But one autumnal evening, when the winds lay
still in heaven, Morella called me to her side. There
was a dim mist over all the earth, and a warm glow
upon the waters, and, amid the rich October leaves
of the forest, a rainbow from the firmament had surely
fallen. As I came she was murmuring, in a low
under tone, which trembled with fervor, the words of
a Catholic hymn:

“It is a day of days,” said Morella; “a day of
all days either to live or die. It is a fair day for the

[figure description] Page 014.[end figure description]

sons of earth and life—ah! more fair for the daughter's
of heaven and death.”

I turned towards her, and she continued.

“I am dying—yet shall I live. Therefore for me,
Morella, thy wife, hath the charnel-house no terrors—
mark me!—not even the terrors of the worm. The
days have never been when thou couldst love me;
but her whom in life thou didst abhor, in death thou
shalt adore.”

“Morella!”

“I repeat that I am dying. But within me is a
pledge of that affection—ah, how little!—which you
felt for me, Morella. And when my spirit departs
shall the child live—thy child and mine, Morella's.
But thy days shall be days of sorrow—that sorrow
which is the most lasting of impressions, as the cypress
is the most enduring of trees. For the hours of thy
happiness are over; and joy is not gathered twice in
a life, as the roses of Pæstum twice in a year. Thou
shalt no longer, then, play the Teian with time, but,
being ignorant of the myrtle and the vine, thou shalt
bear about with thee thy shroud on earth, as do the
Moslemin at Mecca.”

“Morella!” I cried, “Morella! how knowest thou
this?”—but she turned away her face upon the
pillow, and, a slight tremor coming over her limbs,
she thus died, and I heard her voice no more.

Yet, as she had foretold, her child—to which in
dying she had given birth, and which breathed not
until the mother breathed no more—her child, a
daughter, lived. And she grew strangely in stature

[figure description] Page 015.[end figure description]

and intellect, and was the perfect resemblance of her
who had departed, and I loved her with a love more
fervent and more intense than I had believed it possible
to feel for any denizen of earth.

But, ere long, the heaven of this pure affection
became overcast, and gloom, and horror, and grief,
swept over it in clouds. I said the child grew
strangely in stature and intelligence. Strange indeed
was her rapid increase in bodily size—but terrible,
oh! terrible were the tumultuous thoughts which
crowded upon me while watching the development
of her mental being. Could it be otherwise, when I
daily discovered in the conceptions of the child the
adult powers and faculties of the woman?—when the
lessons of experience fell from the lips of infancy?
and when the wisdom or the passions of maturity I
found hourly gleaming from its full and speculative
eye? When, I say, all this became evident to my
appalled senses—when I could no longer hide it from
my soul, nor throw it off from those perceptions which
trembled to receive it—is it to be wondered at that
suspicions, of a nature fearful and exciting, crept in
upon my spirit, or that my thoughts fell back aghast
upon the wild tales and thrilling theories of the entombed
Morella? I snatched from the scrutiny of the
world a being whom destiny compelled me to adore,
and, in the rigorous seclusion of my old ancestral
home, watched with an agonizing anxiety over all
which concerned the beloved.

And, as years rolled away, and I gazed, day after
day, upon her holy, and mild, and eloquent face, and

[figure description] Page 016.[end figure description]

pored over her maturing form, day after day did I
discover new points of resemblance in the child to her
mother, the melancholy and the dead. And, hourly,
grew darker these shadows of similitude, and more
full, and more definite, and more perplexing, and more
hideously terrible in their aspect. For that her smile
was like her mother's I could bear; but then I shuddered
at its too perfect identity—that her eyes were
like Morella's I could endure; but then they too often
looked down into the depths of my soul with Morella's
own intense and bewildering meaning. And in the
contour of the high forehead, and in the ringlets of
the silken hair, and in the wan fingers which buried
themselves therein, and in the sad musical tones of
her speech, and above all—oh, above all—in the
phrases and expressions of the dead on the lips of
the loved and the living, I found food for consuming
thought and horror—for a worm that would not die.

Thus passed away two lustrums of her life, but my
daughter remained nameless upon the earth. “My
child” and “my love” were the designations usually
prompted by a father's affection, and the rigid seclusion
of her days precluded all other intercourse. Morella's
name died with her at her death. Of the mother I
had never spoken to the daughter—it was impossible
to speak. Indeed, during the brief period of her existtence
the latter had received no impressions from the
outward world but such as might have been afforded
by the narrow limits of her privacy. But at length
the ceremony of baptism presented to my mind, in its
unnerved and agitated condition, a present deliverance

[figure description] Page 017.[end figure description]

from the terrors of my destiny. And at the baptismal
font I hesitated for a name. And many titles of the
wise and beautiful, of old and modern times, of my
own and foreign lands, came thronging to my lips—
and many, many fair titles of the gentle, and the
happy, and the good. What prompted me then to
disturb the memory of the buried dead? What
demon urged me to breathe that sound, which, in its
very recollection, was wont to make ebb the purple
blood in torrents from the temples to the heart?
What fiend spoke from the recesses of my soul, when,
amid those dim aisles, and in the silence of the night,
I shrieked within the ears of the holy man the syllables—
Morella? What more than fiend convulsed the
features of my child, and overspread them with the
hues of death, as, starting at that sound, she turned
her glassy eyes from the earth to heaven, and, falling
prostrate on the black slabs of our ancestral vault,
responded—“I am here!”

