covering reasons for enjoyment in the things that surround us. We go
out of our course to make ourselves uncomfortable; the cup of life is not
bitter enough to our palate, and we distil superfluous poison to put into
it, or conjure up hideous things to frighten ourselves at, which would
never exist if we did not make them. "We suffer," says Addison,[63] "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 merrythought. A screech-owl at
midnight has alarmed a family more than a band of robbers; nay, the voice
of a cricket has 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."

[63] _Spectator_, No. 7, March 8, 1710-11.

The century and a quarter that has passed away since Addison wrote has
seen the fall of many errors. Many fallacies and delusions have been
crushed under the foot of Time since then; but this has been left
unscathed, to frighten the weak-minded and embitter their existence. A
belief in omens is not confined to the humble and uninformed. A general
who led an army with credit has been known to feel alarmed at a
winding-sheet in the candle; and learned men, who had honourably and
fairly earned the highest honours of literature, have been seen to gather
their little ones around them, and fear that one would be snatched away,
because,

"When stole upon the time the dead of night,
And heavy sleep had closed up mortal eyes,"

a dog in the street was howling at the moon. Persons who would acknowledge
freely that the belief in omens was unworthy of a man of sense, have yet
confessed at the same time that, in spite of their reason, they have been
unable to conquer their fears of death when they heard the harmless insect
called the death-watch ticking in the wall, or saw an oblong hollow coal
fly out of the fire.

Many other evil omens besides those mentioned above alarm the vulgar and
the weak. If a sudden shivering comes over such people, they believe that,
at that instant, an enemy is treading over the spot that will one day be
their grave. If they meet a sow when they first walk abroad in the
morning, it is an omen of evil for that day. To meet an ass, is in like
manner unlucky. It