to be derived from a mission
to the South Sea Islands, to do away with the fearful superstitious
reverence in which those poor dear islanders hold the native flea: a
coal pops from her fire, and she at once augurs from its shape, an
abundance of money that will enable her to set her pious undertaking in
operation; but on no account will she commence collecting subscriptions
for the anti-drinking-slave-grown-sugar-in-tea society, because she has
always remarked that Monday is her unlucky day. On a Monday her poodle
died, and on a Monday she caught that severe cold at Brighton, from the
effects of which she is afraid she will never recover.
Mrs. Carmine is a very strong-minded woman. Her unlucky day is
Wednesday. On a Wednesday she first caught that flush which she has
never been able to chase from her cheeks, and on one of these fatal days
her Maria took the scarlet fever. Therefore, she will not go to a
pic-nic on a Wednesday, because she feels convinced that the day will
turn out wet, or that the wheel will come off the carriage. Yet the
other morning, when a gipsy was caught telling her eldest daughter her
fortune, Mrs. Carmine very properly reproached the first-born for her
weakness, in giving any heed to the silly mumblings of the old woman.
Mrs. Carmine is considered to be a woman of uncommon acuteness. She
attaches no importance whatever to the star under which a child is
born,—does not think there is a pin to choose between Jupiter and
Neptune; and she has a positive contempt for ghosts; but she believes in
nothing that is begun, continued, or ended on a Wednesday.
Miss Crumple, on the contrary, has seen many ghosts,—in fact, is by this
time quite intimate with one or two of the mysterious brotherhood; but
at the same time she is at a loss to understand how any woman in her
senses, can believe Thursday to be a more fortunate day than Wednesday,
or why Monday is to be black-balled from the Mrs. Jones’s calendar. She
can state, on her oath, that the ghost of her old schoolfellow, Eliza
Artichoke, appeared at her bedside on a certain night and she distinctly
saw the mole on its left cheek, which poor Eliza, during her brief
career, had vainly endeavoured to eradicate, with all sorts of poisonous
things. The ghost, moreover, lisped,—so did Eliza! This was all clear
enough to Miss Crumple, and she considered it a personal insult for
anybody to suggest that her vivid apparitions existed only in her own
over-wrought imagination. She had an affection for her ghostly visitors,
and would not hear a word to their disparagement.
The unearthly warnings which Mrs. Piptoss had received had well-nigh
spoilt all her furniture. When a relative dies, the fact is not
announced to her in the commonplace form of a letter,—no, an invisible
sledgehammer falls upon her Broadwood, an invisible power upsets her
loo-table, all the doors of her house unanimously blow open, or a coffin
flies out of the fire into her lap.
Mrs. Grumple, who is a very economical housewife, looks forward to the
day when the moon re-appears,—on which occasion she turns her money,
taking care not to look at the pale lady through glass. This observance,
she devoutly believes, will bring her good fortune. When Miss Caroline
has a knot in her lace, she looks for a present; and when Miss Amelia
snuffs the candle out, it is her faith that the act defers her marriage
for a twelvemonth. Any young lady who dreams the same dream two
consecutive Fridays, will tell you that her visions will “come true.”
Yet these are exactly the ladies, who most deplore the “gross state of
superstition” in which many “benighted savages” live, and willingly
subscribe their money for its eradication. The superstition so generally
connected with Friday, may easily be traced to its source. It
undoubtedly and confessedly has its origin in scriptural history: it is
the day on which the Saviour suffered. The superstition is the more
revolting from this circumstance; and it is painful to find that it
exists among persons of education. There is no branch of the public
service, for instance, in which so much sound mathematical knowledge is
to be found, as in the Navy. Yet who are more superstitious than
sailors, from the admiral down to the cabin boy? Friday fatality is
still strong among them. Some years ago, in order to lessen this folly,
it was determined that a ship should be laid down on a Friday, and
launched on a Friday; that she should be called “Friday,” and that she
should commence her first voyage on a Friday. After much difficulty a
captain was found who owned to the name of Friday; and after a great
deal more difficulty men were obtained, so little superstitious, as to
form a crew. Unhappily, this experiment had the effect of confirming the
superstition it was meant to abolish. The “Friday” was lost—was never,
in fact, heard of from the day she set sail.
Day-fatality, as Miss Nippers interprets it is simply the expression of
an undisciplined and extremely weak mind; for, if any person will stoop
to reason with her on her aversion to Mondays, he may ask her whether
the death of the poodle, or the catching of her cold, are the two
greatest calamities of her life; and, if so, whether it is her opinion
that Monday is set apart, in the scheme of Nature, so far as it concerns
her, in a black character. Whether for her insignificant self there is a
special day accursed! Mrs. Carmine is such a strong-minded woman, that
we approach her with no small degree; of trepidation. Wednesday is her
_dies ater_, because, in the first place, on a Wednesday she imprudently
exposed herself, and is suffering from the consequences; and, in the
second place, on a Wednesday her Maria took the scarlet fever. So she
has marked Wednesday down in her calendar with a black character; yet
her contempt for stars and ghosts is prodigious. Now there is a
consideration to be extended to the friends of ghosts, which
Day-fatalists cannot claim. Whether or not deceased friends take a more
airy and flimsy form, and adopt the invariable costume of a sheet to
visit the objects of their earthly affections, is a question which the
shrewdest thinkers and the profoundest logicians have debated very
keenly, but without ever arriving at any satisfactory conclusion.
The strongest argument against the positive existence of ghosts, is,
that they appear only to people of a certain temperament, and under
certain exciting circumstances. The obtuse, matter-of-fact man, never
sees a ghost; and we may take it as a natural law, that none of these
airy visitants ever appeared to an attorney. But the attorney, Mr. Fee
Simple, we are assured, holds Saturday to be an unlucky day. It was on a
Saturday that his extortionate bill in poor Mr. G.’s case, was cut down
by the taxing master; and it was on a Saturday that a certain heavy bill
was duly honoured, upon which he had hoped to reap a large sum in the
shape of costs. Therefore Mr. Fee Simple believes that the destinies
have put a black mark against Saturday, so far as he is concerned.
The Jew who thought that the thunder-storm was the consequence of his
having eaten a slice of bacon, did not present a more ludicrous picture,
than Mr. Fee Simple presents with his condemned Saturday.
We have an esteem for ghost-inspectors, which it is utterly impossible
to extend to Day-fatalists. Mrs. Piptoss, too, may be pitied; but Mog,
turning her money when the moon makes her re-appearance, is an object of
ridicule. We shall neither be astonished, nor express condolence, if the
present, which Miss Caroline anticipates from the knot in her lace, be
not forthcoming; and as for Miss Amelia, who has extinguished the
candle, and to the best of her belief lost her husband for a
twelvemonth, we can only wish for her, that when she is married, her
lord and master will shake her faith in the prophetic power of snuffers.
But of all the superstitions that have survived to the present time, and
are to be found in force among people of education and a thoughtful
habit, Day-fatalism is the most general, as it is the most unfounded and
preposterous. It is a superstition, however, in which many great and
powerful thinkers have shared, and by which they have been guided; it
owes much of its present influence to this fact; but reason,
Christianity, and all we have comprehended of the great scheme of which
we form part, alike tend to demonstrate its absurdity, and utter want of
all foundation.