The First Aesthetic of the Witches

The figure of that first ancestor, invested by family tradition with a dim and dusky grandeur, was present to my boyish imagination as far back as i can remember. It still haunts me and induces a sort of home feeling with the past, which i scarcely claim in reference to the present phase Of the town. I seem t astronger claim to a residence here on account of this grave, bearded, sable, cloaked and steeple crowned progenitor who came so early with his bible and his sword. His son too inherited the persecuting spirit and made himself so conspicuous in the martyrdom of the witches, that their blood may fairly be said to have left a stain