Distinct, coldly, calmly distinct—like a knell of
death—horrible, horrible death—sank the eternal
sounds within my soul. Years—years may roll away,
but the memory of that epoch—never! Now was I
indeed ignorant of the flowers and the vine—but the
hemlock and the cypress overshadowed me night
and day. And I kept no reckoning of time or place,
and the stars of my fate faded from heaven, and,
therefore, the earth grew dark, and its figures passed
by me like flitting shadows, and among them all I
beheld only—Morella. The winds of the firmament
breathed but one sound within my ears, and the

[figure description] Page 018.[end figure description]

ripples upon the sea murmured evermore—Morella.
But she died; and with my own hands I bore her to
the tomb; and I laughed with a long and bitter laugh
as I found no traces of the first, in the charnel where
I laid the second—Morella.

p320-024 LIONIZING.

—all people went
Upon their ten toes in wild wonderment.
Bishop Hall's Satires.

[figure description] Page 019.[end figure description]

I am—that is to say, I was—a great man; but I am
neither the author of Junius, nor the man in the mask,
for my name is Thomas Smith, and I was born
somewhere in the city of Fum-Fudge. The first
action of my life was the taking hold of my nose with
both hands; my mother saw this, and called me a
genius; my father wept for joy, and bought me a
treatise on Nosology. Before I was breeched I had
not only mastered the treatise, but had collected into
a common-place book all that is said on the subject
by Pliny, Aristotle, Alexander Ross, Minutius Felix,
Hermanus Pictorius, Del Rio, Villarêt, Bartholinus,
and Sir Thomas Browne.

I now began to feel my way in the science, and
soon came to understand that, provided a man had a
nose sufficiently big, he might, by merely following
it, arrive at a lionship. But my attention was not

[figure description] Page 020.[end figure description]

confined to theories alone; every morning I took a
dram or two, and gave my proboscis a couple of
pulls. When I came of age my father asked me, one
day, if I would step with him into his study.

“My son,” said he, when we got there, “what
is the chief end of your existence?”

“Father,” I said, “it is the study of Nosology.”

“And what, Thomas,” he continued, “is nosology?”

“Sir,” I replied, “it is the Science of Noses.”

“And can you tell me,” he asked, “what is the
meaning of a nose?”

“A nose, my father,” said I, “has been variously
defined by about a thousand different authors,
(here I pulled out my watch). It is now noon, or
thereabouts—we shall have time enough to get
through with them all before midnight. To commence,
then. The nose, according to Bartholinus,
is that protuberance, that bump, that excrescence,
that—”

“That will do, Thomas,” said the old gentleman.
“I am thunderstruck at the extent of your information—
I am positively—upon my soul. Come here!
(and he took me by the arm). Your education may
now be considered as finished, and it is high time
that you should scuffle for yourself—so—so—so—
(here he kicked me down stairs and out of the door)
so get out of my house, and God bless you!”

As I felt within me the divine afflatus, I considered
this accident rather fortunate than otherwise, and
determined to follow my nose. So I gave it a pull

[figure description] Page 021.[end figure description]

or two, and wrote a pamphlet on Nosology. All
Fum-Fudge was in an uproar.

“Wonderful genius!” said the Quarterly.

“Superb physiologist!” said the New Monthly.

“Fine writer!” said the Edinburgh.

“Great man!” said Blackwood.

“Who can he be?” said Mrs. Bas-Bleu.

“What can he be?” said big Miss Bas-Bleu.

“Where can he be?” said little Miss Bas-Bleu.
But I paid them no manner of attention, and walked
into the shop of an artist.

The Duchess of Bless-my-Soul was sitting for her
portrait; the Marchioness of So-and-So was holding
the Duchess's poodle; the Earl of This-and-That was
flirting with her salts; and his Royal Highness of
Touch-me-Not was standing behind her chair. I
merely walked towards the artist, and held up my
proboscis.

“O beautiful!” sighed the Duchess.

“O pretty!” lisped the Marshiness.

“O horrible!” groaned the Earl.

“O abominable!” growled his Royal Highness.

“What will you take for it?” said the artist.

“A thousand pounds,” said I, sitting down.

“A thousand pounds?” he inquired, turning the
nose to the light.

“Precisely,” said I.

“Beautiful!” said he, looking at the nose.

“A thousand pounds,” said I, twisting it to one
side.

“Admirable!” said he.

[figure description] Page 022.[end figure description]

“A thousand pounds,” said I.

“You shall have them,” said he, “what a piece
of virtu!” So he paid me the money, and made a
sketch of my nose. I took rooms in Jermyn street,
sent her Majesty the ninety-ninth edition of the
Nosology with a portrait of the author's nose, and
his Royal Highness of Touch-me-Not invited me to
dinner.

We were all lions and recherchés.

There was a Grand Turk from Stamboul. He
said that the angels were horses, cocks, and bulls—
that somebody in the sixth heaven had seventy thousand
heads and seventy thousand tongues—and that
the earth was held up by a sky-blue cow, having
four hundred horns.

There was Sir Positive Paradox. He said that
all fools were philosophers, and all philosophers were
fools.

There was a writer on ethics. He talked of fire,
unity, and atoms; bi-part, and pre-existent soul;
affinity and discord; primitive intelligence and homoomeria.

There was Theologos Theology. He talked of
Eusebius and Arianus; heresy and the Council of
Nice; consubstantialism, Homousios, and Homouioisios.

