When common objects in this way be come charged with the suggestion of horror, they stimulate the imagination far more than things of unusual appearance; and these bushes, crowding huddled about us, assumed for me in the darkness a bizarre grotesquerie of appearance that lent to them somehow the aspect of purposeful and living creatures. Their very ordinariness, I felt, masked what was malignant and hostile to us.
Algernon BlackwoodNo place worth knowing yields itself at sight, and those the least inviting on first view may leave the most haunting pictures upon the walls of memory.
Algernon BlackwoodIt is, alas, chiefly the evil emotions that are able to leave their photographs on surrounding scenes and objects and whoever heard of a place haunted by a noble deed, or of beautiful and lovely ghosts revisiting the glimpses of the moon?
Algernon BlackwoodNo man can describe to another convincingly wherein lies the magic of the woman who ensnares him.
Algernon BlackwoodBut the wicked passions of men's hearts alone seem strong enough to leave pictures that persist the good are ever too luke-warm.
Algernon BlackwoodTo the Sabbath! To the Sabbath!' they cried. 'On to the Witches' Sabbath!" Up and down that narrow hall they danced, the women on each side of him, to the wildest measure he had ever imagined, yet which he dimly, dreadfully remembered, till the lamp on the wall flickered and went out, and they were left in total darkness. And the devil woke in his heart with a thousand vile suggestions and made him afraid.
Algernon Blackwood