India, whose rights he has trodden under foot, and whose country he has turned into a desert. Lastly, in the name of human nature itself, . . . in the name of every age, in the name of every rank, I impeach the common enemy 5 and oppressor of all!"

Abridged.

the hall of William Rufus: known as Westminster Hall. It was added in the eleventh century to the ancient palace of Westminster, by William Rufus. For more than seven centuries the high courts of justice and the coronation feasts were held in this hall. It now forms the vestibule to the houses of Parliament. Bacon: Francis Bacon, the essayist and philosopher, was lord chancellor of England. He was accused of having accepted bribes and pleaded guilty to the charge. Somers: John Somers, who was born nearly a hundred years later, was also lord chancellor. He was accused of arranging certain treaties which were unfavorable to English interests, but the charge was dismissed. Strafford: the Earl of Strafford was a royalist in the Civil War in England. - Charles: Charles I, who was condemned by Parliament, in 1649, to be beheaded because of his tyranny and oppression. — grenadiers': members of a special regiment, chosen usually for their imposing appearance. Garter King-at-arms: an officer of great authority in the earlier history of England. His duty was to direct the heralds. house of Brunswick: George III was of the house of Brunswick.-Siddons: Mrs. Sarah Siddons, a famous actress, of great beauty and dignity. - the greatest painter of the age: Sir Joshua Reynolds. - the greatest scholar: Samuel Parr. Burke: Edmund Burke, an illustrious Irish orator. He entered the House of Commons in 1766 and took an active interest in all national affairs. Burke made himself familiar with the difficult problems confronting the government, and urged conciliatory measures toward the colonies in America. It was he who brought the formal charge against Hastings. - company: the East India Company, formed for trading purposes. presidencies: British India was formerly divided into the three presidencies of Bengal, Madras, and Bombay.

THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF USHER

EDGAR ALLAN POE

EDGAR ALLAN POE (1809-1849) was an American writer of prose and verse of rare quality. His genius gave a wonderful charm to his work, but it is only the promise of what it might have been had his life been wholesome and serene.

NOTE. This brief selection from one of the most famous of Poe's fanciful tales gives an excellent idea of the peculiar quality and intensity of his style.

5

During the whole of a dull, dark, and soundless day in the autumn of the year, when the clouds hung oppressively low in the heavens, I had been passing alone, on horseback, 10 through a singularly dreary tract of country; and at length found myself, as the shades of evening drew on, within view of the melancholy House of Usher. I know not how it was, but with the first glimpse of the building a sense of insufferable gloom pervaded my spirit. I say insuffer- 15 able; for the feeling was unrelieved by any of that halfpleasurable, because poetic, sentiment with which the mind usually receives even the sternest natural images of the desolate or the terrible.

I looked upon the scene before me upon the mere 20 house and the simple landscape features of the domain, upon the bleak walls, upon the vacant, eyelike windows, upon a few rank sedges, and upon a few white trunks of decayed trees-with an utter depression of soul which

I can compare to no earthly sensation more properly than to the after-dream of the reveler upon opium,- the bitter lapse into everyday life, the hideous dropping off of the veil. There was an iciness, a sinking, a sickening of the heart, 5 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 10 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 15 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 20 upon this idea, I reined my horse to the precipitous brink of a black and lurid tarn that lay in unruffled luster by the dwelling, and gazed down - but with a shudder even more thrilling than before upon the remodeled and inverted images of the gray sedge, and the ghastly tree stems, 25 and the vacant and eyelike windows.

I have said that the sole effect of my somewhat childish experiment — that of looking down within the tarn

had been to deepen the first singular impression. 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 5 heaven, but which had reeked up from the decayed trees, and the gray wall, and the silent tarn, — a pestilent and mystic vapor, dull, sluggish, faintly discernible, and leadenhued.

Shaking off from my spirit what must have been a 10 dream, I scanned more narrowly the real aspect of the building. Its principal feature seemed to be that of an excessive antiquity. The discoloration of ages had been great. Minute fungi overspread the whole exterior, hanging in a fine tangled web-work from the eaves. Yet all this 15 was apart from any extraordinary dilapidation. No portion of the masonry had fallen, and there appeared to be a wild inconsistency between its still perfect adaptation of parts and the crumbling condition of the individual stones. In this there was much that reminded me of the specious 20 totality of old woodwork which has rotted for long years in some neglected vault, with no disturbance from the breath of the external air. Beyond this indication of extensive decay, however, the fabric gave little token of instability. Perhaps the eye of a scrutinizing observer 25 might have discovered a barely perceptible fissure, which, extending from the roof of the building in front, made its

way down the wall in a zigzag direction until it became lost in the sullen waters of the tarn. . . .

From that chamber and from that mansion I fled aghast. The storm was still abroad in all its wrath as I found my5 self crossing the old causeway. 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 radiance was that of the full, setting, and blood-red moon, which now shone 10 vividly through that once barely discernible fissure, of which I have before spoken as extending from the roof of the building in a zigzag direction to the base. While I gazed, this fissure rapidly widened; there came a fierce breath of the whirlwind; the entire orb of the satellite burst 15 at once upon my sight; my brain reeled as I saw the mighty walls rushing asunder; there was a long, tumultuous, shouting sound like the voice of a thousand waters, and the deep and dank tarn at my feet closed sullenly and silently over the fragments of the "House of Usher."

lurid dismal or gloomy. This is the secondary meaning of the word.tarn: a small lake. - specious totality: false wholeness.