The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, and The Spectre Bridegroom: From the "Sketch Book"

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J.B. Lippincott & Company, 1875 - 78 pages
 

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Page 34 - ... and purple of their rocky sides. A sloop was loitering in the distance, dropping slowly down with the tide, her sail hanging uselessly against the mast, and as the reflection of the sky gleamed along the still water it seemed as if the vessel was suspended in the air.
Page 21 - ... carved out the future sleek side of bacon and juicy relishing ham; not a turkey but he beheld daintily trussed up, with its gizzard under its wing, and, peradventure, a necklace of savory sausages; and even bright Chanticleer himself lay sprawling on his back in a side dish, with uplifted claws, as if craving that quarter which his chivalrous spirit disdained to ask while living.
Page 9 - The dominant spirit, however, that haunts this enchanted region, and seems to be commander-in-chief of all the powers of the air, is the apparition of a figure on horseback without a head. It is said by some to be the ghost of a Hessian...
Page 11 - Crane ; who sojourned, or, as he expressed it, " tarried," in Sleepy Hollow, for the purpose of instructing the children of the vicinity. He was a native of Connecticut : a state which supplies the Union with pioneers for the mind as well as for the forest, and sends forth yearly its legions of frontier woodmen and country schoolmasters.
Page 21 - ... the air. A stately squadron of snowy geese were riding in an adjoining pond, convoying whole fleets of ducks; regiments of turkeys were gobbling through the farmyard, and guinea fowls fretting about it, like illtempered housewives, with their peevish, discontented cry.
Page 18 - Satan in divers shapes, in his lonely perambulations, yet daylight put an end to all these evils; and he would have passed a pleasant life of it, in despite of the devil and all his works, if his path had not been crossed by a being that causes more perplexity to mortal man than ghosts, goblins, and the whole race of witches put together, and that was — a woman.
Page 17 - Hollow, as they sometimes called him. He would delight them equally by his anecdotes of witchcraft, and of the direful omens and portentous sights and sounds in the air, which prevailed in the earlier times of Connecticut ; and would frighten them...
Page 10 - However wide awake they may have been before they entered that sleepy region, they are sure in a little time to inhale the witching influence of the air, and begin to grow imaginative, to dream dreams and see apparitions. I mention this peaceful spot with all possible laud ; for it is in such little retired Dutch valleys, found here and there embosomed in the great State of...
Page 38 - ... and lofty elms, from among which its decent whitewashed walls shine modestly forth, like Christian purity beaming through the shades of retirement. A gentle slope descends from it to a silver sheet of water, bordered by high trees, between which peeps may be caught at the blue hills of the Hudson. To look upon its grass-grown yard, where the sunbeams seem to sleep so quietly, one would think that there at least the dead might rest in peace.
Page 42 - ... and turning suddenly in his bed. All the stories of ghosts and goblins that he had heard in the afternoon, now came crowding upon his recollection. The night grew darker and darker ; the stars seemed to sink deeper in the sky, and driving clouds occasionally hid them from his sight. He had never felt so lonely and dismal. lie was, moreover, approaching the very place where many of the scenes of the ghost stories had been laid.

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