Charles Godfrey Leland

“ It requires no sorcery to conjecture that the gypsy already knew the habits of the schoolmaster, as the Romany is generally familiar with the tavern of every town. To predict a misfortune at large is a sure card for every prophetess. What is remarkable is that a man of the world and one widely travelled, as was my informant, attached great importance to the story. It is evident that where so much of the sherris sack of faith accompanies such a small crust of miracle there must be a state of society in which miracles in their real sense are perfectly capable of being worked. ”

“ And it seems to me that the most extended consideration of science leads to the result or conclusion that under its influence we shall find that the chemical and physical analyses of which I have spoken are only the dry A B C of a marvellously grand literature, or of a Romance and Poetry and Beauty--perhaps even of a wondrous "occult" philosophy, of whose beginning even we have, as yet, no idea. ”

“ But, great as it may be, those who will make it must derive their summary of facts or bases of observation from the past, and therefore I urge the importance of every man who can write doing what he can to collect all that illustrates Humanity as it is and as it was in by-gone ages. It hath not entered into the heart of man to conceive what a Folk-lore or ethnological society in ancient Greece, Rome, or Egypt might not have collected and preserved for the delight of every civilized human being of the present day. ”

“ Gypsy sorcery-lore is of great value because all over the Aryan world gypsies have in ancient or modern times been, so to speak, the wandering priests of that form of popular religion which consists of a faith in fortune-telling. ”

“ It should be borne in mind, though few realize its truth, that in stages of society where people believe earnestly in anything--for example, in witchcraft or the evil eye--there results in time a state of mind or body in which they are actually capable of being killed with a curse, or a fear of seeing what is not before them in the body, and of many nervous conditions which are absolutely impossible and incomprehensible to the world of culture at the present day. ”

“ But there are still places where witchcraft may be said to exist literally, for there the professors of the art to all intents work miracles, because they are believed in. There is abundance of such faith extant, even in England. I have heard the names of three "white" witch doctors in as many towns in the West of England, who are paid a guinea a visit, their specialty being to "unlock," or neutralize, or defeat the evil efforts of black witches. ”

“ Setting teleology and theology entirely aside, Man, as the highest organism, has a right to claim that, as the highest faculties which have been as yet developed in him were caused by natural phenomena, therefore there is in the phenomena a certain beauty which is far more likely to lead to more advanced enjoyment of form, colour, or what we call the æsthetic sense, than to shrink away and disappear. ”

“ We can only argue from what we are, and what we clearly know or understand. And we know that there are in Nature, though measured by the senses alone, phenomena which awake delightful or terrible, sublime or beautiful, grave or gay feelings, or emotions, which inspire corresponding thoughts. ”

“ To see in all this--as we are--only hydro-carbons, oxygen, silex and aluminium, atoms, molecules, and "laws"--that is to say, always the parts and combinations and no sense as regards man that he is, with his emotional sense of beauty, anywhere in the game or of any account--is going far too far. ”

“ But there are men coming, or a generation rising, to whom every record of the past will be of value, for they are beginning to perceive that while the collector is doing work of value the mere theorist, who generally undervalues if he does not actually oppose the collector, will with his rubbish be swept away "down the back-entry of time," to be utterly forgotten. ”

“ Many disorders are prefaced by uneasy dreams or unaccountable melancholy, even as the greatest disaster which befel the gods of Valhalla was preceded by the troubled dreams of Balder. Sometimes the first symptom of gout is a previous irritability. But if diseases are believed to be caused by the literal occupation of the body by evil spirits these presages will be ascribed to occult spiritual influences. ”

“ I add to this a marvellous story of a gypsy prediction which was uttered here in T------ and published last year in a small biography, but which is worth consideration because I have heard it apparently well authenticated by trustworthy people. A very great disgrace to our town--I am happy to say he was the only one--was a Mr. M------, of very good family. This man kept a mistress named R. M-------, who became acquainted with a young man who was employed as a clerk at the Credit Anstalt, and who always at night carried on his person its keys. ”

“ The amount of Red Indian Folk-lore which has been suffered to perish in the United States without exciting the least interest is beyond all belief. THOREAU could find in the Algonkin legends of New England nothing but matter for feeble-minded ridicule. ”

“ In a suburb of Szegedin, inhabited only by peasants, there is a school with a farm attached to it. The pay of the teacher is trifling, but he can make a comfortable living from the land. This was held by an old man, who had a young assistant. ”

“ It is very true that the number of persons, as yet, who understand this--still less of those who take a real interest in it--is extremely limited, and they do not extend in England, America, or any other country, to more than a few hundreds. ”

“ This, as is indeed true, indicates that a rather high class of patients put faith in them. In Hungary, in the country, the majority, even of the better class, are very much influenced by gypsy-witches. ”