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Irving's The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.(Washington Irving)(Critical Essay)

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From: The Explicator
Date: 20030622
Author:Anderson, Donald

The schoolhouse where Ichabod Crane serves as master in Washington Irving's "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" has a peculiar security system: "It was most ingeniously secured at vacant hours by a withe twisted in the handle of the door, and stakes set against the window shutters; so that though a thief might get in with perfect ease, he would find some embarrassment in getting out." Irving notes that the idea for such a system is "probably borrowed by the architect, Yost Van Houten, from the mystery of an eelpot" (1061).

If this method of securing the structure seems a bizarre ...

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