There was Fricassée from the Rocher de Cancale.
He mentioned Latour, Markbrunnen, and Mareschino;
muriton of red tongue, and cauliflowers with
velouté sauce; veal à la St. Menehoult, marinade
à la St. Florentin, and orange jellies en mosaiques.

[figure description] Page 023.[end figure description]

There was Signor Tintontintino from Florence.
He spoke of Cimabué, Arpino, Carpaccio, and Argostino;
the gloom of Caravaggio, the amenity of
Albano, the golden glories of Titian, the frows of
Rubens, and the waggeries of Jan Steen.

There was the great geologist Feltzpar. He talked
of internal fires and tertiary formations; of aëriforms,
fluidiforms, and solidiforms; of quartz and marl; of
schist and schorl; of gypsum, hornblende, micaslate,
and pudding-stone.

There was the President of the Fum-Fudge University.
He said that the moon was called Bendis in
Thrace, Bubastis in Egypt, Dian in Rome, and Artemis
in Greece.

There was Delphinus Polyglott. He told us what
had become of the eighty-three lost tragedies of
Æschylus; of the fifty-four orations of Isœus; of the
three hundred and ninety-one speeches of Lysias; of
the hundred and eighty treatises of Theophrastus; of
the eighth book of the conic sections of Apollonius;
of Pindar's hymns and dithyrambics; and the five-and-forty
tragedies of Homer Junior.

There was a modern Platonist. He quoted Porphyry,
Iamblicus, Plotinus, Proclus, Hierocles, Maximus
Tyrius, and Syrianus.

There was a human-perfectibility man. He
quoted Turgot, Price, Priestly, Condorcet, De Stael,
and “The Ambitious Student in Ill Health.”

There was myself. I spoke of Pictorius, Del Rio,
Alexander Ross, Minutius Felix, Bartholinus, Sir
Thomas Browne, and the Science of Noses.

[figure description] Page 024.[end figure description]

“Marvellous clever man!” said his Highness.

“Superb!” said his guests; and the next morning
her grace of Bless-my-Soul paid me a visit.

“Will you go to Almack's, pretty creature?” she
said, chucking me under the chin.

“Upon honor,” said I.

“Nose and all?” she asked.

“As I live,” I replied.

“Here, then, is a card, my life, shall I say you will
be there?”

“Dear Duchess, with all my heart.”

“Pshaw, no!—but with all your nose?”

“Every bit of it, my love,” said I; so I gave it a
pull or two, and found myself at Almack's.

The rooms were crowded to suffocation.

“He is coming!” said somebody on the staircase.

“He is coming!” said somebody further up.

“He is coming!” said somebody further still.

“He is come!” said the Duchess; “he is come,
the little love!” and she caught me by both hands,
and looked me in the nose.

“Ah joli!” said Mademoiselle Pas Seul.

“Dios guarda!” said Don Stiletto.

“Diavolo!” said Count Capricornuto.

“Tousand teufel!” said Baron Bludennuff.

“Tweedle-dee—tweedle-dee—tweedle-dum!” said
the Orchestra.

“Ah joli! Dios guarda! Diavolo! and Tousand
teufel!” repeated Mademoiselle Pas Seul, Don Stiletto,
Count Capricornuto, and Baron Bludennuff.
This applause—it was obstreperous; it was not the

[figure description] Page 025.[end figure description]

thing; it was too bad; it was not to be borne. I
grew angry.

“Sir!” said I to the Baron, “you are a baboon.”

“Sir!” he replied after a pause, “Donner und
blitzen!” This was sufficient. We exchanged cards.
The next morning I shot off his nose at six o'clock,
and then called upon my friends.

“Bête!” said the first.

“Fool!” said the second.

“Ninny!” said the third.

“Dolt!” said the fourth.

“Noodle!” said the fifth.

“Ass!” said the sixth.

“Be off!” said the seventh.

At all this I felt mortified, and so called upon my
father.

“Father,” I said, “what is the chief end of my
existence?”

“My son,” he replied, “it is still the study of
Nosology; but in hitting the Baron's nose, you have
overshot your mark. You have a fine nose, it is true;
but then Bludennuff has none. You are d—d; and
he has become the lion of the day. In Fum-Fudge
great is a lion with a big proboscis, but greater by
far is a lion with no proboscis at all.”

[figure description] Blank Leaf.[end figure description]

p320-032 WILLIAM WILSON.

What say of it? what say of CONSCIENCE grim,
That spectre in my path?
Chamberlaine's Pharronida.

[figure description] Page 027.[end figure description]

Let me call myself, for the present, William Wilson.
The fair page now lying before me need not
be sullied with my real appellation. This has been
already too much an object for the scorn, for the
horror, for the detestation of my race. To the uttermost
regions of the globe have not the indignant
winds bruited its unparalleled infamy? Oh, outcast
of all outcasts most abandoned! To the earth art
thou not forever dead? to its honors, to its flowers,
to its golden aspirations? and a cloud, dense, dismal,
and limitless, does it not hang eternally between thy
hopes and heaven?

