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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.
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 supersition--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 to 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 grey wall,
and the silent tarn--a pestilent and mystic vapour, 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
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