I love Poe's writing. I feel he can write a sentence half a page long and you have to reach the end, or else. It's part of how he builds tension through small parameters.
I am watching an Evening with Edgar Allen Poe.
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 wo, 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.