I would not, if I could, here or to-day, embody a
record of my later years of unspeakable misery, and
unpardonable crime. This epoch—these later years—
took unto themselves a sudden elevation in turpitude,

[figure description] Page 028.[end figure description]

whose origin alone it is my present purpose to assign.
Men usually grow base by degrees. From me, in an
instant, all virtue dropped bodily as a mantle. I
shrouded my nakedness in triple guilt. From comparatively
trivial wickedness I passed, with the stride
of a giant, into more than the enormities of an Elah-Gabalus.
What chance, what one event brought this
evil thing to pass, bear with me while I relate. Death
approaches; and the shadow which foreruns him has
thrown a softening influence over my spirit. I long,
in passing through the dim valley, for the sympathy—
I had nearly said for the pity—of my fellow-men. I
would fain have them believe that I have been, in
some measure, the slave of circumstances beyond
human control. I would wish them to seek out for
me, in the details I am about to give, some little oasis
of fatality amid a wilderness of error. I would have
them allow—what they cannot refrain from allowing—
that, although temptation may have erewhile
existed as great, man was never thus, at least, tempted
before—certainly, never thus fell. And therefore
has he never thus suffered. Have I not indeed been
living in a dream? And am I not now dying a victim
to the horror and the mystery of the wildest of all
sublunary visions?

I am come of a race whose imaginative and easily
excitable temperament has at all times rendered them
remarkable; and, in my earliest infancy, I gave evidence
of having fully inherited the family character.
As I advanced in years it was more strongly developed;
becoming, for many reasons, a cause of serious

[figure description] Page 029.[end figure description]

disquietude to my friends, and of positive injury to
myself. I grew self-willed, addicted to the wildest
caprices, and a prey to the most ungovernable passions.
Weak-minded, and beset with constitutional
infirmities akin to my own, my parents could do but
little to check the evil propensities which distinguished
me. Some feeble and ill-directed efforts resulted in
complete failure on their part, and, of course, in total
triumph on mine. Thenceforward my voice was a
household law; and at an age when few children
have abandoned their leading-strings, I was left to the
guidance of my own will, and became, in all but
name, the master of my own actions.

My earliest recollections of a school-life are connected
with a large, rambling, cottage-built, and somewhat
decayed building in a misty-looking village of
England, where were a vast number of gigantic and
gnarled trees, and where all the houses were excessively
ancient and inordinately tall. In truth, it was
a dream-like and spirit-soothing place, that venerable
old town. At this moment, in fancy, I feel the refreshing
chilliness of its deeply-shadowed avenues,
inhale the fragrance of its thousand shrubberies, and
thrill anew with undefinable delight, at the deep,
hollow note of the church-bell, breaking each hour,
with sullen and sudden roar, upon the stillness of the
dusky atmosphere in which the old, fretted, Gothic
steeple lay imbedded and asleep.

It gives me, perhaps, as much of pleasure as I can
now in any manner experience, to dwell upon minute
recollections of the school and its concerns. Steeped

[figure description] Page 030.[end figure description]

in misery as I am—misery, alas! only too real—I
shall be pardoned for seeking relief, however slight
and temporary, in the weakness of a few rambling
details. These, moreover, utterly trivial, and even
ridiculous in themselves, assume, to my fancy, adventitious
importance as connected with a period and
a locality, when and where I recognise the first ambiguous
monitions of the destiny which afterwards so
fully overshadowed me. Let me then remember.

The house, I have said, was old, irregular, and
cottage-built. The grounds were extensive, and an
enormously high and solid brick wall, topped with a
bed of mortar and broken glass, encompassed the
whole. This prison-like rampart formed the limit of
our domain; beyond it we saw but thrice a week—
once every Saturday afternoon, when, attended by
two ushers, we were permitted to take brief walks
in a body through some of the neighbouring fields—
and twice during Sunday, when we were paraded in
the same formal manner to the morning and evening
service in the one church of the village. Of this
church the principal of our school was pastor. With
how deep a spirit of wonder and perplexity was I
wont to regard him from our remote pew in the
gallery, as, with step solemn and slow, he ascended
the pulpit! This reverend man, with countenance
so demurely benign, with robes so glossy and so
clerically flowing, with wig so minutely powdered,
so rigid and so vast—could this be he who of late,
with sour visage, and in snuffy habiliments, administered,
ferule in hand, the Draconian laws of the

[figure description] Page 031.[end figure description]

academy? Oh, gigantic paradox, too utterly monstrous
for solution!

At an angle of the ponderous wall frowned a more
ponderous gate. It was riveted and studded with
iron bolts, and surmounted with jagged iron spikes.
What impressions of deep awe it inspired! It was
never opened save for the three periodical egressions
and ingressions already mentioned; then, in every
creak of its mighty hinges we found a plenitude of
mystery, a world of matter for solemn remark, or
for more solemn meditation.

The extensive enclosure was irregular in form,
having many capacious recesses. Of these, three or
four of the largest constituted the play-ground. It
was level, and covered with fine, hard gravel. I well
remember it had no trees, nor benches, nor anything
similar within it. Of course it was in the rear of
the house. In front lay a small parterre, planted
with box and other shrubs; but through this sacred
division we passed only upon rare occasions indeed,
such as a first advent to school or final departure
thence, or perhaps, when a parent or friend having
called for us, we joyfully took our way home for the
Christmas or Midsummer holydays.

But the house—how quaint an old building was
this!—to me how veritably a palace of enchantment!
There was really no end to its windings, to its incomprehensible
subdivisions. It was impossible, at
any given time, to say with certainty upon which of
its two stories one happened to be. From each room
to every other there were sure to be found three or

[figure description] Page 032.[end figure description]

four steps either in ascent or descent. Then the
lateral branches were innumerable—inconceivable—
and so returning in upon themselves, that our most
exact ideas in regard to the whole mansion were not
very far different from those with which we pondered
upon infinity. During the five years of my residence
here I was never able to ascertain with precision, in
what remote locality lay the little sleeping apartment
assigned to myself and some eighteen or twenty other
scholars.

