QuizletENG: The Fall of the House of Usher flashcards is a Literature Quiz.
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Son coeur est un luth suspendu.De Beranger.During the entire of a dull, dark, and soundless day in the autumn of the year, I had been passing alone, on horseback, through a singularly dreary tract of country.With the first glimpse of the building, I felt a sense of insufferable gloom.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 at the scene before me, which was a simple landscape with a few rank sedges and some white trunks of decayed trees.There was a sickening of the heart, an unredeemed dreariness of thought, and an iciness.I wondered what it was that scared me so much in the contemplation of the House of Usher.I couldn't grapple with the shadowy fancies that crowded upon me as I pondered the mystery.Despite the fact that there are combinations of very simple natural objects which have the power to affect us, the analysis of this power lies beyond our comprehension.It was possible, I thought, that a different arrangement of the scene's details would be enough to make it seem less sad.I proposed to myself a sojourn of some weeks in this mansion of gloom.It was one of my boon companions in childhood, but many years had passed since our last meeting.A letter from him had recently reached me in a distant part of the country, which, in its wildly importunate nature, had admitted of no other than a personal reply.The woman gave evidence.The writer spoke of acute bodily illness and of an earnest desire to see me, as his best friend, and indeed his only personal friend.It was the manner in which all this was said that allowed me no room for hesitation; and I complied with what I still considered a very singular summons.We had been intimate associates, but I didn't know much about my friend.His reserve was always excessive.I was aware, however, that his very ancient family had been noted, time out of mind, for a peculiar temperament of temperament, displaying itself, through long ages, in many works of art and charity, as well.I had learned that the stem of the race, all time-honoured as it was, had placed the entire family in the direct line of descent.It was this deficiency, I thought as I ran over to think about the perfect keeping of the premises character with the accredited character of people, and the possible influence which the one, in the long lapse of centuries, might have exercised upon the other.The only effect of my experiment was to deepen the first impression.There is no doubt in my mind that the consciousness of the rapid increase of my superstition.To accelerate the increase itself.The law of all sentiments having terror as a basis is something I have known for a long time.It might have been for this reason, that when I looked at the house from the pool, I thought of a fancy so ridiculous that I mention it to show the vivid force of the sensations.I believed that the whole mansion and domain had an atmosphere peculiar to themselves and their immediate vicinity that had no affinity with the air of heaven.I scanned the real aspect of the building after shaking off my spirit.Its main feature seemed to be excessive antiquity.The ages had been discolored.The minute fungi hang in a fine tangled web-work from the eaves.There was no extraordinary dilapidation.There was no portion of the masonry that had fallen, and there appeared to be a wild inconsistency between the adaptation of parts and the crumbling condition of individual stones.There was a lot that reminded me of old wood-work which has rotted for a long time in a neglected vault, with no noise from the outside air.The fabric gave little instability beyond this indication of decay.Perhaps the eye of a scrutinising observer found a small fissure on the roof of the building in front, which made its way down the wall in a zigzag direction, until it became lost in the tarn.I rode over the causeway to the house.I entered the Gothic archway of the hall after my horse was taken by a servant.Through many dark and intricate passages in my progress to the studio of his master, a valet conducted me in silence.I don't know how to heighten the vague feelings that I have already spoken about.The carvings on the ceilings, the tapestries of the walls, and the phantasmagoric armorial trophies which rattled as I strode were not matters to which, or to such as which.I met the doctor on one of the staircases.I thought his expression was low cunning and perplexity.He passed on when he accosted me.I was ushered into the presence of his master after the door was thrown open.The room in which I found myself was very large.The windows were long, narrow, and pointed so far away from the black oaken floor that it was impossible to see from within.The eye couldn't get to the remoter angles of the chamber, or the vaulted and fretted ceiling, because of Feeble gleams of encrimsoned light.There were dark drapes hung on the walls.The furniture was old and tattered.There were many books and musical instruments scattered around.I felt sad.The air was stern, deep, and irredeemable.I first thought that the warm welcome he gave me was due to the constrained effort of the ennuye man.A glance at his face convinced me that he was sincere.We sat down and I looked at him with a mixture of pity and awe.Surely, man had never before been so altered in such a short period.It was difficult for me to admit the identity of the wan being before me with my childhood friend.The character of his face was remarkable.An eye large, liquid, and glowing beyond comparison; a nose of a delicate Hebrew model, but with a breadth of nostril unusual in similar formations; and a finely molded chin.The exaggerated character of these features, and the expression they were wont to convey, lay so much of change that I doubted to whom I spoke.I was startled and even awed by the ghastly pallor of the skin.The silken hair had been suffered to grow all unheeded, and as it