arrangement of the particulars of the scene, of the details of the picture, would be sufficient to modify, or perhaps to annihilate, its capacity for sorrowful impression, and, acting upon this idea, I reined my horse to the precipitous brink of a black and lurid tarn that lay in unruffled luster by the dwelling, and gazed down but with a shudder even more

ways, with a very trifling and very temporary variation, so lain. It was this deficiency, I considered, while running over in thought the perfect keeping of the 5 character of the premises with the accredited character of the people, and while speculating upon the possible influence which the one, in the long lapse of centuries, might have exercised upon the

thrilling than before-upon the re- 10 other, it was this deficiency, perhaps, of modeled and inverted images of the gray sedge, and the ghastly tree-stems, and the vacant and eye-like windows.

Nevertheless, in this mansion of gloom I now proposed to myself a sojourn of 15 some weeks. Its proprietor, Roderick Usher, had been one of my boon companions in boyhood; but many years had elapsed since our last meeting. A letter, however, had lately reached me in a dis- 20 tant part of the country a letter from him which in its wildly importunate nature had admitted of no other than a personal reply. The MS. gave evidence of nervous agitation. The writer spoke of 25 acute bodily illness, of a mental disorder which oppressed him, and of an earnest desire to see me, as his best and indeed his only personal friend, with a view of attempting, by the cheerfulness of my 30 society, some alleviation of his malady. It was the manner in which all this, and much more, was said it was the apparent heart that went with his requestwhich allowed me no room for hesitation; 35 and I accordingly obeyed forthwith what I still considered a very singular sum

mons.

Although as boys we had been even intimate associates, yet I really knew little of 40 my friend. His reserve had been always excessive and habitual. I was aware, however, that his very ancient family had been noted, time out of mind, for a peculiar sensibility of temperament, display- 45 ing itself, through long ages, in many works of exalted art, and manifested of late in repeated deeds of munificent yet unobtrusive charity, as well as in a passionate devotion to the, intricacies, per- 50 haps even more than to the orthodox and easily recognizable beauties, of musical science. I had learned, too, the very remarkable fact that the stem of the Usher race, all time-honored as it was, had put 55 forth at no period any enduring branch; in other words, that the entire family lay in the direct line of descent, and had al

collateral issue, and the consequent undeviating transmission from sire to son of the patrimony with the name, which had at length so identified the two as to merge the original title of the estate in the quaint and equivocal appellation of House of Usher,'- an appellation which seemed to include, in the minds of the peasantry who used it, both the family and the family mansion.

I have said that the sole effect of my somewhat childish experiment, that of looking down within the tarn, had been to deepen the first singular impression. There can be no doubt that the consciousness of the rapid increase of my superstition for why should I not so term it? served mainly to accelerate the increase itself. Such, I have long known, is the paradoxical law of all sentiments having terror as a basis. And it might have been for this reason only, that, when I again uplifted my eyes to the house itself from its image in the pool, there grew in my mind a strange fancy,- a fancy so ridiculous, indeed, that I but mention it to show the vivid force of the sensations which oppressed me. I had so worked upon my imagination as really to believe that about the whole mansion and domain there hung an atmosphere peculiar te themselves and their immediate vicinity: an atmosphere which had no affinity with the air of heaven, but which had reeked up from the decayed trees, and the gray wall, and the silent tarn; a pestilent and mystic vapor, dull, sluggish, faintly discernible, and leaden-hued.

Shaking off from my spirit what must have been a dream, I scanned more narrowly the real aspect of the building. Its principal feature seemed to be that of an excessive antiquity. The discoloration of ages had been great. Minute fungi overspread the whole exterior, hanging in a fine tangled web-work from the eaves. Yet all this was apart from any extraordinary dilapidation. No portion of the

5

masonry had fallen; and there appeared
to be a wild inconsistency between its
still perfect adaptation of parts and the
crumbling condition of the individual
stones. In this there was much that re-
minded me of the specious totality of old
wood-work which has rotted for long
years in some neglected vault, with no
disturbance from the breath of the ex-
ternal air. Beyond this indication of ex- 10
tensive decay, however, the fabric gave
little token of instability. Perhaps the
eye of a scrutinizing observer might have
discovered a barely perceptible fissure,
which, extending from the roof of the
building in front, made its way down the
wall in a zigzag direction, until it became
lost in the sullen waters of the tarn.

Noticing these things, I rode over a
short causeway to the house. A servant 20
in waiting took my horse, and I entered
the Gothic archway of the hall. A valet,
of stealthy step, thence conducted me in
silence through many dark and intricate
passages in my progress to the studio of 25
his master. Much that I encountered on
the way contributed, I know not how, to
heighten the vague sentiments of which
I have already spoken. While the ob-
jects around me while the carvings of 30
the ceiling, the somber tapestries of the
walls, the ebon blackness of the floors, and
the phantasmagoric armorial trophies
which rattled as I strode, were but mat-
ters to which, or to such as which, I had 35
been accustomed from my infancy, while
I hesitated not to acknowledge how famil-
iar was all this, I still wondered to find
how unfamiliar were the fancies which
ordinary images were stirring up. On 40
one of the staircases I met the physician
of the family. His countenance,
thought, wore a mingled expression of
low cunning and perplexity. He accosted
me with trepidation and passed on. The 45
valet now threw open a door and ushered
me into the presence of his master.

