University of Virginia Library

5. A WARNING VOICE AGAINST FASCINATION.

“Ruth Daniels being sworn, testifies that she knows that
pris'ner hath bewitched Walk-meekly Smith, for that he now
shunnes witness, whereas he used to be familiar and good
friends, being witness' third cousin. That last Sabbath week,
in the meetin, pris'ner tried to fascinate witness. Witness
looked at pris'ner, to rebuke her for not minding to the discourse.
Prisner turned up her nose, and gave her such a
fierce look, that witness was fascinated to take up the hymnbook,
and was near about to throw it at pris'ner's head.

“Hereupon, brother Condemned Fish saieth he remembereth
the witness uplifting the book, and how he checked her, and
he asks “is not this enough? Shall we not suddenly seize
defendant and cast out the curse from among us?”

“Then up starts pris'ner, and throws the veil from off her
head, with incredible diligence and fury, and cries to the jury,
“Worthy sirs, take heed how ye give trust to false counselle,
and be not swift to stain your skirts with guiltless blood. I
proteste to the Lorde I am innocent in this thinge. Would
you put to death Susannah, and justifie the lying elders?”—
with more of such bold assurance.

“Hereupon it was plaine to see how Sathan struggled
in her; so that Mr. Fish goes up and spat in her face,
and charged him to come out of her, and covered up her head.
Their judgment being passed, the people took her to a convenient
tree hard by, and burned her with fire, while we all

exalted a song of triumph which well nigh drowned the cry
of Beelzebub yelling with her voice.”

The foregoing, was, probably, one of the most clearly established
cases of witchcraft, which ever came into the condemnation
of the judgment halls of New England. Yet, it is
greatly remarkable, that this is the only authentic record of
the kind. The adjudications in the Massachusetts reports
are, generally, upon prosecutions against ancient hags, for
sticking pins into little children, and committing other absurd
outrages against the peace of the people, and the dignity of
the church, and which made them, rather subjects for laughter
at the oddity of their devil-play, than of fear for the substantial
damages of their sorcery. Not another reported case
exists of the flagrant basiliskism of the young witches who
drew men, by their eyes, to run after them, and so lead them
to melancholy ruin.

How clearly manifest in this matter, is the trickey cloven
foot of the father of all witches!—Who prompts his favorites
to anticipate a charge against themselves, by commencing a
crimination of others!—The Pilgrim people, with whom Satan
pretended to pitch his tent, were generally married women
or antique. The complainants and witnesses were, almost
invariably, young, plump, juvenals. So it came to be
generally believed that a certain number of years were needful
to a lady to be deemed worthy of supernatural visitations;
and thus, the fiercest witches in the land escaped suspicion.
Many, doubtless, vehement fascinatrixes, of middle age, suffered
just judgment, but it is equally certain that many innocent
old ladies were victimized for simply wearing spectacles.
That the grand juries began to ignore bills of indictment, was
more owing to the fear of depopulating the country of their
grandmothers, than to any new light of revelation shed upon

them by the judges. It was the fear of being compelled to
go without woollen stockings, that gradually brought the pilgrims
to their senses. The approach of a hard winter unravelled
the yarn of witchcraft, and opened the eyes of the
boys of the Bay State. Time and cold weather pointed them
to comfort and safety. Then Connecticut set a good example
and passed its memorable statutes against young women.
Then Mr. Hutchinson got bold, and made his famous speech
at the calm frolic at Taunton. “If we continue these annihilating
executions,” says he, “what an expurgated edition
of humanity shall be presented! If my aunts,—I have nine
—escape to the mountains, and then be caught, I shall see
them exhibited as monstrosities in the Zoological Institute!”

It becomes us to consider the errors of our fathers, and to
learn wisdom from their unwitting sinfulness. Much did
they lament. Much penitential sorrow did they pour out,
when they finally discovered that the witchcraft which afflicted
the land was only the eyey galvanism of juvenile
blood:[2] Let the evil they did be interred with their bones.
They did all they could, for atonement, by expunging[3] the

records of criminality they had made up. Poor repentance,
perhaps. But the best they could offer. Forgive them.
“Blot out” was written on the tear that immortalized Sterne's
accusing angel.

