A Company of Witches

Abstract

Elizabeth’s thorn-in-the-flesh, Aunt Hetty, doted on Charles from the moment he was born, thereby incidentally defying those who fell upon his brother John with admiration and indulgence.¹ Old Sarah Lamb was an eccentric figure, perhaps herself slightly touched by the Lamb mental weakness, but no more than to make her difficult and somewhat strange, left to herself as she often was in self-imposed exile from the rest of the household. When she was thus out of the way she occupied herself with reading. This was largely of Roman Catholic texts, but in practice she enjoyed at various times Catholicism, the Church of England, and Non-Conformity without much distinction — except on the part of Elizabeth, who was leery of Papists.

The night-time solitude, and the dark, were my hell. The sufferings I endured in this nature would justify the expression. I never laid my head on my pillow, I suppose, from the fourth to the seventh or eighthyear of my life… without an assurance, which realized its own prophecy, of seeing some frightful spectre. (Elia, 67)

Gorgons, and Hydras, and Chimaeras… may reproduce themselves in the brain of superstition—but they were there before. They are transcripts, types—the archetypes are in us, and eternal … Both from ‘Witches, and Other Night-Fears’ (Elia, 68)