The school-room was the largest in the house—I
could not help thinking in the world. It was very
long, narrow, and dismally low, with pointed Gothic
windows and a ceiling of oak. In a remote and
terror-inspiring angle was a square enclosure of eight
or ten feet, comprising the sanctum, “during hours,”
of our principal, the Reverend Dr. Bransby. It was
a solid structure, with massy door, sooner than open
which in the absence of the “Dominie,” we would all
have willingly perished by the peine forte et dure.
In other angles were two other similar boxes, far less
reverenced, indeed, but still greatly matters of awe.
One of these was the pulpit of “the classical” usher,
one of the “English and mathematical.” Interspersed
about the room, crossing and recrossing in endless
irregularity, were innumerable benches and desks,
black, ancient, and time-worn, piled desperately with
much-bethumbed books, and so beseamed with initial
letters, names at full length, meaningless gashes, grotesque
figures, and other multiplied efforts of the
knife, as to have entirely lost what little of original

[figure description] Page 033.[end figure description]

form might have been their portion in days long
departed. A huge bucket with water stood at one
extremity of the room, and a clock of stupendous
dimensions at the other.

Encompassed by the massy walls of this venerable
academy I passed, yet not in tedium or disgust, the
years of the third lustrum of my life. The teeming
brain of childhood requires no external world of
incident to occupy or amuse it, and the apparently
dismal monotony of a school was replete with more
intense excitement than my riper youth has derived
from luxury, or my full manhood from crime. Yet
I must believe that my first mental development had
in it much of the uncommon, even much of the outré.
Upon mankind at large the events of very early
existence rarely leave in mature age any definite impression.
All is gray shadow—a weak and irregular
remembrance—an indistinct regathering of feeble
pleasures and phantasmagoric pains. With me this
is not so. In childhood I must have felt with the
energy of a man what I now find stamped upon
memory in lines as vivid, as deep, and as durable as
the exergues of the Carthaginian medals.

Yet in fact—in the fact of the world's view—
how little was there to remember! The morning's
awakening, the nightly summons to bed; the connings,
the recitations; the periodical half-holidays,
and perambulations; the play-ground, with its broils,
its pastimes, its intrigues—these, by a mental sorcery
long forgotten, were made to involve a wilderness
of sensation, a world of rich incident, an universe of

[figure description] Page 034.[end figure description]

varied emotion, of excitement the most passionate
and spirit-stirring. “Oh, le bon temps, que ce siecle
de fer!”

In truth, the ardency, the enthusiasm, and the imperiousness
of my disposition, soon rendered me a
marked character among my schoolmates, and by
slow, but natural gradations, gave me an ascendency
over all not greatly older than myself—over all with
one single exception. This exception was found in
the person of a scholar, who, although no relation,
bore the same Christian and surname as myself—a
circumstance, in fact, little remarkable, for, notwithstanding
a noble descent, mine was one of those
every-day appellations which seem, by prescriptive
right, to have been, time out of mind, the common
property of the mob. In this narrative I have therefore
designated myself as William Wilson—a fictitious
title not very dissimilar to the real. My namesake
alone, of those who in school phraseology constituted
“our set,” presumed to compete with me in the studies
of the class, in the sports and broils of the play-ground—
to refuse implicit belief in my assertions, and submission
to my will—indeed to interfere with my
arbitrary dictation in any respect whatsoever. If
there be on earth a supreme and unqualified despotism,
it is the despotism of a master mind in boyhood over
the less energetic spirits of its companions.

Wilson's rebellion was to me a source of the greatest
embarrassment—the more so as, in spite of the bravado
with which in public I made a point of treating him
and his pretensions, I secretly felt that I feared him,

[figure description] Page 035.[end figure description]

and could not help thinking the equality which he
maintained so easily with myself, a proof of his true
superiority, since not to be overcome cost me a perpetual
struggle. Yet this superiority—even this
equality—was in truth acknowledged by no one but
myself; our associates, by some unaccountable blindness,
seemed not even to suspect it. Indeed, his competition,
his resistance, and especially his impertinent
and dogged interference with my purposes, were not
more pointed than private. He appeared to be utterly
destitute alike of the ambition which urged, and of
the passionate energy of mind which enabled me to
excel. In his rivalry he might have been supposed
actuated solely by a whimsical desire to thwart,
astonish, or mortify myself; although there were
times when I could not help observing, with a feeling
made up of wonder, abasement, and pique, that he
mingled with his injuries, his insults, or his contradictions,
a certain most inappropriate, and assuredly
most unwelcome affectionateness of manner. I could
only conceive this singular behaviour to arise from a
consummate self-conceit assuming the vulgar airs of
patronage and protection.

Perhaps it was this latter trait in Wilson's conduct,
conjoined with our identity of name, and the mere
accident of our having entered the school upon the
same day, which set afloat the notion that we were
brothers, among the senior classes in the academy.
These do not usually inquire with much strictness
into the affairs of their juniors. I have before said,
or should have said, that Wilson was not, in the most

[figure description] Page 036.[end figure description]

remote degree, connected with my family. But assuredly
if we had been brothers we must have been
twins, for, after leaving Dr. Bransby's, I casually
learned that my namesake—a somewhat remarkable
coincidence—was born on the nineteenth of January,
1809—and this is precisely the day of my own
nativity.

