The drowsy atmosphere of Sleepy Hollow makes us see visions
and dream dreams. The group of "Strange Stories by a Nervous
Gentleman" in _Tales of a Traveller_ (1824) prove that Washington
Irving was well versed in ghostly lore. He, as well as any, can
call spirits from the vasty deep, but, when they appear in answer
to his summons, he can seldom refrain from receiving them in a
jocose, irreverent mood, ill befitting the solemn, dignified
spectre of a German legend. Even the highly qualified,
irrepressibly loquacious ghost of Lewis Carroll's
_Phantasmagoria_ would have resented his genial familiarity. The
strange stories are told at a hunting-party in a country-house, a
cheerful, comfortable background for ghost stories. A hoary,
one-eyed gentleman, "the whole side of whose head was dilapidated
and seemed like the wing of a house shut up and haunted," sets
the ball rolling with the old story of a spectre who glides into
the room, wringing her hands, and is later identified, like
Scott's Lady in the Sacque, by her resemblance to an ancestral
portrait in the gallery. The "knowing" gentleman tells of a
picture that winked in a startling and alarming fashion, and
immediately explains away this phenomenon by the presence of a
thief who has cut a spy-hole in the canvas.
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