Although a great many popular beliefs may seem puerile in the extreme, they none the less go to establish the fact to be kept in mind. Since I began to look into the matter I have been most astonished at the number of very intelligent persons who take care to conform to prevailing beliefs in things lucky or the reverse. It is true Lord Bacon tells us that “in all superstitions wise men follow fools.” But this blunt declaration of his has undoubted reference to the schoolmen, and to the monastic legends which were such powerful aids in fostering the growth of superstition as it existed long before Bacon’s time:—
“A bone from a saintly anchorite’s cave,
A vial of earth from a martyrs grave.”
The class of persons just spoken of, is, however, so keenly sensitive to ridicule that only some chance remark betrays their real mental attitude.
With the unlettered it is different. Superstition is so much more prevalent among them that less effort is made at concealment. Perhaps the many agencies at work to put it down have not had so fair a trial in the country as in the city. And yet the recent “Lucky-Box” craze makes it difficult to draw the line. Be that as it may, it would hardly be an exaggeration to say that some rural communities in New England are simply honeycombed with it. Indeed, almost every insignificant happening is a sign of something or other.
One result of my own observation in this field of research is, that women, if not by nature more superstitious than men, hold to these old beliefs much more tenaciously than men. In the country, it is the woman who is ready to quarrel with you, if, in some unguarded moment, you should venture to doubt the potency of her manifold signs. In the city, it is still the woman who presents her husband with some charm or other to be worn on his watch-chain, as a safeguard against disease, inconstancy, late hours, or other uncounted happenings of life, believing, as she does, more or less implicitly, in its traditional efficacy. In all that relates to marriage, too, women are usually most careful how they disregard any of the accepted dicta on a subject of so much concern to their future happiness, as will appear later on.
Fifty years ago the poet Whittier declared that “There is scarcely a superstition of the past three centuries which has not, at this very time, more or less hold upon individual minds among us.” The broad declaration demands less qualification to-day than is generally supposed.
Most of the examples collected in this volume have come under my own observation; some have been contributed by friends, many by the newspapers. If their number should prove a surprise to anybody, I can only say that mine has fully equalled their own. But let us, at least, be honest about it. We can conceal nothing from ourselves. Silence may be golden, but it makes no converts.
