e often on the Mind of a Child, and
raise them there together, possibly he shall never be able to separate
them again so long as he lives; but Darkness shall ever afterwards
bring with it those frightful Ideas, and they shall be so joyned, that
he can no more bear the one than the other._

As I was walking in this Solitude, where the Dusk of the Evening
conspired with so many other Occasions of Terrour, I observed a Cow
grazing not far from me, which an Imagination that was apt to
_startle_ might easily have construed into a black Horse without an
Head: and I dare say the poor Footman lost his Wits upon some such
trivial Occasion.

My Friend Sir Roger has often told me with a good deal of Mirth, that
at his first coming to his Estate he found three Parts of his House
altogether useless; that the best Room in it had the Reputation of
being haunted, and by that Means was locked up; that Noises had been
heard in his long Gallery, so that he could not get a Servant to enter
it after eight a Clock at Night; that the Door of one of his Chambers
was nailed up, because there went a Story in the Family that a Butler
had formerly hanged himself in it; and that his Mother, who lived to a
great Age, had shut up half the Rooms in the House, in which either
her Husband, a Son, or Daughter had died. The Knight seeing his
Habitation reduced to so small a Compass, and himself in a Manner shut
out of his own House, upon the Death of his Mother ordered all the
Apartments to be flung open, and _exorcised_ by his Chaplain who lay
in every Room one after another, and by that Means dissipated the
Fears which had so long reigned in the Family.

I should not have been thus particular upon these ridiculous Horrours,
did not I find them so very much prevail in all Parts of the Country.
At the same Time I think a Person who is thus terrify'd with the
Imagination of Ghosts and Spectres much more reasonable, than one who
contrary to the Reports of all Historians sacred and prophane, ancient
and modern, and to the Traditions of all Nations, thinks the
Appearance of Spirits fabulous and groundless: Could not I give my
self up to this general Testimony of Mankind, I should to the
relations of particular Persons who are now living, and whom I cannot
distrust in other Matters of Fact. I might here add, that not only the
Historians, to whom we may joyn the Poets, but likewise the
Philosophers of Antiquity have favoured this Opinion. _Lucretius_
himsel