too clear-sighted to place confidence in the pretended revelations of
trance mediums, and he was not in the least superstitious; but he was
remarkably fond of reading ghost stories, and would have liked to
believe them, if he could have done so in all sincerity. He sometimes
felt as if he were a ghost himself, gliding noiselessly in the walks of
men, and wondered that the sun should cast a shadow from him. However,
we cannot imagine him as seated in jurisdiction at a criminal tribunal.
His gentle nature would have recoiled from that, as it might from a
serpent.

In the Charter Street burial-ground there is a slate gravestone,
artistically carved about its edges, with the name, "Col. John Hathorne
Esq.," upon it. It is somewhat sunken into the earth, and leans forward
as if wishing to hide the inscription upon it from the gaze of mankind.
The grass about it and the moss upon the stone assist in doing this,
although repeatedly cut and cleaned away. It seems as if Nature wished
to draw a kind of veil over the memory of the witch's judge, himself
the sorrowful victim of a theocratic oligarchy. The lesson we learn
from his errors is, to trust our own hearts and not to believe too
fixedly in the doctrines of Church and State. It must be a dull
sensibility that can look on this old slate-stone without a feeling of
pathos and a larger charity for the errors of human nature.

It is said that one of the convicted witches cursed Judge Hathorne,--
himself and his descendants forever; but it is more than likely that
they all cursed him bitterly enough, and this curse took effect in a
very natural and direct manner. Every extravagant political or social
movement is followed by a corresponding reaction, even if the movement
be on the whole a salutary one, and retribution is sure to fall in one
shape or another on the leaders of it. After this time the Hathornes