Rip Van Winkle misc. 2

Rip Van Winkle by Washington Irving

As he approached the village he met a number of people, but none of who he knew, which somewhat surprised him, for he had thought himself acquainted with everyone in the country round. Their dress too was of a different fashion from that to which he was accustomed. They all stared at him with equal marks of surprise, and whenever they cast their eyes upon him, invariably stroked their chins. The constant recurrence of this gesture induced Rip involuntarily to do the same, when to his astonishment he found his beard had grown a foot long.

I always like reading passages such as this where the character realizes that the problem isn't with the society he's in, it's with him. This is another example of a great piece of fiction. Irving does very well in showing that there is something different with his chin before actually telling us that Van Winkle has grown a beard a foot long. This isn't exactly what Rip was expecting to wake up to that is for sure.