ight after night hearkening to the death watches in the wall.
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Hyperbole
Presently, I heard a slight groan, and I knew it was the groan of mortal terror. It was not
a groan of pain or of grief -- oh, no! It was the low stifled sound that arises from the
bottom of the soul when overcharged with awe. I knew the sound well. Many a night,
just at midnight, when all the world slept, it has welled up from my own bosom,
deepening, with its dreadful echo, the terrors that distracted me. I say I knew it well. I
knew what the old man felt and pitied him, although I chuckled at heart. I knew that he
had been lying awake ever since the first slight noise when he had turned in the bed.
His fears had been ever since growing upon him. He had been trying to fancy them
causeless but could not. He had been saying to himself, "It is nothing but the wind in the
chimney, it is only a mouse crossing the floor," or, "It is merely a cricket which has made
a single chirp." Yes, he has been trying to comfort himself with these suppositions; but
he had found all in vain. ALL IN VAIN, because Death in approaching him had stalked
with his black shadow before him and enveloped the victim. And it was the mournful
influence of the unperceived shadow that caused him to feel, although he neither saw
nor heard, to feel the presence of my head within the room.
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