CHAPTER XLIV
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CURIOUS COINCIDENCES.--NUMBER THIRTEEN.
POPULAR SUPERSTITIONS--UNLUCKY FRIDAY--UNFORTUNATE SATURDAY--RAINY SUNDAYS--TERRIBLE THIRTEEN--THE BRETTELLS OF LONDON--INCIDENTS OF MY WESTERN TRIP--SINGULAR FATALITY--NUMBER THIRTEEN IN EVERY HOTEL--NO ESCAPE FROM THE FRIGHTFUL FIGURE--ADVICE OF A CLERICAL FRIEND--THE THIRTEEN COLONIES--THE THIRTEENTH CHAPTER OF CORINTHIANS--THIRTEEN AT MY CHRISTMAS DINNER PARTY--THIRTEEN DOLLARS AT A FAIR--TWO DISASTROUS DAYS--THE THIRTEENTH DAY IN TWO MONTHS--THIRTEEN PAGES OF MANUSCRIPT.
In the summer of 1868, a lady who happened to be at that time an inmate of my family, upon hearing me say that I supposed we must remove into our summer residence on Thursday, because our servants might not like to go on Friday, remarked:
“What nonsense that is! It is astonishing that some persons are so foolish as to think there is any difference in the days. I call it rank heathenism to be so superstitious as to think one day is lucky and another unlucky”; and then, in the most innocent manner possible, she added: “I would not like to remove on a Saturday myself, for they say people who remove on the last day of the week don’t stay long.”
Of course this was too refreshing a case of undoubted superstition to be permitted to pass without a hearty laugh from all who heard it.
I suppose most of us have certain superstitions, imbibed in our youth, and still lurking more or less faintly in our minds. Many would not like to acknowledge that they had any choice whether they commenced a new enterprise on a Friday or on a Monday, or whether they first saw the new moon over the right or left shoulder. And yet, perhaps, a large portion of these same persons will be apt to observe it when they happen to do anything which popular superstition calls “unlucky.” It is a common occurrence with many to immediately make a secret “wish” if they happen to use the same expression at the same moment when a friend with whom they are conversing makes it; nevertheless these persons would protest against being considered superstitious,--indeed, probably they are not so in the full meaning of the word.
Several years ago an old lady who was a guest at my house, remarked on a rainy Sunday:
“This is the first Sunday in the month, and now it will rain every Sunday in the month; that is a sign which never fails, for I have noticed it many a time.”
“Well,” I remarked, smiling, “watch closely this time, and if it rains on the next three Sundays I will give you a new silk dress.”
She was in high glee, and replied:
“Well, you have lost that dress, as sure as you are born.”
The following Sunday it did indeed rain.
“Ah, ha!” exclaimed the old lady, “what did I tell you? I knew it would rain.”
I smiled, and said, “all right, watch for next Sunday.”
And surely enough the next Sunday it did rain, harder than on either of the preceding Sundays.
“Now, what do you think?” said the old lady, solemnly. “I tell you that sign never fails. It wont do to doubt the ways of Providence,” she added with a sigh, “for His ways are mysterious and past finding out.”
The following Sunday the sun rose in a cloudless sky, and not the slightest appearance of rain was manifested through the day. The old lady was greatly disappointed, and did not like to hear any allusion to the subject; but two years afterwards, when she was once more my guest, it again happened to rain on the first Sunday in the month, and I heard her solemnly predict that it would, every succeeding Sunday in the month, for, she remarked, “it is a sign that never fails.” She had forgotten the failure of two years before; indeed, the continuance and prevalence of many popular superstitions is due to the fact that we notice the “sign” when it happens to be verified, and do not observe it, or we forget it, when it fails. Many persons are exceedingly superstitious in regard to the number “thirteen.” This is particularly the case, I have noticed, in Catholic countries I have visited, and I have been told that superstition originated in the fact of a thirteenth apostle having been chosen, on account of the treachery of Judas. At any rate, I have known numbers of French persons who had quite a horror of this fatal number. Once I knew a French lady who had taken passage in an ocean steamer, and who, on going aboard, and finding her assigned state-room to be “No. 13,” insisted upon it that she would not sail in the ship at all; she had rather forfeit her passage money, though finally she was persuaded to take another room. And a great many people, French, English, and American will not undertake any important enterprise on the thirteenth day of the month, nor sit at table with the full complement of thirteen persons. With regard to this number to which so many superstitions cling, I have some interesting experiences and curious coincidences, which are worth relating as a part of my personal history.
