Collected Works of Poe | Page 6

a few feet of the Gizbarim
that a low grunt betrayed to their perception a hog of no common size.
"Now El Emanu!" slowly and with upturned eyes ejaculated the trio, as,
letting go their hold, the emancipated porker tumbled headlong among
the Philistines, "El Emanu!-God be with us---it is _the unutterable
flesh!"_
~~~~~~ End of Text ~~~~~~

THE SPHINX
DURING the dread reign of the Cholera in New York, I had accepted
the invitation of a relative to spend a fortnight with him in the
retirement of his _cottage ornee_ on the banks of the Hudson. We had
here around us all the ordinary means of summer amusement; and what
with rambling in the woods, sketching, boating, fishing, bathing, music,
and books, we should have passed the time pleasantly enough, but for
the fearful intelligence which reached us every morning from the
populous city. Not a day elapsed which did not bring us news of the
decease of some acquaintance. Then as the fatality increased, we
learned to expect daily the loss of some friend. At length we trembled
at the approach of every messenger. The very air from the South
seemed to us redolent with death. That palsying thought, indeed, took
entire possession of my soul. I could neither speak, think, nor dream of
any thing else. My host was of a less excitable temperament, and,
although greatly depressed in spirits, exerted himself to sustain my own.
His richly philosophical intellect was not at any time affected by
unrealities. To the substances of terror he was sufficiently alive, but of

its shadows he had no apprehension.
His endeavors to arouse me from the condition of abnormal gloom into
which I had fallen, were frustrated, in great measure, by certain
volumes which I had found in his library. These were of a character to
force into germination whatever seeds of hereditary superstition lay
latent in my bosom. I had been reading these books without his
knowledge, and thus he was often at a loss to account for the forcible
impressions which had been made upon my fancy.
A favorite topic with me was the popular belief in omens -- a belief
which, at this one epoch of my life, I was almost seriously disposed to
defend. On this subject we had long and animated discussions -- he
maintaining the utter groundlessness of faith in such matters, -- I
contending that a popular sentiment arising with absolute
spontaneitythat is to say, without apparent traces of suggestion -- had in
itself the unmistakable elements of truth, and was entitled to as much
respect as that intuition which is the idiosyncrasy of the individual man
of genius.
The fact is, that soon after my arrival at the cottage there had occurred
to myself an incident so entirely inexplicable, and which had in it so
much of the portentous character, that I might well have been excused
for regarding it as an omen. It appalled, and at the same time so
confounded and bewildered me, that many days elapsed before I could
make up my mind to communicate the circumstances to my friend.
Near the close of exceedingly warm day, I was sitting, book in hand, at
an open window, commanding, through a long vista of the river banks,
a view of a distant hill, the face of which nearest my position had been
denuded by what is termed a land-slide, of the principal portion of its
trees. My thoughts had been long wandering from the volume before
me to the gloom and desolation of the neighboring city. Uplifting my
eyes from the page, they fell upon the naked face of the bill, and upon
an object -- upon some living monster of hideous conformation, which
very rapidly made its way from the summit to the bottom, disappearing
finally in the dense forest below. As this creature first came in sight, I
doubted my own sanity -- or at least the evidence of my own eyes; and

many minutes passed before I succeeded in convincing myself that I
was neither mad nor in a dream. Yet when I described the monster
(which I distinctly saw, and calmly surveyed through the whole period
of its progress), my readers, I fear, will feel more difficulty in being
convinced of these points than even I did myself.
Estimating the size of the creature by comparison with the diameter of
the large trees near which it passed -- the few giants of the forest which
had escaped the fury of the land-slide -- I concluded it to be far larger
than any ship of the line in existence. I say ship of the line, because the
shape of the monster suggested the idea- the hull of one of our
seventy-four might convey a very tolerable conception of the