y without thinking of
ghost or goblin till I was called by my servant in the morning.

From this I am taught to infer that tales of ghosts and demonology are
out of date at forty years and upwards; that it is only in the morning
of life that this feeling of superstition "comes o'er us like a summer
cloud," affecting us with fear which is solemn and awful rather than
painful; and I am tempted to think that, if I were to write on the
subject at all, it should have been during a period of life when I could
have treated it with more interesting vivacity, and might have been at
least amusing if I could not be instructive. Even the present fashion of
the world seems to be ill suited for studies of this fantastic nature;
and the most ordinary mechanic has learning sufficient to laugh at the
figments which in former times were believed by persons far advanced in
the deepest knowledge of the age.

I cannot, however, in conscience carry my opinion of my countrymen's
good sense so far as to exculpate them entirely from the charge of
credulity. Those who are disposed to look for them may, without much
trouble, see such manifest signs, both of superstition and the
disposition to believe in its doctrines, as may render it no useless
occupation to compare the follies of our fathers with our own. The
sailors have a proverb that every man in his lifetime must eat a peck of
impurity; and it seems yet more clear that every generation of the human
race must swallow a certain measure of nonsense. There remains hope,
however, that the grosser faults of our ancestors are now out of date;
and that whatever follies the present race may be guilty of, the sense
of humanity is too universally spread to permit them to think of
tormenting wretches till they confess what is impossible, and then
burning them for their pains.

THE END.

PRINTED BY BALLANTYNE, HANSON AND CO. LONDON AND EDINBURGH.

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by Sir Walter Scott

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