File:Zigzag journeys in northwest lands. The Rhine to the Arctic (1884) (14583044189).jpg

Identifier: zigzagjourneysin03butt (find matches)
Title: Zigzag journeys in northwest lands. The Rhine to the Arctic
Year: 1884 (1880s)
Authors: Butterworth, Hezekiah, 1839-1905. (from old catalog)
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Publisher: Boston, Estes and Lauriat
Contributing Library: The Library of Congress
Digitizing Sponsor: The Library of Congress

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in front of the building, one day, and, assuming anattitude of astonishment, exclaimed : — It wags, it wags ! His eyes were riveted on the statue, to which the bystanders readilyobserved that the exclamation referred. Quite a number of persons collected,each one gazing on the bronze figure, expecting to see the phenomenon. Theirimagination supplied the desired marvel, and presently a street full of peoplefancied that they could see the lion Percy wag his tail ! An old distich runs something as follows: — Who believe that there are witches, there the witches are ;Who believe there arent no witches, are nt no witches there. There is much more good sense than poetry in these lines. The marvelsof superstition are witnessed chiefly by those who believe in them. The sights held as supernatural are usually not more wonderful than thosethat arise from a disordered imagination. The spectres of demonology are notmore fearful than those shapes of fancy produced by opium and dissipation; and
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ANCIENT RELIGIOUS RITES OF THE PEASANTS. A STORY-TELLING JOURNEY. 47 the visions of the necromancer are not more wonderful than those that arisefrom a fever, or even from a troubled sleep. Yet it is a fact, and a very singular one, that, however at random the fanciesof unhealthy intellects may appear on ordinary subjects, those fancies obtain agreater or less credit when they touch upon supernatural things. Instances ofmonomaniacs (persons insane on a single subject) who have imagined thingsquite as marvellous as the most superstitious, but whose illusions have beentreated with the greatest ridicule, might be cited almost without limit. I once knew of an elderly lady, who thought that she was a goose. Makinga nest in one corner of the room, she put in it a few kitchen utensils, whichshe supposed to be eggs, and began to incubate. She found the process of in-cubation, in her case, a very slow one ; and her friends, fearing for her health,called in a doctor. He endeavored to reason with

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