floated rather than fell about the face, I could not connect its Arabesque expression with any idea of simple humanity.I was struck with an incoherence and found it to arise from a series of feeble and futile attempts to overcome trepidancy.I had prepared for something of this nature by his letter, as well as by recollections of certain boyish traits, and by conclusions deduced from his peculiar physical structure and temperament.His action was lively and sad.When the animal spirits seemed utterly in abeyance, his voice varied rapidly from a tremulous indecision to that species of energetic concision that leaden, self-balanced and perfectly modulated guttural utterance.He spoke about the object of my visit, of his earnest desire to see me, and of the solace he expected me to give him.He entered into what he thought was the nature of his problem.He said that it was a constitutional and a family evil and that he was despairing to find a remedy.It had unnatural sensations.Some of these, as he detailed them, interested and bewildered me; although, perhaps, the terms, and the general manner of the narration had their weight.He suffered from a morbid acuteness of the senses, the smell of all flowers was oppressive, his eyes were tortured by a faint light, and he could wear only garments of certain texture.I found him a bounden slave.He said he would die in this folly.I shall be lost.I dread the results of the future events.I shudder at the thought of any, even the most trivial, incident, which may cause this intolerable agitation of soul.I have no fear of danger except in terror.When I must abandon life and reason together, in some struggle with the grim phantasm, fear, I feel that the period will sooner or later arrive.I learned through broken and equivocal hints, another feature of his mental condition.He had never ventured forth in regards to the influence that had been conveyed in terms too shadowy here to be re-stated, because he was enchained by certain superstitions.He admitted that much of the peculiar gloom which afflicted him could be traced to the severe and long-continued illness of his sister.I can never forget how bitter he was when he said that her death would leave him hopelessly and frail.While he spoke, the lady who was called "Madeline" went through a portion of the apartment that was not visible to me.I found it impossible to account for the feelings I had for her.My eyes followed her as she retreated.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 manyThe doctors of the lady were stumped by the disease.The diagnosis was a settled apathy, a gradual wasting away of the person, and frequent affections of a partially cataleptical character.She succumbed on the evening of my arrival at the house, as her brother told me at night, because she had not been taken herself to bed.For several days afterwards, her name was not mentioned by either of us, and I was busied trying to alleviate the sadness of my friend.I listened, as if in a dream, to the wild riffs of his speaking guitar, while we painted and read together.I saw the futility of all attempts at cheering a mind from which darkness, as if an inherent positive quality, poured forth upon all objects of the moral and physical universe, when I was closer and still intimate with him.I will always remember the many hours I spent alone with the master of the House of Usher.I should not attempt to convey an idea of the exact character of his studies or occupations in which I was involved.The ideality threw a sulphureous lustre over all.His dirges will always ring in my ears.I hold a certain perversion and amplification of the wild air of Von Weber in my mind.I shuddered knowing not why, from the paintings over which his elaborate fancy brooded, and which grew, touch by touch, into vaguenesses.He was arrested and overawed by the simplicity of his designs.If there was ever a mortal who painted an idea, it was him.The hypochondriac contrived to throw upon his canvas an intensity of intolerable awe, no shadow of which felt I ever yet in the contemplation of the certainly glowing yet too concrete reveries of.One of the phantasmagoric conceptions of my friend may be shadowed, although feebly.A small picture showed the interior of a long and rectangular tunnel with low walls, smooth, white and no interruption.The idea that this excavation lay at an exceeding depth below the surface of the earth was conveyed by certain accessory points.There was no outlet, no torch, or other artificial source of light, yet a flood of intense rays rolled throughout, and bathed the whole in a ghastly and inappropriate glory.All music was intolerable to the sufferers of that morbid condition of the auditory nerve, with the exception of certain effects of stringed instruments.The guitar gave birth to the fantastic character of his performances because of the narrow limits to which he was confined.The fervid facility of his impromptus could not be accounted for.They must have been, and were, in the notes, as well as the words of his wild fantasias, the result of that intense mental collectedness and concentration.I have easily remembered the words of one of these rhapsodies.For the first time, I felt a full consciousness on the part of the tottering of his lofty reason, when I was forcibly impressed with it, as he gave it."The Haunted Palace" ran very nearly, if not accurately, thus: I.The palace was once fair and stately, but it was taken over by good angels.It was there in the monarch's dominion.The fabric half so fair was never spread by seraph.I.Banners yellow, glorious, golden, On its roof did float and flow; and every gentle air that dallied, In that sweet day, Along the ramparts plumed and pallid.I.There were two windows that saw Spirits moving musically and Round about a throne.The ruler of the realm was seen.I. IV.The fair palace door was all glowing with pearl and Ruby.But evil things, in robes of sadness, Assailed the monarch's high estate.The glory that