When I was first in England with General Tom Thumb, I well remember dining one Christmas day with my friends, the Brettells, in St. James’s Palace, in London. Just before the dinner was finished (it is a wonder it was not noticed before) it was discovered that the number at table was exactly thirteen.
“How very unfortunate,” remarked one of the guests; “I would not have dined under such circumstances for any consideration, had I known it!”
“Nor I either,” seriously remarked another guest.
“Do you really suppose there is any truth in the old superstition on that subject?” I asked.
“Truth!” solemnly replied an old lady. “Truth! Why I myself have known three instances, and have heard of scores of others, where thirteen persons have eaten at the same table, and in every case one of the number died before the year was out!”
This assertion, made with so much earnestness, evidently affected several of the guests, whose nerves were easily excited. I can truthfully state, however, that I dined at the Palace again the following Christmas, and although there were seventeen persons present, every one of the original thirteen who dined there the preceding Christmas, was among this number, and all in good health; although, of course, it would have been nothing very remarkable if one had happened to have died during the last twelve months.
While I was on my Western lecturing tour in 1866, long before I got out of Illinois, I began to observe that at the various hotels where I stopped my room very frequently was No. 13. Indeed, it seemed as if this number turned up to me as often as four times per week, and so before many days I almost expected to have that number set down to my name wherever I signed it upon the register of the hotel. Still, I laughed to myself, at what I was convinced was simply a coincidence. On one occasion I was travelling from Clinton to Mount Vernon, Iowa, and was to lecture in the college of the latter place that evening. Ordinarily, I should have arrived at two o’clock P. M.; but owing to an accident which had occurred to the train from the West, the conductor informed me that our arrival in Mount Vernon would probably be delayed until after seven o’clock. I telegraphed that fact to the committee who were expecting me, and told them to be patient.
When we had arrived within ten miles of that town it was dark. I sat rather moodily in the car, wishing the train would “hurry up”; and happening for some cause to look back over my left shoulder, I discovered the new moon through the window. This omen struck me as a coincident addition to my ill-luck, and with a pleasant chuckle I muttered to myself, “Well, I hope I wont get room number thirteen to-night, for that will be adding insult to injury.”
I reached Mount Vernon a few minutes before eight, and was met at the depot by the committee, who took me in a carriage and hurried to the Ballard House. The committee told me the hall in the college was already crowded, and they hoped I would defer taking tea until after the lecture. I informed them that I would gladly do so, but simply wished to run to my room a moment for a wash. While wiping my face I happened to think about the new room, and at once stepped outside of my bed-room door to look at the number. It was “number thirteen.”
After the lecture I took tea, and I confess that I began to think “number thirteen” looked a little ominous. There I was, many hundreds of miles from my family; I left my wife sick, and I began to ask myself does “number thirteen” portend anything in particular? Without feeling willing even now to acknowledge that I felt much apprehension on the subject, I must say I began to take a serious view of things in general.
I mentioned the coincidence of my luck in so often having “number thirteen” assigned to me to Mr. Ballard, the proprietor of the hotel, giving him all the particulars to date.
“I will give you another room if you prefer it,” said Mr. Ballard.
“No, I thank you,” I replied with a semi-serious smile; “If it is fate, I will take it as it comes; and if it means anything I shall probably find it out in time.” That same night before retiring to rest I wrote a letter to a clerical friend, then residing in Bridgeport, telling him all my experiences in regard to “number thirteen.” I said to him in closing: “Don’t laugh at me for being superstitious, for I hardly feel so; I think it is simply a series of ‘coincidences’ which appear the more strange because I am sure to notice every one that occurs.” Ten days afterwards I received an answer from my reverend friend, in which he cheerfully said: “It’s all right; go ahead and get ‘number thirteen’ as often as you can. It is a lucky number,” and he added:
“Unbelieving and ungrateful man! What is thirteen but the traditional ‘baker’s dozen,’ indicating ‘good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over,’ as illustrated in your triumphal lecturing tour? By all means insist upon having room No. 13 at every hotel; and if the guests at any meal be less than that charmed complement, send out and compel somebody to come in.
“What do you say respecting the Thirteen Colonies? Any ill luck in the number? Was the patriarch Jacob afraid of it when he adopted Ephraim and Manasseh, the two sons of Joseph, so as to complete the magic circle of thirteen?
“Do you not know that