Persons living at a distance have been accustomed, and are to this day, to treat the Salem-witchcraft transaction in the spirit of lightsome ridicule, and to make it the subject of jeers and jokes.  Not so those who have lived on, or near, the fatal scene.  They have ever regarded it with solemn awe and profound sorrow, and shunned the mention, and even the remembrance, of its details.  This prevented an immediate expression of feeling, and delayed movements in the way of attempting a reparation of the wrongs that had been committed.  The heart sickened, the lips were dumb, at the very thought of those wrongs.  Reparation was impossible.  The dead were beyond its reach.  The sorrows and anguish of survivors were also beyond its reach.  The voice of sympathy was felt to be unworthy to obtrude upon sensibilities that had been so outraged.  The only refuge left for the individuals who had been bereaved, and for the body of the people who realized that innocent blood was on all their hands, was in humble and soul-subdued silence, and in prayers for forgiveness from God and from each other.

It was long before the public mind recovered from its paralysis.  No one knew what ought to be said or done, the tragedy had been so awful.  The parties who had acted in it were so numerous, and of such standing, including almost all the most eminent and honored leaders of the community from the bench, the bar, the magistracy, the pulpit, the medical faculty, and in fact all classes and descriptions of persons; the mysteries connected with the accusers and confessors; the universal prevalence of the legal, theological, and philosophical theories that had led to the proceedings; the utter impossibility of realizing or measuring the extent of the calamity; and the general shame and horror associated with the subject in all minds; prevented any open movement.  Then there was the dread of rekindling animosities which time was silently subduing, and nothing but time could fully extinguish.  Slowly, however, the remembrance of wrongs was becoming obscured.  Neighborhood and business relations were gradually reconciling the estranged.  Offices of civility, courtesy, and good-will were reviving; social and family intimacies and connections were taking effect and restoring the community to a natural and satisfactory condition.  Every day, the sentiment was sinking deeper in the public mind, that something was required to be done to avert the displeasure of Heaven from a guilty land.  But while some were ready to forgive, and some had the grace to ask to be forgiven, any general movement in this direction was obstructed by difficulties hard to be surmounted.