DURING the whole of a dull, dark, and soundless day in the autumn of the year, when

the clouds hung oppressively low in the heavens, I had been passing alone, on

horseback, through a singularly dreary tract of country ; and at length found myself,

as the shades of the evening drew on, within view of the melancholy House of Usher. I

know not how it was - but, with the first glimpse of the building, a sense of

insufferable gloom pervaded my spirit. I say insufferable; for the feeling was

unrelieved by any of that half-pleasurable, because poetic, sentiment, with which the

mind usually receives even the sternest natural images of the desolate or terrible.

I looked upon the scene before me - upon the mere house, and the simple landscape

features of the domain - upon the bleak walls - upon the vacant eye-like windows -

upon a few rank sedges - and upon a few white trunks of decayed trees - with an utter

depression of soul which I can compare to no earthly sensation more properly than to

the after-dream of the reveller upon opium - the bitter lapse into everyday life -

the hideous dropping off of the veil. There was an iciness, a sinking, a sickening

of the heart - an unredeemed dreariness of thought which no goading of the

imagination could torture into aught of the sublime. What was it - I paused to think

- what was it that so unnerved me in the contemplation of the House of Usher ? It

was a mystery all insoluble ; nor could I grapple with the shadowy fancies that

crowded upon me as I pondered. I was forced to fall back upon the unsatisfactory

conclusion, that while, beyond doubt, there are combinations of very simple natural

objects which have the power of thus affecting us, still the analysis of this power

lies among considerations beyond our depth. It was possible, I reflected, that a mere

different 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 lustre by the dwelling, and gazed

down - but with a shudder even more thrilling than before - upon the remodelled 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 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 distant 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 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 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 request - which allowed me no room for hesitation; andrunescape accounts I accordingly obeyed

forthwith what I still considered a very singular summons.