The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1910-07-10

That The Fall of the House of
& Usher" was a masterpiece Of Poe there
can be no doubt nor any doubt mat IL
e is a gruesome tale into which ne threw
SO much of his own personality that
I'VE can read In it some Of those mental
s struggles those unbalanced, har-
crazed fantasies, which ever possessed
the haunted palace Of Poe's brain and
against which life was for him a con-
slant struggle. We feel when we read
of the fancies and Authorizations of
Roderick Usher that Poe drew for
z4fhem upon his own mental organiza
f tion. It Is a wonderful piece of work,
Especially that poem of THE Haunted
Palace" which appears in it-rand ap-
pears there In such a fitting setting.
3 But one does not care to read 1t many
f times. or, at least, IL he is sane and
+ normal nan, he ought not to. The eff
4 feet is too unsettling. too depressing;
= greaf figures, vast conceptions half ut
te0d by the writer. 1t Is a haunted
- I'D where, dimly seen, spectres stalk
bout Two wonderful pieces of descrip
I tive writing appear in this story
s the account of the storm on the night
2 of the temperance of Lady Madeline
f and the description of the final fall of
s the House of Usher
u" HOUGH Roderick Usher now lived
in gloomy retirement in his an
L cestral mansion, the House oil
s Usher he had once had friends and
companions capable of cheering him and
( of lifting from his mind the dark
clouds which, even in youth, had
{ haunted It, Therefore when he wroF
an urgent letter to a boyhood friend
f imploring him to come to him atfonee
! the letter was answered in person by
his friend in as short a timef as his
horse could CARRY him to the sad old
mansion Usher had written that he
was opposed by a mental. disorder and
implored his friend to give him the con-
j ISOLATION and cheer of Ais society. The
region In which lighthouse of Usher
was situated was a/particularly dreary
one, and the day 1T the close of which
the friend came within sight OF the
mansion had Deen one of those dul.
dark, sunless days of autumn.
At the f1rf glimpse of the house<the
friend felta sense of deep desolation, OF
insufferaole gloom come over him. The
feeling/was unrelieved by any of that
poetfa sentiment which is generally
awakened by scenes of natural desola-
t,1h The whole view was simply one
Df appalling depression and the friend
Experienced a sinking of the soul such
as is comparable only to that which
follows opium debauch. The walls
NJ the house were bleak and bare, the
eyelike windows were vacant, the
hedges were rank and broken and
few white trunks of decayinB trees
scattered about the domain CLEANED
shostly through the falling dusk.
3 The stranger refined in his horse by
- side of a small lake, or tarn, which
!, with unrufflea surface before the
1se and gazed down at the inverted
ze of the building and the reflec-
MS of the sedges on the shore and the
jostlv trees with a shudder even more
SArilline than before. He could not Ac-
hunt for the gloom which his first
sight of the mansion had sent deep into
his soul What was 1t that so unnerV-
ed him about the House of UsherY only
shadowy fancies crowded upon him and
he came to the conclusion that, While
there are simple combinations OF ma
tural objects which inspire us with ter
ror, the cause lies too deep for US TO
discover Perhaps some slight chahee
In the particulars of the scene might
destroy its power for sorrowful impress
sion. 1t was with a curious feeling that
he considered that In this mansion
which so impressed him he was purpos-
ing to make his home for several weeks.
AS the traveller looked up again at the
building a strange fancy came over
him. He imagined that over the whole
mansion and domain there hung an aura
peculiar to itself-an atmosphere which
had no affinity with the air of heaven,
but had reeked up from the decaying
trees, the gray wall and the silent tarn
"a dull, pestilent, mystic vapor family
discernible and leaden-hued
He scanned the wall of the house
closely and saw that the discoloration
of the ages had been great. Minute
fungi overspread the walls and hung
from the caves in a fine, tangled web
work Every individual stone of the
structure was in crumbling condition,
vet each was in its place. But beyono
this evidence of extensive decay nothing
gave the fabric an appearance of insta-
bflity, unless it was an indistinct fis-
sure which could be seen by close
observer zigzagging down the front
wall from the roof to the sullen waters
OF the tarn. The visitor rode across the
narrow causeway which extended over
the little lake to the house. A groom
took his horse, and, entering the Gothic
archway of the entrance hall, valet
who stood ready to receive him con-
Quoted him by dark and labyrfnthian
messages to the presence of his old
friend, the master of the House of
Usher.
Roderick Usher and his sister Made
line were the last of an ancient family
which for centuries had proceeded TO
rather age in the direct line Of descent
with no enduring collateral branches.
And now 1t seemed as If even this long
enduring direct line must come to an
end. The Ushers had been noted time
out of mind for a peculiar sensitiveness
y OF Temperament, displaying itself in a
munificent but transformations charity
and in an exalted devotion to art, espe-
cially to the higher and more subtle In
tricacies of the science of music. In the
minds of the country people all that be-
E longed to the family, corporal or in
corporeal, had been handed down for
20 many generations that they had be-
come merged in one, and so the House
OF Usher meant both the gloomy dwell
ing in which Roderick and his sister