The Sphinx by Edgar Allan Poe

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One of my favorite memories of scaring
myself as a child was getting a compilation

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book of Edgar Allan Poe's stories from
my elementary school library. It brought me

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so much fear and so much excitement. I remember running home from school with

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that book in my backpack as the
sky was dark and a storm was coming.

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I was in my childhood living room, but I wasn't alone. I

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had a pizza and the books of
Poe. Every so often I'll bring you

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a tale of Poe, and I
hope it gives you that scary fun sense,

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just the same as it does for
me. So listen to these words

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from our sponsors, and when the
clock strikes midnight, the story will begin.

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The Sphinx by Edgar Allan Poe,
during the dread reign of the cholera

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in New York, I had accepted
the invitation of a relative to spend a

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fortnight with him in the retirement of
his cottage Ornay on the banks of the

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Hudson. We had here around us
all the ordinary means of summer amusement,

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and what with rambling in the woods, sketching, boating, fishing, bathing,

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music and books, we should have
passed the time pleasantly enough, but

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for the fearful intelligence which reached us
every morning from the populous city. Not

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a day elapsed which did not bring
us news of the decease of some acquaintance.

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Then, as the fatality increased,
we learned to expect daily the loss

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of some friend. At length we
trembled at the approach of every messenger.

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The very air from the south seemed
to us redolent with death. That palsying

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thought indeed took entire possession of my
soul. I could neither speak, think,

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nor dream of anything else. My
host was of a less excitable temperament,

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and, although so greatly depressed in
spirits, exerted himself to sustain my

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own. His richly philosophical intellect was
not at any time affected by unrealities.

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To the substances of terror, he
was sufficiently alive, But of its shadows

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he had no apprehension. His endeavors
to arouse me from the condition of abnormal

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gloom into which I had fallen were
frustrated in great measure by certain volumes which

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I had found in his library.
These were of a character to force into

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germination whatever seeds of hereditary superstition lay
latent in my bosom. I had been

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reading these books without his knowledge,
and thus he was often at a loss

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to account for the forcible impressions which
had been made upon my fancy. A

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favorite topic with me was the popular
belief in omens, a belief which at

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this one epoch of my life I
was almost seriously disposed to. On this

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subject, we had long and animated
discussions, he maintaining the utter groundlessness of

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faith in such matters, I contending
that a popular sentiment, arising with absolute

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spontaneity, that is to say,
without apparent traces of suggestion, had in

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itself the unmistakable elements of truth,
and was entitled to as much respect as

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that intuition, which is the idiosyncrasy
of the individual man of genius. The

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fact is that soon after my arrival
at the cottage, there had occurred to

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myself an incident so entirely inexplicable,
and which had in it so much of

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the portentous character that I might well
have been excused for regarding it as an

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omen. It appalled and at the
same time so confounded and bewildered me,

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that many days elapsed before I could
make up my mind to commune dedicate the

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circumstances to my friend. Near the
close of an exceedingly warm day, I

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was sitting book in hand at an
open window, commanding through a long vista

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of the river banks, a view
of a distant hill, the face of

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which, nearest my position had been
denuded by what is termed a landslide of

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the principal portion of its trees.
My thoughts had been long wandering from the

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volume before me to the gloom and
desolation of the neighboring city. Uplifting my

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eyes from the page, they fell
upon the naked face of the hill,

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and upon an object, upon some
living monster of hideous confirmation, which very

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rapidly made its way from the summit
to the bottom, disappearing finally in the

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dense forest below. As this creature
first came in sight, I doubted my

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own sanity, or at least the
evidence of my own eyes, and many

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minutes passed before I succeeded in convincing
myself that I was neither mad nor in

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a dream. Yet, when I
described the monster, which I distinctly saw

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and calmly surveyed through the whole period
of its progress, my readers, I

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fear will feel more difficulty in being
convinced of these points than I even did

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myself. Estimating the size of the
creature, by comparison with the diameter of

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the large trees near which it passed
the few giants of the forest which had

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escaped the fury of the landslide,
I concluded it to be far larger than

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any ship of the line in existence. I say ship of the line,

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because the shape of the monster suggested
the idea the hull of one of our

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seventy fours might convey a very tolerable
conception of the general outline. The mouth

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of the animal was situated at the
extremity of the proboscis, some sixty or

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seventy feet in length and about as
thick as the body of an ordinary elephant.

