u remember, child," says she,
"that the pigeon-house fell the very afternoon that our careless wench
spilt the salt upon the table?"--"Yes," says he, "my dear; and the next
post brought us an account of the battle of Almanza." The reader may
guess at the figure I made, after having done all this mischief. I
despatched my dinner as soon as I could, with my usual taciturnity; when,
to my utter confusion, the lady seeing me quitting my knife and fork, and
laying them across one another upon my plate, desired me that I would
humour her so far as to take them out of that figure and place them side
by side. What the absurdity was which I had committed I did not know,
but I suppose there was some traditionary superstition in it; and
therefore, in obedience to the lady of the house, I disposed of my knife
and fork in two parallel lines, which is the figure I shall always lay
them in for the future, though I do not know any reason for it.

It is not difficult for a man to see that a person has conceived an
aversion to him. For my own part, I quickly found, by the lady's looks,
that she regarded me as a very odd kind of fellow, with an unfortunate
aspect: for which reason I took my leave immediately after dinner, and
withdrew to my own lodgings. Upon my return home, I fell into a profound
contemplation on the evils that attend these superstitious follies of
mankind; how they subject us to imaginary afflictions, and additional
sorrows, that do not properly come within our lot. As if the natural
calamities of life were not sufficient for it, we turn the most
indifferent circumstances into misfortunes, and suffer as much from
trifling accidents as from real evils. I have known the shooting of a
star spoil a night's rest; and have seen a man in love grow pale, and
lose his appetite, upon the plucking of a merry-thought. A screech-owl
at midnight has alarmed a family more than a band of robbers; nay, the
voice of a cricket hath struck more terror than the roaring of a lion.
There is nothing so inconsiderable which may not appear dreadful to an
imagination that is filled with omens and prognostics: a rusty nail or a
crooked pin shoot up into prodigies.

I remember I was once in a mixed assembly that was full of noise and
mirth, when on a sudden an old woman unluckily observed there were
thirteen of us in company. This remark struck a panic terror into
several who were present, insomuch that one or two of the ladies were
going