But it is singular how few come on pilgrimage to this famous
hill; how many spend their lives almost at its base, and never once
obey the summons of the shadowy past, as it beckons them to the
summit. Till a year or two since, this portion of our history had been
very imperfectly written, and, as we are not a people of legend or
tradition, it was not every citizen of our ancient town that could
tell, within half a century, so much as the date of the witchcraft
delusion. Recently, indeed, an historian has treated the subject in
a manner that will keep his name alive, in the only desirable
connection with the errors of our ancestry, by converting the hill
of their disgrace into an honorable monument of his own antiquarian
lore, and of that better wisdom, which draws the moral while it
tells the tale. But we are a people of the present, and have no
heartfelt interest in the olden time. Every fifth of November, in
commemoration of they know not what, or rather without an idea
beyond the momentary blaze, the young men scare the town with bonfires
on this haunted height, but never dream of paying funeral honors to
those who died so wrongfully, and, without a coffin or a prayer,
were buried here.
Pages:
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24