It may seem strange that in spite of the continual
anxiety occasioned me by the rivalry of Wilson,
and his intolerable spirit of contradiction, I could
not bring myself to hate him altogether. We had,
to be sure, nearly every day a quarrel, in which,
yielding me publicly the palm of victory, he, in some
manner, contrived to make me feel that it was he
who had deserved it; yet a sense of pride upon my
part, and a veritable dignity upon his own, kept us
always upon what are called “speaking terms,”
while there were many points of strong congeniality
in our tempers, operating to awake in me a sentiment
which our position alone, perhaps, prevented from
ripening into friendship. It is difficult, indeed, to
define, or even to describe, my real feelings towards
him. They were formed of a heterogeneous mixture—
some petulant animosity, which was not yet hatred,
some esteem, more respect, much fear, with a world
of uneasy curiosity. To the moralist fully acquainted
with the minute spirings of human action, it will be
unnecessary to say, in addition, that Wilson and myself
were the most inseparable of companions.

It was no doubt the anomalous state of affairs existing
between us which turned all my attacks upon

[figure description] Page 037.[end figure description]

him, (and they were many, either open or covert) into
the channel of banter or practical joke (giving pain
while assuming the aspect of mere fun) rather than
into that of a more serious and determined hostility.
But my endeavors on this head were by no means
uniformly successful, even when my plans were the
most wittily concocted; for my namesake had much
about him, in character, of that unassuming and quiet
austerity which, while enjoying the poignancy of its
own jokes, has no heel of Achilles in itself, and absolutely
refuses to be laughed at. I could find,
indeed, but one vulnerable point, and that, lying in a
personal peculiarity, arising, perhaps, from constitutional
disease, would have been spared by any antagonist
less at his wit's end than myself—my rival
had a weakness in the faucial or guttural organs,
which precluded him from raising his voice at any
time above a very low whisper. Of this defect I did
not fail to take what poor advantage lay in my
power.

Wilson's retaliations in kind were many, and there
was one form of his practical wit that disturbed me
beyond measure. How his sagacity first discovered
at all that so petty a thing would vex me is a question
I never could solve—but, having discovered, he
habitually practised the annoyance. I had always
felt aversion to my uncourtly patronymic, and its very
common, if not plebeian praenomen. The words
were venom in my ears; and when, upon the day of
my arrival, a second William Wilson came also to
the academy, I felt angry with him for bearing the

[figure description] Page 038.[end figure description]

name, and doubly disgusted with the name because
a stranger bore it, who would be the cause of its
twofold repetition, who would be constantly in my
presence, and whose concerns, in the ordinary
routine of the school business, must, inevitably, on
account of the detestable coincidence, be often confounded
with my own.

The feeling of vexation thus engendered grew
stronger with every circumstance tending to show
resemblance, moral or physical, between my rival
and myself. I had not then discovered the remarkable
fact that we were of the same age; but I saw
that we were of the same height, and I perceived
that we were not altogether unlike in general contour
of person and outline of feature. I was galled,
too, by the rumor touching a relationship which had
grown current in the upper forms. In a word,
nothing could more seriously disturb me, (although
I scrupulously concealed such disturbance,) than any
allusion to a similarity of mind, person, or condition
existing between us. But, in truth, I had no reason
to believe that (with the exception of the matter of
relationship, and in the case of Wilson himself), this
similarity had ever been made a subject of comment,
or even observed at all by our schoolfellows. That
he observed it in all its bearings, and as fixedly as I,
was apparent, but that he could discover in such circumstances
so fruitful a field of annoyance for myself
can only be attributed, as I said before, to his
more than ordinary penetration.

His cue, which was to perfect an imitation of

[figure description] Page 039.[end figure description]

myself, lay both in words and in actions; and most
admirably did he play his part. My dress it was an
easy matter to copy; my gait and general manner,
were, without difficulty, appropriated; in spite of his
constitutional defect, even my voice did not escape
him. My louder tones were, of course, unattempted,
but then the key, it was identical; and his singular
whisper, it grew the very echo of my own.

How greatly this most exquisite portraiture harassed
me, (for it could not justly be termed a caricature,)
I will not now venture to describe. I had but one
consolation—in the fact that the imitation, apparently,
was noticed by myself alone, and that I
had to endure only the knowing and strangely sarcastic
smiles of my namesake himself. Satisfied
with having produced in my bosom the intended
effect, he seemed to chuckle in secret over the sting
he had inflicted, and was characteristically disregardful
of the public applause which the success of
his witty endeavors might have so easily elicited.
That the school, indeed, did not feel his design,
perceive its accomplishment, and participate in his
sneer, was, for many anxious months, a riddle I
could not resolve. Perhaps the gradation of his
copy rendered it not so readily perceptible, or, more
possibly, I owed my security to the masterly air of
the copyist, who, disdaining the letter, which in a
painting is all the obtuse can see, gave but the full
spirit of his original for my individual contemplation
and chagrin.

I have already more than once spoken of the

[figure description] Page 040.[end figure description]

disgusting air of patronage which he assumed towards
me, and of his frequent officious interference with
my will. This interference often took the ungracious
character of advice; advice not openly given, but
hinted or insinuated. I received it with a repugnance
which gained strength as I grew in years.
Yet, at this distant day, let me do him the simple
justice to acknowledge that I can recall no occasion
when the suggestions of my rival were on the side of
those errors or follies so usual to his immature age,
and seeming inexperience; that his moral sense, at
least, if not his general talents and worldly wisdom,
was far keener than my own; and that I might, to-day,
have been a better, and thus a happier man,
had I more seldom rejected the counsels embodied
in those meaning whispers which I then but too
cordially hated, and too bitterly derided.

