Household words, No. 25, September 14, 1850 : $b A weekly journal
General
Household words, No. 25, September 14, 1850 : $b A weekly journal
English literature -- Periodicals
Yet these are exactly the ladies, who most deplore the “gross state of
superstition” in which many “benighted savages” live, and willingly
subscribe their money for its eradication. The superstition so generally
connected with Friday, may easily be traced to its source. It
undoubtedly and confessedly has its origin in scriptural history: it is
the day on which the Saviour suffered. The superstition is the more
revolting from this circumstance; and it is painful to find that it
exists among persons of education. There is no branch of the public
service, for instance, in which so much sound mathematical knowledge is
to be found, as in the Navy. Yet who are more superstitious than
sailors, from the admiral down to the cabin boy? Friday fatality is
still strong among them. Some years ago, in order to lessen this folly,
it was determined that a ship should be laid down on a Friday, and
launched on a Friday; that she should be called “Friday,” and that she
should commence her first voyage on a Friday. After much difficulty a
captain was found who owned to the name of Friday; and after a great
deal more difficulty men were obtained, so little superstitious, as to
form a crew. Unhappily, this experiment had the effect of confirming the
superstition it was meant to abolish. The “Friday” was lost—was never,
in fact, heard of from the day she set sail.
Day-fatality, as Miss Nippers interprets it is simply the expression of
an undisciplined and extremely weak mind; for, if any person will stoop
to reason with her on her aversion to Mondays, he may ask her whether
the death of the poodle, or the catching of her cold, are the two
greatest calamities of her life; and, if so, whether it is her opinion
that Monday is set apart, in the scheme of Nature, so far as it concerns
her, in a black character. Whether for her insignificant self there is a
special day accursed! Mrs. Carmine is such a strong-minded woman, that
we approach her with no small degree; of trepidation. Wednesday is her
_dies ater_, because, in the first place, on a Wednesday she imprudently
exposed herself, and is suffering from the consequences; and, in the
second place, on a Wednesday her Maria took the scarlet fever. So she
has marked Wednesday down in her calendar with a black character; yet
her contempt for stars and ghosts is prodigious. Now there is a
consideration to be extended to the friends of ghosts, which
Day-fatalists cannot claim. Whether or not deceased friends take a more
airy and flimsy form, and adopt the invariable costume of a sheet to
visit the objects of their earthly affections, is a question which the
shrewdest thinkers and the profoundest logicians have debated very
keenly, but without ever arriving at any satisfactory conclusion.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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