If history has taught us any thing, it has inculcated the
good sense of the caution of Dr Drake:—

Doctor Cotton Mather found out that witchcraft lay in something
else than astrology, and divination, and conjuring and
burning pictures, and gathering cabbages on All-hallow-eve,
and putting chicken breast bones over the door-top, when he
quoted in reference to his seven sons, all bewitched by the
same young woman, a “member of his congregation,” the
pathetic lines of Virgil:—

Tender lambs, indeed.—Poor devils.—All in love with the
same, Syren! Burned, withered, blasted, by an opthalmic
coup de soliel! Perhaps, all struck down at one shot from
the same electrical battery! Well, let us reject all vulgar
magic, all spells, incantations, charms. We are reason proof
against them. But fascination we confess. Palmistry thrills;
but oculation sets the heart on fire.

Does any one doubt that a woman's eye is the fountain of
witchcraft? Why, all history, all philosphy, all morals, all
immorals, all experience, all nature, are full, fierce, and flashing
with the proof.

History. Rise, witches, rise. Take them as they come.
—Helen, Fulvia, Medea.—She boiled her father-in-law,
and several other old gentlemen. She was a cook as well as
a witch.—Sappho, Catharine of Russia, Rahab, Kitty Fischer,
Joan of Naples, Joan of Arc, Paulina Buonaparte,
Cleopatra, Lais, Thais, Tamar, Queen Christina, Judith,
Xantippe, Delilah, Dejanira, Nell Gwinn, Euriphile Clytemnestra,
Dido—We will see no more.—Was there no witchcraft
in these women's eyes? It would be interesting to hear
the ghosts of Alexander, Socrates, and Samson testify to
that point before a committee of the House authorized to send
for persons and papers.

The philosophy of fascination is full of attractive, and incomprehensible

wonder. We feel it, and acknowledge its
power, but we cannot define it. It does not belong to the
exact sciences, but is rather referable to the metaphysical
deportment of all-overishness. We can analyze the elements
of ice, and give learned reasons why the blast that blows over
us is hot; but no man hath yet been able to resolve the agonies
of the fierce and languid rays of woman's eye light. Some
philosophers, who though good enough christians on other
points, are well nigh materialists here, talk of “the subtle
and active exhalation, or rarefaction of the humers of the
eye,” and of “the vibration of the nervous juices,” and other
such abstract imaginations, with a sort of familiar impudence,
as if they had conquered the kingdom of darkness, and could
put you up a bottle of fascination to order, at a moment's
notice. But admitting these people, profane, to be correct;
they only show the modus operandi,—the means used for the
expulsion and instillation of the invisible essence. They
simply point out the lightning rod by which the fluid is conducted.
The character of the element remains undeveloped.
We are not certified whether it truly be Satan that sends it
out in streaks. We are not assured whether it was a deception
of our vision, when we have sometimes thought we
saw the Devil in a woman's eye. Fascination is still in
the clouds of chaos, with galvanism, and magnetism, and
chemical affinities, and aurora borealises, and the music of
the spheres, and the soul of the world, and all mysteries.

There be some men, who think themselves to be wise,
that deny the existence of the element of fascination, and
upon whom the eye of a beautiful witch falls powerlessly
as upon a brazen statue. Such were never created out
of flesh and blood, but were, in a hard laboring hour of
some modern Prometheus, manufactured out of whitleather

and red ink. If they do possess the attributes of humanity,
perhaps, they can reason, if they cannot feel. We pray
them, then, to be profound, and resolve us the well attested
miracles of the Basilisk, and Opoblepha,—respectable
brutes, who kill and cook their enemies and food, by staring
at them. What is the power that enables the rattle-snake
to draw by the invisible cords of his brilliant eyes, the
shivering victim of his fascination? Why crouches the trembling
quail under the steady eye of the pointer?