blushed and bloomed was a dim-remembered story of the old time.There is a new edition of VI.Travelers now within that valley, through the red-litten windows, see forms that move wonderfully, while a hideous throng rush out forever.I remember that suggestions arising from this song led us into a train of thought, which I mention not so much on account of its novelty, but because of the pertinacity with which he maintained.The opinion was that of the sentience of all vegetable things.The idea had assumed a more daring character, under certain conditions, upon the kingdom of inorganization.I don't have words to express the full extent of his persuasion.The gray stones of the home of his forefathers were connected to the belief.He imagined that the conditions of the sentience had been fulfilled in the method of collocation of these stones, as well as the many fungi which overspread them, and the decayed trees which stood around.He said that the evidence of sentience was to be seen in the gradual condensation of an atmosphere of their own about the waters and the walls.He said that the result was discoverable, in that silent, yet importunate and terrible influence which had molded his family's destinies for centuries.I will not make any comments on these opinions.Our books were in keeping with the character of phantasm and had formed no small portion of the invalid's mental existence.We looked at works such as the Ververt et Chartreuse of Gresset, the Belphegor of Machiavelli, and the Heaven and Hell of Swedenborg.There were passages in Pomponius Mela about the old African Satyrs and the Directorium Inquisitorum, which was one of the favourite volumes.The book in quarto Gothic, the manual of a forgotten church, was his chief delight.I couldn't help but think of the wild ritual of this work, and of its probable influence upon the hypochondriac, when he stated his intention of preserving her corpse for a fortnight after she died.I didn't feel at liberty to dispute the worldly reason assigned for this singular proceeding.The brother had been led to his resolution by the unusual character of the deceased, the obtrusive and eager inquiries on the part of her medical men, and the remote and exposed situation of his family's burial-ground.I will not deny that when I called to mind the person I met on the stair case, I had no desire to oppose what I thought was a harmless precautionary measure.I helped with the arrangements for the temporary interment.The body was encoffined and we bore it to its rest.The vault in which we placed it was small, damp, and entirely without means of admission for light; lying, at great depth, immediately beneath that portion of it.In remote feudal times, it was used as a place of deposit for powder, or some other highly combustible substance, as well as the entire interior of a long archway.The door was similarly protected.Its heavy weight caused it to make a grating sound.We partially turned aside the lid of the coffin and looked at the tenant.A striking similitude between the brother and sister now first caught my attention, and I learned that the deceased and himself had been twins and that sympathies of a barely intelligible nature had always existed between them.We could not consider her unawed, for our glances rested not long upon the dead.The disease which had entombed the lady in the maturity of youth had left, as usual, the mockery of a faint blush upon the bosom and the face, and that suspiciously lingered smile on the lip.We replaced the lid and secured the door of iron so that we could get into the gloomy apartments of the upper portion.After some days of bitter grief, an observable change came over the features of the mental disorder of my friend.His ordinary manner had vanished.His ordinary jobs were not taken care of.He walked from chamber to chamber in a hurry.The pallor of his face assumed a ghastly hue but his eye was gone.The once occasional huskiness of his tone was no longer heard.He struggled for the necessary courage when I thought his mind was labouring with a secret.I was obliged to resolve all into the inexplicable madness, for I beheld him gazing upon vacancies for long hours, in an attitude of the profoundest attention, as if listening to some imaginary sound.It was no wonder that his condition frightened me.I felt like I was being influenced by his own fantastic yet impressive superstitions.Upon retiring to bed late in the night of the seventh or eighth day after placing the lady Madeline, I experienced the full power of such feelings.While the hours waned and waned away, sleep did not come near my couch.I didn't know why I was so nervous.I believed that a lot of what I felt was due to the influence of the gloomy furniture in the room, which, tortured into motion by the breath of a rising tempest, swayed fitfully to and fro.My efforts were not successful.There was an incubus of alarm that sat upon my heart.I shook this off with a gasp and a struggle, and then looked into the intense darkness of the chamber and heard some low and indefinite sounds.I threw on my clothes with haste in order to arouse myself from the pitiable condition into which I had fallen, because I felt that I should sleep no more during the night.When a light step on an adjoining staircase caught my attention, I had taken few turns in this manner.I know it's that of Usher.After raping, with a gentle touch, at my door, he entered, carrying a lamp.His face was wan, but he had a lot of fun in his eyes.I welcomed his presence as a relief, even though his air appalled me, but anything was better than the solitude which I had been enduring.Did you not see it?"You have not seen it?" he asked after staring at him for a few moments in silence.Stay!You shall.He shaded his lamp and hurried to one of the casements and threw it open to the storm.We were almost lifted from our feet by the fury of the entering gust.It was a tempestuous yet sternly beautiful night, and one that was frightening and