There can be no doubt that the
consciousness of the rapid increase of my superstition --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 gray 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 principal feature
seemed to be that of an excessive antiquity.
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