O! how we should delight to put one of these vain boasters
under the magnetic influence of a pair of eyes we wot
of! Thine, Julia, thine. Speak but say nothing. Let thine
eye discourse[4] . Be first downcast, then inquiring and docile,
then dignified, then tender, then earnest, then gently
rebuking, all with thine eyes, thy tongue ever silent, and
shortly thou wilt have a raging heathen in thy net, and
thou shalt sing the song of the triumphant Maimuna.

The power of Fascination rarely deserts the sex, even in
extreme old age. Its character and quality are only modified.
In youth, it is a consuming conflagration,—a persuading delusion,—a
bewildering deliciousness,—a feverish rapture.
The victims operated upon are boys grown up, and pensive,
contemplative gentlemen. In senile years the element becomes
weak. It degenerates into a venomous pestilence,
that falls powerless upon men, but with considerable fatality

upon little children, and cattle. Some writers, however, think
that the spirit exists in the greatest quantity, and strength in
gray antiquity. This notion, as we have seen, was the received
belief among our forefathers of New England. Thus,
one of the most eminent and zealous expounders of the craft
says “Old bilious persons are most supposed to have the faculty,
the nervous juice in them being depraved and irritated
by a vicious habit of living, so as to make it more pestilent
and malignant; and young persons,—children and girls,—are
most affected by it, because their pores are patent, their
juices incoherent, and their fibres delicate and susceptible.”
Doubtless, the antique sybils are best entitled to the reputation
of having what is commonly called “an evil eye,” so far
as concerns the laming of horses, and frightening juvenals out
of their wits. They can “eyebite,”—as Cotgrave calls it,—
sucklings. They may stare a cow out of her life estate.—
They know how —to kill with their ugly “mugs”
like the Haridans among the Triballians, and Illyrians, touching
whom we have the certificates of Vossius and Pliny. But
theirs is not the eye that strikes down and demolishes a man.
The full glory of sorcery flashes from the
—the kissing witchery of the eye of twenty-five, and from the
venefic Vesuvius of thirty.

The question as to the morality of Fascination, depends,
very much, upon the discoveries yet to be made in its philosophy.
One thing will not fail to strike the careful investigator
Mankind, from the very beginning of time, has shown no disposition
to avoid the arrows which send poison through his
veins, but has courted and rushed upon the dangers of the
priestesses of the craft. It seems to be a part of human nature,
to love to

Hence have arisen all the factions of rhyme-grinders, jingling
their bells, and laboriously whetting down their pewter
metal into edge no edge, “point no point,” to the color of
some vixen's eyeball. The conclusion to be drawn from all this
mis-spent time, and painful elaborations of nonsense, is, that
Fascination is a sinful thing; for it is not to be found recorded
in any book of trust-worthy authority, that humanity has a natural
propensity for occupations which are good. Man is prone
to evil, and human nature is frail. Alas! alas! we are a
fearful race of reprobates, worshipping idols of flesh and blood,
and building us temples to sacrifice in, in the black eyes, and
in the blue eyes, and in the hazel eyes of witches!

We all have much, very much to answer for, touching the
empire of witchcraft. We have not resisted the Devil, and
made him flee from us; but we have taken his arm, and
walked with him in company. How many witches' eyes
have stricken us with lightning, in our boyhood! How many
enchantresses galvanize us, daily, with our perfect consent!
The sin is so pleasant, the indulgence so voluptuous, that we
drink it in like stolen waters. The Syrens adopt so many
shapes, and come in so many forms, too, that we dont know
it is a witch, until we “feel all over in one spot,” as Dr. Abernethy
happily expresses it. Nothing will save a man but
utter gynephobia. Some believe in spells. That was reputed
a good charm composed by the learned friar Philomyglinus—friar
of sins in public, and broiler of venison steaks
in private,—and which he wrote for King Arthur when he
started to travel in Circassia.