beautiful at the same time.There were frequent and violent alterations in the direction of the wind, and the excess density of clouds did not prevent us from seeing the life-like velocity with which we were accustomed.Their density did not prevent us from seeing the moon or stars, even though we had no glimpse of the lightning.The huge mass of agitated vapour and all the other objects around us were glowing in the unnatural light of a faintly Luminous and distinctly visible gaseous exhalation which hung about and enshrouded the mansion."You will not see this!"I led him, with a gentle violence, from the window to a seat."These appearances, which bewilder you, are merely electrical phenomena not uncommon -- or it may be that they have their ghastly origin in the rank of the tarn."The air is dangerous to your frame and we should close this casement.One of your favourite romances is here.We will pass away this terrible night together, because I will read and you will listen.The antique volume which I had taken up was the "Mad Trist" of Sir Launcelot Canning, but I called it a favourite of the man because of its uncouth and unimaginative nature.It was the only book I had at hand, and I hoped that the excitement which now agitated the hypochondriac, might find relief, even in the extremeness of the folly which I should read.I might have had to congratulate myself on the success of my design if I had judged it by the wild over-strained air of vivacity with which he returned to the tale.I had arrived at the part where the hero of the Trist tries to get peaceable admission into the dwelling but is forced to make an entrance by force.Here, it will be remembered, the words of the narrative run thus: "And Ethelred, who was by nature of a doughty heart, and who had drunk a lot of wine, waited no longer to hold parley."For a moment, I paused, for it appeared to me that, from some very remote portion of the mansion, there came.It was, beyond doubt, the coincidence alone which caught my attention; for, amid the rattling of the casements, and the ordinary commingled noises of a still increasing storm, it had nothing to interest me.I continued, "But the good champion, now entering within the door, was enraged and amazed to see no signal of the maliceful hermit; but, in the meantime, a dragon of a scythe and a fiery tongue, which sate."Ethelred hit the dragon's head with a shriek so loud and piercing that he had to close his ears.Here again I paused abruptly, and now with a feeling of wild amazement, because I heard a low and apparently distant, but harsh, conclusion to the story.After the occurrence of the second and most extraordinary coincidence, by a thousand conflicting sensations, in which wonder and extreme terror were predominant, I still retained sufficient presence of mind to avoid exciting, the sensitive nervousness of my companion.I was not sure if he had noticed the sounds in question, but a strange change had taken place in his demeanor during the last few minutes.From a position fronting my own, he had gradually brought his chair so as to sit with his face to the door of the chamber; and thus I could but partially perceive his features, although I saw that his lips trembled as if he were murmuring inaudibly.I could see that he was awake, even though his head had dropped on his breast.He was rocking from side to side with a gentle yet constant and uniform sway."Now, the champion, having escaped from the terrible fury of the dragon, be thinking of his shield, and of breaking up the enchantment which was upon it," I began the narrative of Sir Launcelot.As if a shield of brass had fallen heavily upon a floor of silver, I was aware of a hollow, metallic, and clangorous sound.I leaped to my feet, but the measured rocking movement of Usher was not disturbed.He sat in the chair that I rushed to.His eyes were fixed before him, and there was a stony rigidity to him.I saw that he spoke in a low, hurried, and gibbering murmur, as if unconscious of my presence, when I placed my hand on his shoulder.I drank in the hideous import of his words as I leaned over him.Not hear it?I have heard it.I have heard it many times, but I dared not.I dared not speak.She has been put in the tomb.I was told that my senses were not acute.I heard her feeble movements in the hollow coffin.I dared not speak, yet I heard them many, many days ago.Now --to-night!ha!The clangour of the shield and the death-cry from the dragon were the things that happened.The rending of her coffin, the grating of the iron hinges on her prison, and her struggles in the vault are all related.Oh yes, shall I fly?Will she not be here?Is she not rushing to upbraid me?Did I not hear her step on the stair?Is it possible that I don't distinguish the beating of her heart?Man!He shrieked out his syllables as if he were giving up his soul, as he sprang furiously to his feet.I told you that she stood without the door.The huge antique panels to which the speaker pointed, threw slowly back, as if they had found the power of a spell.It was the work of the rushing gust, but without those doors there was no Madeleine of Usher.There was blood on her white robes and evidence of a bitter struggle.For a moment she remained trembling and reeling to and fro upon the threshold, then with a low moaning cry, fell heavily inward upon her brother, and in her violent and now final death-agonies, bore him to the floor a corpse.I fled from that chamber and the mansion.I crossed the old causeway as the storm was still outside.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.The full, setting, and blood-red moon which now shone vividly through that once barely-discernible fissure of which I have before spoken as extending from the roof of the building, in a zig-zag direction, to the base was the radiance.The entire orb of the satellite burst at once upon my sight, as I saw the mighty walls rushing asunder, and there was a long tumultuous shouting sound like the voice of a thousand waters.