document; leaving the intruder free to pursue his search for antiquities
elsewhere. But the monuments and remains of the past are nowhere large
enough, in our American towns, to furnish the pilgrim a complete shelter
and make an atmosphere of their own. The old Curwin Mansion, or "Witch
House," to be sure, with its jutting upper story, and its dark and grimy
room where witch-trials are rumored to have been held, is a solid scrap
of antique gloom; but an ephemeral druggist's shop has been fastened on
to a corner of the old building, and clings there like a wasp's
nest,--as subversive, too, of quiet contemplation. The descendants of
the first settlers have with pious care preserved the remains of the
First Church of Salem, and the plain little temple may still be seen,
though hidden away in the rear of the solid, brick-built Essex
Institute. Yet, after all, it is only the skeleton of the thing, the
original framework set into a modern covering for protection,--the whole
church being about as large as a small drawing-room only. Into this
little space a few dumb and shrinking witnesses of the past have been
huddled: the old communion-table, two ancient harpsichords, a single
pew-door, a wooden samp-mortar, and a huge, half-ruinous loom; and some
engraved portraits of ancient ministers hang upon the walls. When I
visited the place, a party of young men and women were there, who
hopelessly scattered any slight dust of revery that might have settled
on me from the ancient beams, and sent the ghosts fleeing before their
light laughter. The young women fingered the old harpsichords, and
incontinently thrummed upon them; and one cried, "Play a waltz!" She was
a pretty creature; and, as her gay tone mingled with the rattle of
protesting strings in the worn-out instrument, one might easily have
divined how dire a fate would have been hers, in the days when men not
only believed in bewitchment, but made it punishable. Then a young man
who had clung for guidance amid her spells to the little printed
pamphlet that describes the church, read aloud from its pages,