But it availeth not. Not Greek, nor Hebrew, nor High
Dutch, Amulet, Alexipharmic, nor Abracadabra, will assure a
man of safety. We have a Quaker friend, who wore a phylactory
of eel skin, around his right arm, for forty-five years,

and then finally caught the aconite from a fat widow of forty,
that came to take tea with his sister.

A most confirmed witch, once, adopted the shape of a sweet
saint, and pretended to try to convert us. O! what beautiful
tears, she shed, while she talked to us about the goodness of
goodness; and how through the liquid diamonds pendant
from her eyelets, came the fierce mildness of her petitioning
witchery! Our heart was torn to pieces. Could we help
loving her madly? * * * * * That memory is painful
—She afterwards bewitched a young minister, and carried
him off to Oahu. That cured us.

We were once fascinated to go home with a young witch
whom we met at camp meeting. How Satan can put on the
appearance of an angel of light! In that moonlit walk we
were burned to cinders—O we were dust and ashes! Our
soul cried aloud, “it is good to be fascinated! O keep on
fascinating! smile! strike! glory, glory, glory!”

Why should we confess our sins to a public that is not
apostolic? The people shall not be our priest, and we will
not kneel at their confessional. But we will listen to their
confiteor, and give them good advice. Friends, study King
James, live low, and wear green spectacles. Despair not because
you are afflicted. It is good to be persecuted. Remember
that—as his royal and pious majesty has told us—
“there are three classes of people whom the Lord lets Satan
buffet in this way; First, the ungodly for their sins; Secondly,
the godly who are sleeping in their weaknesses and
infirmities; and Thirdly, the brightest saints that their patience
may be tried before the world;”—and again,—“No man is
free from these devilish practices; yet we ought not to fear,
for we daily fight against the Devil in an hundred ways. So
as a valiant captain dashing into the battle stays not his purpose

by means of a rummishing shot of a cannon, nor the
small clashing of a pistolet, so we ought to go boldly forward,
and fight howsoever wounded.”

This subject is not unworthy the serious consideration of
congress. Fascination is “practiced to such a great extent
in this community,” that it may yet be necessary to pass
some conservative statute for its restraint. Wont one of the
parties take this subject up? They can make more out of it
than they can out of “abolition,” or any of the threadbare
texts about “the bleeding constitution.” Here is a fearful
crisis arrived! We are on the brink of a gynecocracy! women
are travelling about the republic, preaching, lecturing,
and uniting, fidelity, infidelity, and politics. By the last census,
it appears that they are multiplying and replenishing the
republic in a most extravagant ratio beyond the sex that now
scarcely retains the reins of government. Our men are getting
fast killed off by Indian wars and drinking. Suppose it
should so happen,—it might,—who can tell?—that the next
numeration should exhibit a balance sheet of seven women to
one man;—what will become of our liberties when the fearful
fact is promulgated! Let no confident youth think that
this is the suggestion of a cowardly imagination, and that his
personal safety would not be jeoparded by ambitious aspirants
for queendoms. We kneel even now to the tyrants, and hug
the chains in which they bind us. But once let Miss Martineau's
horrible doctrines of the equal rights of woman be
put into successful practice, and then good bye to purse and
sword, and all! We call them, now by affectation, the weaker
vessel; but it is in the multiplication table to make them vessels
of wrath. There were Amazons once. Every one has
heard of Boadicea and old queen Bess. The word “heroine”
is far from being a proper noun. Is there not a prophecy on

record, that a time shall come when seven women shall lay
hold on one man?—Seven to one! We faint! Air, air!
O! my country!

Yes, Congress ought to appoint a committee to inquire into
the matter. Either side is interested to press the patriotic
investigation. Here are substantial laurels to be won. Here
may be built a name to last for ages. Let the self denying
patriots of any faction raise a standard of resistance against
witchcraft and petticoat government, and they will have a
watchword and a battle-ensign, that would herald them to
Victory.