The Works of Edgar Allan Poe — Volume 1Poe, Edgar Allan
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The Works of Edgar Allan Poe — Volume 1
Poe, Edgar Allan
American fiction -- 19th century; Fantasy fiction; Horror tales, American; Poe, Edgar Allan, 1809-1849
“Here we are enabled, at once, to discard the ‘th,’ as forming no
portion of the word commencing with the first t; since, by
experiment of the entire alphabet for a letter adapted to the
vacancy, we perceive that no word can be formed of which this
_th_ can be a part. We are thus narrowed into
t ee,
and, going through the alphabet, if necessary, as before, we
arrive at the word ‘tree,’ as the sole possible reading. We thus
gain another letter, _r_, represented by (, with the words ‘the
tree’ in juxtaposition.
“Looking beyond these words, for a short distance, we again see
the combination ;48, and employ it by way of termination to what
immediately precedes. We have thus this arrangement:
the tree ;4(‡?34 the,
or, substituting the natural letters, where known, it reads thus:
the tree thr‡?3h the.
“Now, if, in place of the unknown characters, we leave blank
spaces, or substitute dots, we read thus:
the tree thr...h the,
when the word ‘_through_’ makes itself evident at once. But this
discovery gives us three new letters, _o_, _u_ and _g_,
represented by ‡, ? and 3.
“Looking now, narrowly, through the cipher for combinations of
known characters, we find, not very far from the beginning, this
arrangement,
83(88, or egree,
which, plainly, is the conclusion of the word ‘degree,’ and gives
us another letter, _d_, represented by †.
“Four letters beyond the word ‘degree,’ we perceive the
combination
;46(;88.
“Translating the known characters, and representing the unknown
by dots, as before, we read thus:
th.rtee,
an arrangement immediately suggestive of the word ‘thirteen,’ and
again furnishing us with two new characters, _i_ and _n_,
represented by 6 and *.
“Referring, now, to the beginning of the cryptograph, we find the
combination,
53‡‡†.
“Translating as before, we obtain
good,
which assures us that the first letter is _A_, and that the first
two words are ‘A good.’
“It is now time that we arrange our key, as far as discovered, in
a tabular form, to avoid confusion. It will stand thus:
5 represents a
† “ d
8 “ e
3 “ g
4 “ h
6 “ i
* “ n
‡ “ o
( “ r
; “ t
? “ u
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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