As it was, I at length grew restive in the extreme,
under his distasteful supervision, and daily resented
more and more openly what I considered his intolerable
arrogance. I have said that, in the first
years of our connexion as schoolmates, my feelings
in regard to him might have been easily ripened
into friendship; but, in the latter months of my
residence at the academy, although the intrusion of
his ordinary manner had, beyond doubt, in some
measure, abated, my sentiments, in nearly similar
proportion, partook very much of positive hatred.
Upon one occasion he saw this, I think, and afterwards
avoided, or made a show of avoiding me.

It was about the same period, if I remember aright,

[figure description] Page 041.[end figure description]

that, in an altercation of violence with him, in which
he was more than usually thrown off his guard, and
spoke and acted with an openness of demeanor
rather foreign to his nature, I discovered, or fancied
I discovered, in his accent, his air, and general appearance,
a something which first startled, and then
deeply interested me, by bringing to mind dim visions
of my earliest infancy—wild, confused and thronging
memories of a time when memory herself was
yet unborn. I cannot better describe the sensation
which oppressed me than by saying that I could
with difficulty shake off the belief that myself and
the being who stood before me had been acquainted
at some epoch very long ago; some point of the past
even infinitely remote. The delusion, however, faded
rapidly as it came; and I mention it at all but to
define the day of the last conversation I there held
with my singular namesake.

The huge old house, with its countless subdivisions,
had several enormously large chambers communicating
with each other, where slept the greater number
of the students. There were, however, as must
necessarily happen in a building so awkwardly
planned, many little nooks or recesses, the odds and
ends of the structure; and these the economic ingenuity
of Dr. Bransby had also fitted up as dormitories—
although, being the merest closets, they
were capable of accommodating only a single individual.
One of these small apartments was occupied
by Wilson.

It was upon a gloomy and tempestuous night of

[figure description] Page 042.[end figure description]

an early autumn, about the close of my fifth year at
the school, and immediately after the altercation just
mentioned, that, finding every one wrapped in sleep,
I arose from bed, and, lamp in hand, stole through a
wilderness of narrow passages from my own bedroom
to that of my rival. I had been long plotting
one of those ill-natured pieces of practical wit at his
expense in which I had hitherto been so uniformly
unsuccessful. It was my intention, now, to put my
scheme in operation, and I resolved to make him feel
the whole extent of the malice with which I was
imbued. Having reached his closet, I noiselessly
entered, leaving the lamp, with a shade over it, on the
outside. I advanced a step, and listened to the sound
of his tranquil breathing. Assured of his being asleep,
I returned, took the light, and with it again approached
the bed. Close curtains were around it, which,
in the prosecution of my plan, I slowly and quietly
withdrew, when the bright rays fell vividly upon the
sleeper, and my eyes, at the same moment, upon his
countenance. I looked, and a numbness, an iciness
of feeling instantly pervaded my frame. My breast
heaved, my knees tottered, my whole spirit became
possessed with an objectless yet intolerable horror.
Gasping for breath, I lowered the lamp in still nearer
proximity to the face. Were these—these the lineaments
of William Wilson? I saw, indeed, that they
were his, but I shook as with a fit of the ague in
fancying they were not. What was there about them
to confound me in this manner? I gazed—while my
brain reeled with a multitude of incoherent thoughts.

[figure description] Page 043.[end figure description]

Not thus he appeared—assuredly not thus—in the
vivacity of his waking hours. The same name; the
same contour of person; the same day of arrival at
the academy! And then his dogged and meaningless
imitation of my gait, my voice, my habits, and my
manner! Was it, in truth, within the bounds of
human possibility that what I now witnessed was the
result of the habitual practice of this sarcastic imitation?
Awe-stricken, and with a creeping shudder, I
extinguished the lamp, passed silently from the chamber,
and left, at once, the halls of that old academy,
never to enter them again.

After a lapse of some months, spent at home in
mere idleness, I found myself a student at Eton. The
brief interval had been sufficient to enfeeble my remembrance
of the events at Dr. Bransby's, or at least
to effect a material change in the nature of the feelings
with which I remembered them. The truth—
the tragedy—of the drama was no more. I could
now find room to doubt the evidence of my senses:
and seldom called up the subject at all but with
wonder at the extent of human credulity, and a smile
at the vivid force of the imagination which I hereditarily
possessed. Neither was this species of scepticism
likely to be diminished by the character of the
life I led at Eton. The vortex of thoughtless folly
into which I there so immediately and so recklessly
plunged, washed away all but the froth of my past
hours—engulfed at once every solid or serious impression,
and left to memory only the veriest levities
of a former existence.

[figure description] Page 044.[end figure description]

I do not wish, however, to trace the course of my
miserable profligacy here—a profligacy which set at
defiance the laws, while it eluded the vigilance of
the institution. Three years of folly, passed without
profit, had but given me rooted habits of vice, and
added, in a somewhat unusual degree, to my bodily
stature, when, after a week of soulless dissipation, I
invited a small party of the most dissolute students to
a secret carousal in my chamber. We met at a late
hour of the night, for our debaucheries were to be
faithfully protracted until morning. The wine flowed
freely, and there were not wanting other, perhaps
more dangerous, seductions; so that the gray dawn
had already faintly appeared in the east, while our
delirious extravagance was at its height. Madly
flushed with cards and intoxication, I was in the act
of insisting upon a toast of more than intolerable
profanity, when my attention was suddenly diverted
by the violent, although partial unclosing of the door
of the apartment, and by the eager voice from without
of a servant. He said that some person, apparently
in great haste, demanded to speak with me
in the hall.

