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
      spontaneity—that 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
      general outline. The mouth of the animal was situated at the extremity of
      a proboscis some sixty or seventy feet in length, and about as thick as
      the body of an ordinary elephant. Near the root of this trunk was an
      immense quantity of black shaggy hair—more than could have been
      supplied by the coats of a score of buffaloes; and projecting from this
      hair downwardly and laterally, sprang two gleaming tusks not unlike those
      of the wild boar, but of infinitely greater dimensions. Extending forward,
      parallel with the proboscis, and on each side of it, was a gigantic staff,
      thirty or forty feet in length, formed seemingly of pure crystal and in
      shape a perfect prism,—it reflected in the most gorgeous manner the
      rays of the declining sun. The trunk was fashioned like a wedge with the
      apex to the earth. From it there were outspread two pairs of wings—each
      wing nearly one hundred yards in length—one pair being placed above
      the other, and all thickly covered with metal scales; each scale
      apparently some ten or twelve feet in diameter. I observed that the upper
      and lower tiers of wings were connected by a strong chain. But the chief
      peculiarity of this horrible thing was the representation of a Death’s
      Head, which covered nearly the whole surface of its breast, and which was
      as accurately traced in glaring white, upon the dark ground of the body,
      as if it had been there carefully designed by an artist. While I regarded
      the terrific animal, and more especially the appearance on its breast,
      with a feeling or horror and awe—with a sentiment of forthcoming
      evil, which I found it impossible to quell by any effort of the reason, I
      perceived the huge jaws at the extremity of the proboscis suddenly expand
      themselves, and from them there proceeded a sound so loud and so
      expressive of woe, that it struck upon my nerves like a knell and as the
      monster disappeared at the foot of the hill, I fell at once, fainting, to
      the floor. Upon recovering, my first impulse, of course, was to inform my friend of
      what I had seen and heard—and I can scarcely explain what feeling of
      repugnance it was which, in the end, operated to prevent me. At length, one evening, some three or four days after the occurrence, we
      were sitting together in the room in which I had seen the apparition—I
      occupying the same seat at the same window, and he lounging on a sofa near
      at hand. The association of the place and time impelled me to give him an
      account of the phenomenon. He heard me to the end—at first laughed
      heartily—and then lapsed into an excessively grave demeanor, as if
      my insanity was a thing beyond suspicion. At this instant I again had a
      distinct view of the monster—to which, with a shout of absolute
      terror, I now directed his attention. He looked eagerly—but
      maintained that he saw nothing—although I designated minutely the
      course of the creature, as it made its way down the naked face of the
      hill. I was now immeasurably alarmed, for I considered the vision either as an
      omen of my death, or, worse, as the fore-runner of an attack of mania. I
      threw myself passionately back in my chair, and for some moments buried my
      face in my hands. When I uncovered my eyes, the apparition was no longer
      apparent. My host, however, had in some degree resumed the calmness of his demeanor,
      and questioned me very rigorously in respect to the conformation of the
      visionary creature. When I had fully satisfied him on this head, he sighed
      deeply, as if relieved of some intolerable burden, and went on to talk,
      with what I thought a cruel calmness, of various points of speculative
      philosophy, which had heretofore formed subject of discussion between us.