I

The room in which I found myself was very large and lofty. The windows were long, narrow, and pointed, and at so vast 50 a distance from the black oaken floor as to be altogether inaccessible from within. Feeble gleams of encrimsoned light made their way through the trellised panes, and served to render sufficiently distinct the 55 more prominent objects around; the eye, however, struggled in vain to reach the remoter angles of the chamber, or the re

cesses of the vaulted and fretted ceiling. Dark draperies hung upon the walls. The general furniture was profuse, comfortless, antique, and tattered. Many books and musical instruments lay scattered about, but failed to give any vitality to the scene. I felt that I breathed an atmosphere of sorrow. An air of stern, deep, and irredeemable gloom hung over and pervaded all.

Upon my entrance, Usher arose from a sofa on which he had been lying at full length, and greeted me with a vivacious warmth which had much in it, I at first thought, of an overdone cordiality,- of the constrained effort of the ennuyé man of the world. A glance, however, at his countenance, convinced me of his perfect sincerity. We sat down; and for some moments, while he spoke not, I gazed upon him with a feeling half of pity, half of awe. Surely man had never before so terribly altered, in so brief a period, as had Roderick Usher! It was with difficulty that I could bring myself to admit the identity of the wan being before me with the companion of my early boyhood. Yet the character of his face had been at all times remarkable. A cadaverousness of complexion; an eye large, liquid, and luminous beyond comparison; lips somewhat thin and very pallid, but of a surpassingly beautiful curve; a nose of a delicate Hebrew model, but with a breadth of nostril unusual in similar formations; a finely-molded chin, speaking, in its want of prominence, of a want of moral energy; hair of a more than web-like softness and tenuity, these features, with an inordinate expansion above the regions of the temple, made up altogether a countenance not easily to be forgotten. And now in the mere exaggeration of the prevailing character of these features, and of the expression they were wont to convey, lay so much of change that I doubted to whom I spoke. The now ghastly pallor of the skin, and the now miraculous luster of the eye, above all things startled and even awed me. The silken hair, too, had been suffered to grow all unheeded, and as, in its wild gossamer texture, it floated rather than fell about the face, I could not, even with effort, connect its arabesque expression with any idea of simple humanity.

In the manner of my friend I was at once struck with an incoherence, an in

consistency; and I soon found this to
arise from a series of feeble and futile
struggles to overcome an habitual trepi-
dancy, an excessive nervous agitation.
For something of this nature I had in-
deed been prepared, no less by his letter
than by reminiscences of certain boyish
traits, and by conclusions deduced from
his peculiar physical conformation and
temperament. His action was alternately 10
vivacious and sullen. His voice varied
rapidly from a tremulous indecision
(when the animal spirits seemed utterly
in abeyance) to that species of ener-
getic concision-that abrupt, weighty, 15
unhurried, and hollow-sounding enun-
ciation, that leaden, self-balanced, and per-
fectly modulated guttural utterance.
which may be observed in the lost drunk-
ard, or the irreclaimable eater of opium, 20
during the periods of his most intense
excitement.

It was thus that he spoke of the object of my visit, of his earnest desire to see

this pitiable condition, I feel that the period will sooner or later arrive when I must abandon life and reason together in some struggle with the grim phantasm, 5 FEAR.'

I learned moreover at intervals, an through broken and equivocal hints, another singular feature of his mental condition. He was enchained by certain superstitious impressions in regard to the dwelling which he tenanted, and whence for many years he had never venture 1 forth, in regard to an influence whose supposititious force was conveyed in terms too shadowy here to be restated.an influence which some peculiarities in the mere form and substance of his family mansion had, by dint of long sufferance, he said, obtained over his spirit; an effect which the physique of the gray walls and turrets, and of the dim tarn into which they all looked down, had at length brought about upon the morale of his existence.

me, and of the solace he expected me to 25 He admitted, however, although with afford him. He entered at some length into what he conceived to be the nature of his malady. It was, he said, a constitutional and a family evil, and one for which he despaired to find a remedy,- 30 a mere nervous affection, he immediately added, which would undoubtedly soon pass off. It displayed itself in a host of unnatural sensations. Some of these, as he detailed them, interested and bewildered 35 me; although, perhaps, the terms and the general manner of the narration had their weight. He suffered much from a morbid acuteness of the senses; the most insipid food was alone endurable; he could 40 wear only garments of certain texture; the odors of all flowers were oppressive; his eyes were tortured by even a faint light; and there were but peculiar sounds, and these from stringed instruments, 45 which did not inspire him with horror.

To an anomalous species of terror I found him a bounden slave. I shall perish,' said he, 'I must perish in this deplorable folly. Thus, thus, and not other- 50 wise, shall I be lost. I dread the events of the future, not in themselves, but in their results. I shudder at the thought of any, even the most trivial, incident, which may operate upon this intolerable 55 agitation of soul. I have, indeed, no abhorrence of danger, except in its absolute effect, in terror. In this unnerved, in

hesitation, that much of the peculiar gloom which thus afflicted him could be traced to a more natural and far more palpable origin,- to the severe and long-continued illness, indeed to the evidently approaching dissolution, of a tenderly beloved sister, his sole companion for long years, his last and only relative on earth. Her decease,' he said, with a bitterness which I can never forget, would leave him (him, the hopeless and the frail) the last of the ancient race of the Ushers.' While he spoke, the lady Madeline (for so was she called) passed slowly through a remote portion of the apartment, and, without having noticed my presence, disappeared. I regarded her with an utter astonishment not unmingled with dread, and yet I found it impossible to account for such feelings. A sensation of stupor oppressed me, as my eyes followed her retreating steps. When a door, at length, closed upon her, my glance sought instinctively and eagerly the countenance of the brother; but he had buried his face in his hands, and I could only perceive that a far more than ordinary wanness had overspread the emaciated fingers through which trickled many passionate tears.

The disease of the lady Madeline had long baffled the skill of her physicians. A settled apathy, a gradual wasting away