Edgar Poe, The fall of the House of Usher
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 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.
What was it - I paused to think - what was it that so unnerved me in the contemplation of the House of Usher ?
It was this deficiency, I considered, while running over in thought the perfect keeping of the 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 other - it was this deficiency, perhaps, of 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 the " 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.
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.
Noticing these things, I rode over a short causeway to the House .
Hitherto she had steadily borne up against the pressure of her malady, and had not betaken herself finally to bed ;  but, on the closing in of the evening of my arrival at the House , she succumbed (as her brother told me at night with inexpressible agitation) to the prostrating power of the destroyer.
I shall ever bear about me a memory of the many solemn hours I thus spent alone with the master of the House of Usher.
I will not deny that when I called to mind the sinister countenance of the person whom I met upon the staircase, on the day of my arrival at the House , I had no desire to oppose what I regarded as at best but a harmless, and by no means an unnatural, precaution.
We replaced and screwed down the lid, and, having secured the door of iron, made our way, with toil, into the scarcely less gloomy apartments of the upper portion of the House .
A whirlwind had apparently collected its force in our vicinity ;  for there were frequent and violent alterations in the direction of the wind ;  and the exceeding density of the clouds (which hung so low as to press upon the turrets of the House ) did not prevent our perceiving the life-like velocity with which they flew careering from all points against each other, without passing away into the distance.
Suddenly there shot along the path a wild light, and I turned to see whence a gleam so unusual could have issued ; for the vast House and its shadows were alone behind me.
While I gazed, this fissure rapidly widened - there came a fierce breath of the whirlwind - the entire orb of the satellite burst at once upon my sight - my brain reeled as I saw the mighty walls rushing asunder - there was a long tumultuous shouting sound like the voice of a thousand waters - and the deep and dank tarn at my feet closed sullenly and silently over the fragments of the House of Usher.



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