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The writings of John Greenleaf Whittier, Volume 5. (ed. John Greenleaf Whittier), Tales and Sketches (search)
nt old author just quoted affirms? As the spirits of darkness grow stronger in the dark, so good spirits, which are angels of light, are multiplied and strengthened, not only by the divine light of the sun and stars, but also by the light of our common wood-fires. Even Lord Bacon, in condemning the superstitious beliefs of his day, admits that they might serve for winter talk around the fireside. Fairy faith is, we may safely say, now dead everywhere,—buried, indeed,—for the mad painter Blake saw the funeral of the last of the little people, and an irreverent English bishop has sung their requiem. It never had much hold upon the Yankee mind, our superstitions being mostly of a sterner and less poetical kind. The Irish Presbyterians who settled in New Hampshire about the year 1720 brought indeed with them, among other strange matters, potatoes and fairies; but while the former took root and flourished among us, the latter died out, after lingering a few years in a very melanchol