The whole forest was peopled with frightful sounds--the creaking of the trees, the howling of wild beasts, and the yell of Indians; while sometimes the wind tolled like a distant church bell, and sometimes gave a broad roar around the traveler, as if all Nature were laughing him to scorn. But he was himself the chief horror of the scene, and shrank not from its other horrors. Nathaniel Hawthorne
About This Quote

In this passage from "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow," Ichabod Crane, a character from Washington Irving's "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow," describes a haunted forest populated by the ghosts of the dead. As Ichabod travels through the forest in search of his friend and the headless horseman, he hears frightening sounds and sees frightening sights. He is frightened, but in a way that is different from the fear we would feel in our own haunted forests. Instead of fleeing from what we see and hear, Ichabod takes pictures and records his observations for further study. The fear that Ichabod experiences is not fear of fear itself, but fear that our research might be incomplete or flawed.

Source: Young Goodman Brown

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More Quotes By Nathaniel Hawthorne
  1. Love, whether newly born or aroused from a deathlike slumber, must always create sunshine, filling the heart so full of radiance, that it overflows upon the outward world.
  2. Oh, for the years I have not lived, but only dreamed of living.
  3. Happiness is like a butterfly which, when pursued, is always beyond our grasp, but, if you will sit down quietly, may alight upon you.
  4. Every individual has a place to fill in the world and is important in some respect, whether he chooses to be so or not.
  5. Death should take me while I am in the mood.
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