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Near the root of this trunk was
an immense quantity of black, shaggy

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hair, more than could have been
supplied by the coats of a score of

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buffaloes, and projecting from this hair
downwardly and laterally, sprang two gleaming tusks,

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not unlike those of the wild boar, but of infinitely greater dimension,

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extending forward parallel with the proboscis,
and on each side of it was a

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gigantic staff thirty or forty feet in
length, formed seemingly of pure crystal,

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and in shape a perfect prism.
It reflected in the most gorgeous manner the

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rays of the declining sun. The
trunk was fashioned like a wedge, with

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the apex to the earth. From
it, there were outspread two pairs of

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wings, each wing nearly one hundred
yards in length, one pair being placed

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above the other, and all thickly
covered with metal scales, each scale apparently

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some ten or twelve feet in diameter. I observed that the upper and lower

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tiers of wings were connected by a
strong chain. But the chief peculiarity of

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this horrible thing was the representation of
a death's hand, which covered nearly the

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whole surface of its breast, and
which was as accurately traced in glaring white

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upon the dark ground of the body, as if it had been there carefully

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designed by an artist. While I
regarded this terrific animal, and more especially

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the appearance on its breast, with
a feeling of horror and awe, with

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a sentiment of forthcoming evil, which
I found it impossible to quell by any

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effort, of the reason I perceived
the huge jaws at the extremity of the

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proboscis suddenly expand themselves, and from
them there proceeded a sound so loud and

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so expressive of woe, that it
upon my nerves like a knell. And

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as the monster disappeared at the foot
of the hill, I fell at once,

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fainting to the floor. Upon recovering, my first impulse, of course,

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was to inform my friend of what
I had seen and heard, and

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I can scarcely explain what feeling of
repugnance it was, which, in the

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end operated to prevent me. At
length, one evening, some three or

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four days after the occurrence, we
were sitting together in the room in which

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I had seen the apparition, I
occupying the same seat at the same window,

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and he lounging on a sofa near
at hand. The association of the

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place and time impelled me to give
him an account of the phenomenon. He

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heard me, to the end at
first laughed heartily, and then lapsed into

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an excessive, grave demeanor, as
if my insanity was a thing beyond suspicion.

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At this instant I again had a
a distinct view of the monster,

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to which with a shout of absolute
terror, I now directed his attention.

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He looked eagerly, but maintained that
he saw nothing. Although I designated minutely

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the course of the creature as it
made its way down the naked face of

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the hill. I was now immeasurably
alarmed, for I considered the vision either

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as an omen of my death or
worse, as the forerunner of an attack

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of mania. I threw myself passionately
back in my chair and for some moments

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buried my face in my hands.
When I uncovered my eyes, the apparition

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was no longer apparent. My host, however, had in some degree resumed

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the calmness of his demeanor and questioned
me very vigorously in respect to the confirmation

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of the visionary creature. When I
fully satisfied him on this head, he

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sighed deeply, as if relieved of
some intolerable burden, and went on to

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talk with what I thought a cruel
calmness, of various points of speculative philosophy

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which had heretofore formed subject of discussion
between us. I remember his insisting very

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especially, among other things, upon
the idea that a principal source of error

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in all human investigations lay in the
liability of the understanding to under rate or

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overvalue the importance of an object through
mere misadmeasurement of its propinquity. To estimate

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properly. For example, he said, the influence to be exercised on mankind

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at large by the thorough diffusion of
democracy. The distance of the epoch at

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which such diffusion may possibly be accomplished
should not fail to form an item in

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the estimate. Yet, can you
tell me one writer on the subject of

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government who has ever thought this particular
branch of the subject worthy of discussion at

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all? He here paused for a
moment, stepped to a bookcase, and

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brought forth one of the ordinary synopsies
of natural history, requesting me then to

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exchange seats with him, that he
might the better distinguish the fine print of

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the volume. He took my arm
chair at the window, and, opening

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the book, resumed his discourse very
much in the same tone as before.

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But for your exceeding minuteness, he
said, in describing the monster, I

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might never have had it in my
power to demonstrate to you what it was

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in the first place. Let me
read to you a schoolboy account of the

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genus Sphynx, of the family Crepuscularia, of the order Lepidoptera, of the

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class of Insecta or insects. The
account runs thus, four membranous wings covered

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with little colored scales of metallic appearance, mouth forming a rolled proboscis produced by

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elongation of the jaws, upon the
sides of which are found the rudiments of

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mandibles and downy palpi, the inferior
wings retained to the superior by a stiff

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hair antennae in the form of an
elongated club prismatic abdomen pointed, the death's

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headed Sphinx has occasioned much terror among
the vulgar at times by the melancholy kind

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of cry which it utters, and
the insignia of death which it wears upon

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its corselet. He here closed the
book and leaned forward in the chair,

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placing himself accurately in the position which
I had occupied at the moment of beholding

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the monster. Ah, here it
is, he presently exclaimed. It is

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reascending the face of the hill,
and a very remarkable looking cree nature.

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I admit it to be. Still, it is by no means so large

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or so distant as you imagined it. For the fact is that as it

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wriggles its way up this hair which
some spider has wrought along the window sash,

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I find it to be about the
sixteenth of an inch in its extreme

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length, and also about the sixteenth
of an inch distant from the pupil of my eye