There was an iciness, a sinking, a sickening of the heart
--an unredeemed dreariness of thought which no goading of the
imagination could torture into aught of the sublime. What was it --I
paused to think --what was it that so unnerved me in the contemplation
of the House of Usher? It was a mystery all insoluble; nor could I
grapple with the shadowy fancies that crowded upon me as I pondered. I
was forced to fall back upon the unsatisfactory conclusion, that
while, beyond doubt, there are combinations of very simple natural
objects which have the power of thus affecting us, still the
analysis of this power lies among considerations beyond our depth.
It was possible, I reflected, that a mere different arrangement of the
particulars of the scene, of the details of the picture, would be
sufficient to modify, or perhaps to annihilate its capacity for
sorrowful impression; and, acting upon this idea, I reined my horse to
the precipitous brink of a black and lurid tarn that lay in
unruffled lustre by the dwelling, and gazed down --but with a
shudder even more thrilling than before --upon the remodelled and
inverted images of the gray sedge, and the ghastly tree-stems, and the
vacant and eye-like windows.
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