Tell me, Godfather Drosselmeier, is it then really true that you invented mousetraps?” “How can you ask such a silly question?” said his mother, but … - E. T. A. Hoffmann

Why should not a writer be permitted to make use of the levers of fear, terror and horror because some feeble soul here and there finds it more than it can bear? Shall there be no strong meat at table because there happen to be some guests there whose stomachs are weak, or who have spoiled their own digestions?

It may even be that, as you look more closely, to recognize the hidden seed which, born of a secret union, grows into a luxuriant plant and spreads forth into a thousand tendrils, until a single blossom, swelling to maturity, absorbs all the life-sap and kills the seed itself. [...] I came to feel that what we call simply dream and imagination might represent the secret thread that runs through our lives and links its varied facets; and that the man who thinks that, because he has perceived this, he has acquired the power to break the thread and challenge that mysterious force which rules us, is to be given up as lost.

So Marie couldn't talk to anyone about her adventures, but the idea of that wonderful fairyland lingered on. She thought she heard murmurs of sweet sound, she saw it all again the moment she let her mind dwell on it, and so it was that instead of playing as usual she could sit still, never moving but deep in her own thoughts, with the result that she was scolded for being a little dreamer.