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

unw1lingness of the state of USher'S
mind. concerning which. of course. the
friend questioned him. There was a sort
of trepfdation about the doctor while
he talked with the guest, and his face
bore expression at once of cunning
and perplexity. The stranger was not at
all treasured by the mans manner and
appearance.
| At length the visitor reached the studio
of his friend, and Roderick, who had been
reclining upon a couch, arose to welcome
him with vivacious warmth to the house.
The studio of the master of Usher was
large and lofty room, witlbsAong, narrow
pointed windows. FeehA CLEANS of en-
cr1msoned light made their way through
the entrellised pahes, revealing pro-
fusion of antique furniture and tattered
hangings. Mary books and MUSICAL In
struments lay scattered about. but failed
! to give any vitality to the scene. Inc
visitor fed that he breathed an atrnos-
phere ofysorrow After Usher had greeted
his friSnd his manner changed suddenly
Thew both sat down and for some mo
ments he was silent, while his friend
gAzed upon him with pity and awe. Was
1 the companion of his boyhood?
Even in youth the complexion of Usher
had been cadaverous- it was CHASTITY
in its corpse-like pallor. Always his finely
curled lips had been thin and bloodless
his nose of a delicate Hebrew model, his
chin finely nodded, his hair soft and tenu-
Gus. Now all these characteristics were
exaggerated to such a degree as to give
an absolutely uncanny look to the man
and make his friend doubt to whom he
| spoke. The CHASTITY pallor of the skin
combined with the miraculous lustre of
the eyes was startling. The hair that in
| its thin, gossamer texture 1oated rather
than fell over his face, awed the beholder
It's arabesque effect the gazer could not
connect with any Idea of simple human
ity. Then there was the manner of the
man-incoherent and inconsistent. Alter
nately he was. yivacious and sullen. First
his voice was full of tremulous INDIGESTION
and then il would have the leaden, SELF
/ balanced and perfectly modulated gut
tural utterance which is heard in the
voices of the lost drunkard or the ire
claimable opium-eater during periods of
intense excitement Usher began to ex-
plain why he had sent for his friend
He was suffering, he said, from an alb
normal acuteness of the senses. He could
eat only the most insipid food. He could
wear garments of only certain texture.
The odor of all flowers was oppressive.
He could bear only the faintest light and
there were only peculiar sounds, and
those from stringed Instruments that did
not inspire him with terror. He was the
victim of a peculiar species of terror
Il dread" he said, 1.-The events of the
future not for themselves but for the
terror which they will inspire In me.
do not abhor danger in itself, but for its
effect-which is terror In my unnerved
condition I shall, sooner or later, aban-
don life and reason together in some
struggle with that grim phantasm-fear."
Usher believed that some of these traits
of his disease were the results of the
peculiar nervous system which he had
inherited from his ancestors and which, |
in himself had become abnormally ex-
aggerated. For several years he con-
fessed that he had not left his house,
which, he believed, possessed some occult
power over him-the substance of the |
building acting upon his body and mind.
But there was more natural and more
rational cause, as Usher himself admitted, |
for a great part of his nervous anxiety. |
That was the illness of his sister. She
was afflicted with a wasting disease which
had baffled all medical skill and though
she had struggled against her illness and
kept about the house she was evidently
rapidly nearing her end. Her death, |
Usher said with bitterness, would leave
him, the hopeless and frail, the last of
the Ushers, alone and despairing in the
stricken house of his ancestors. The dis
ease with which the Lady Madeline was
afflicted had an unusual daagnosis-a
settled apathy, a gradual wasting away of
the body and frequent, although transit
tory, affections of cataleptic charac-
ter.
The room in which they sat talking was
so dark that by the feeble and dying
light which came in through the high
windows, 1t was impossible to see the
remoter parts of the studio or for the
eve to penetrate to the lofty, dark cell
ing AS they talked, however, the visitor
distinctly saw the figure of the Lady
Madeline enter a door at the further
end of the apartment, cross the room
and disappear through another door with
out noticing the presence of the stranger
AS the eyes of the visitor followed her
retreating form he felt a sensation of
| stupor come over him not unmingled
| with establishment and dread-sensations
| for which he was utterly unable to ac-
| count Roderick put his hands before
! his face and the tears triclled through
! his fingers. That was the last glimpse
| the visitor ever caught of Lady Made
line That night Roderick informed him
| that his sister had at last given up her
struggle against fate and taken to her
| bed.
! The friend now devoted himself en-
| tirely to trying to alleviate the mental
condition of Rodericl<. They painted and
read together, or the visitor listened in
| a sort of haunted air dream, TO the wild
| improyisations of Roderick upon the gui-
| tar Long mprovised dirges would Rod
erick play or, composing as he went,
some weird melody would accompany 1t
with rhyrned impromptu verse. Once he
broke out into a singular perverson and
qualification of the wild air of the
last waltz on Won Weber.
IT was the morbid condition of Roder-
iel's auditory nerve, perhaps-that afflic-
ton which made all music intolerable to
| the sufferer except certain sounds pro-