only the other day there was printed in a newspaper (what a lot of things they print in newspapers!) five lines which read thus:
"calcutta, thursday.
"an hour before the viceroy left calcutta on wednesday for the last time lightning struck the flag over government house, tearing it to shreds. this is considered to be an omen by the natives."
the devil they did! a superstitious chap, your native, and we have outgrown such things. but it is really astonishing when you come to think of it how absurdly credulous the human race has been for thousands of years about omens, and still is—everywhere except here. and by the way, what a curious thing it is that[pg 83] only in one country, and only in one little tiny circle of it should this terrible vice have been eradicated from the human mind! if one were capable of paradox one would say that the blessing conferred upon us few enlightened people in england was providential; but that would be worse superstition than the other. there seems to be a tangle somewhere. anyhow, there it is: people have gone on by the million and for centuries and centuries believing in omens. it is an illusion. it is due to a frame of mind. that which the enlightened person easily discovers to be a coincidence, the native, that is, the person living in a place, thinks to be in some way due to a superior power. it is a way natives have. nothing warps the mind like being a native.
the reform bill passed in 1832 and destroyed not only the pot-wallopers, but also the ancient constitution of the country. from that time onwards we have been free. when the thing was thoroughly settled (and the old poor law was being got rid of into the[pg 84] bargain), the old house of lords, and the old house of commons, they caught fire, "and they did get burnt down to the ground." those are the very words of an old man who saw it happen and who told me about it. the misfortune was due to the old tallies of the exchequer catching fire, and this silly old man, who saw it happen (he was a child of six at the time), has always thought it was an omen. it has been explained to him, not only by good, kind ladies who go and visit him and see that he gets no money or beer, but also from the pulpit of st. margaret's church, westminster (where he regularly attends divine service by kind permission of the middle class, and in the vain hope of cadging alms), that there is no such thing as providence, and that if he lets his mind dwell on omens he will end by believing in god. but the old man is much too old to receive a new idea, so he goes on believing that the burning of old st. stephen's was an omen.
not so the commercial traveller, who told me in an hotel the other day the story of the[pg 85] market-woman of devizes, to exemplify the gross superstitions of our fathers.
it seems that the market-woman, sometime when george iii was king, had taken change of a sovereign on market-day, from a purchaser, when there were no witnesses, and then, in the presence of witnesses, demanded the change again. the man most solemnly affirmed that he had paid her, to which she replied: "if i have taken your money may god strike me dead." the moment these words were out of the market-woman's lips, an enormous great jagged, forked, fiery dart of lightning, three miles long, leapt out of a distant cloud, and shrivelled her up. "whereupon," ended the commercial traveller, "the people of devizes in those days were so superstitious that they thought it was a judgment, they did! and they put up a plate in commemoration. such foolishness!" it is sad to think of the people of devizes and their darkness of understanding when george iii was king. but, upon the other hand, it is a joy to think of the fresh,[pg 86] clear minds of the people of devizes to-day. for though, every sunday morning, about half an hour after church time, every single man and woman who had shirked church, chapel, mosque or synagogue, each according to his or her creed should fall down dead of no apparent illness, and though upon the forehead of each one so taken, the survivors returning from their services, meetings or what-not, should find clearly written in a vivid blue the letters of doom. none the less the people of devizes would, it is to be hoped, retain their mental balance, and distinguish between a coincidence (which is the only true explanation of such things) and fond imaginings of supernatural possibilities.
there is an old story and a good one to teach us how to fight against any weakness of the sort, which is this. two old gentlemen who had never met before were in a first-class railway carriage of a train that does not stop until it gets to bristol. they were talking about ghosts. one of them was a parson,[pg 87] the other was a layman. the layman said he did not believe in ghosts. the parson was very much annoyed, tried to convince him, and at last said, "after all, you'd have to believe in one if you saw one."
"no, i shouldn't," said the layman sturdily. "i should know it was an illusion."
then the old parson got very angry indeed, and said in a voice shaking with self-restraint:
"well, you've got to believe in ghosts now, for i am one!" whereat he immediately vanished into the air.
the old layman, finding himself well rid of a bad business, shook himself together, wrapped his rug round his knees, and began to read his paper, for he knew very well that it was an illusion.
of the same sturdy sense was isaac newton, when a lady came to him who had heard he was an astrologer, and asked him where she had dropped her purse, somewhere between shooter's hill and london bridge. she would not believe that the baronet (or knight, i [pg 88]forget which) could be ignorant of such things, and she came about fourteen times. so to be rid of her newton, on the occasion of her last visit, put on an old flowered dressing-gown, and made himself a conical paper hat, and put on great blue goggles, and drew a circle on the floor, and said "abracadabra!" "the front of greenwich hospital, the third great window from the southern end. on the grass just beneath it i see a short devil crouched upon a purse of gold." off went the female, and sure enough under that window she found her purse. whereat, instead of hearing the explanation (there was none) she thought it was an omen.
remember this parable. it is enormously illuminating.