Wildly excited with the potent Vin de Barac, the
unexpected interruption rather delighted than surprised
me. I staggered forward at once, and a few
steps brought me to the vestibule of the building. In
this low and small room there hung no lamp; and
now no light at all was admitted, save that of the
exceedingly feeble dawn which made its way through
a semicircular window. As I put my foot over the

[figure description] Page 045.[end figure description]

threshold I became aware of the figure of a youth
about my own height, and (what then peculiarly
struck my mad fancy) habited in a white cassimere
morning frock, cut in the novel fashion of the one I
myself wore at the moment. This the faint light
enabled me to perceive—but the features of his face
I could not distinguish. Immediately upon my entering
he strode hurriedly up to me, and, seizing me
by the arm with a gesture of petulant impatience,
whispered the words “William Wilson!” in my ear.
I grew perfectly sober in an instant.

There was that in the manner of the stranger, and
in the tremulous shake of his uplifted finger, as he
held it between my eyes and the light, which filled
me with unqualified amazement—but it was not this
which had so violently moved me. It was the pregnancy
of solemn admonition in the singular, low,
hissing utterance; and, above all, it was the character,
the tone, the key, of those few, simple, and familiar,
yet whispered, syllables, which came with a thousand
thronging memories of by-gone days, and struck upon
my soul with the shock of a galvanic battery. Ere
I could recover the use of my senses he was gone.

Although this event failed not of a vivid effect
upon my disordered imagination, yet was it evanescent
as vivid. For some weeks, indeed, I busied
myself in earnest inquiry, or was wrapped in a
cloud of morbid speculation. I did not pretend to
disguise from my perception the identity of the
singular individual who thus perseveringly interfered
with my affairs, and harassed me with his insinuated

[figure description] Page 046.[end figure description]

counsel. But who and what was this Wilson?—
and whence came he?—and what were his purposes?
Upon neither of these points could I be
satisfied—merely ascertaining, in regard to him,
that a sudden accident in his family had caused his
removal from Dr. Bransby's academy on the afternoon
of the day in which I myself had eloped. But
in a brief period I ceased to think upon the subject;
my attention being all absorbed in a contemplated
departure for Oxford. Thither I soon went; the
uncalculating vanity of my parents furnishing me
with an outfit, and annual establishment, which
would enable me to indulge at will in the luxury
already so dear to my heart—to vie in profuseness
of expenditure with the haughtiest heirs of the
wealthiest earldoms in Great Britain.

Excited by such appliances to vice, my constitutional
temperament broke forth with redoubled ardor,
and I spurned even the common restraints of decency
in the mad infatuation of my revels. But it were
absurd to pause in the detail of my extravagance.
Let it suffice, that among spendthrifts I out-heroded
Herod, and that, giving name to a multitude of novel
follies, I added no brief appendix to the long catalogue
of vices then usual in the most dissolute university
of Europe.

It could hardly be credited, however, that I had,
even here, so utterly fallen from the gentlemanly
estate as to seek acquaintance with the vilest arts of
the gambler by profession, and, having become an
adept in his despicable science, to practise it

[figure description] Page 047.[end figure description]

habitually as a means of increasing my already enormous
income at the expense of the weak-minded among
my fellow-collegians. Such, nevertheless, was the
fact. And the very enormity of this offence against
all manly and honourable sentiment proved, beyond
doubt, the main, if not the sole reason of the impunity
with which it was committed. Who, indeed, among
my most abandoned associates, would not rather
have disputed the clearest evidence of his senses,
than have suspected of such courses the gay, the
frank, the generous William Wilson—the noblest
and most liberal commoner at Oxford—him whose
follies (said his parasites) were but the follies of
youth and unbridled fancy—whose errors but inimitable
whim—whose darkest vice but a careless
and dashing extravagance?

I had been now two years successfully busied in
this way, when there came to the university a
young parvenu nobleman, Glendinning—rich, said
report, as Herodes Atticus—his riches, too, as easily
acquired. I soon found him of weak intellect, and,
of course, marked him as a fitting subject for my
skill. I frequently engaged him in play, and contrived,
with a gambler's usual art, to let him win
considerable sums, the more effectually to entangle
him in my snares. At length, my schemes being
ripe, I met him (with the full intention that this meeting
should be final and decisive) at the chambers of
a fellow-commoner, (Mr. Preston,) equally intimate
with both, but who, to do him justice, entertained
not even a remote suspicion of my design. To give

[figure description] Page 048.[end figure description]

to this a better coloring, I had contrived to have
assembled a party of some eight or ten, and was
solicitously careful that the introduction of cards
should appear accidental, and originate in the proposal
of my contemplated dupe himself. To be brief
upon a vile topic, none of the low finesse was omitted,
so customary upon similar occasions that it is a just
matter for wonder how any are still found so besotted
as to fall its victim.

We had protracted our sitting far into the night,
and I had at length effected the manœuvre of getting
Glendinning as my sole antagonist. The game, too,
was my favorite écarté. The rest of the company,
interested in the extent of our play, had abandoned
their own cards, and were standing around us as
spectators. The parvenu, who had been induced by
my artifices in the early part of the evening to drink
deeply, now shuffled, dealt, or played, with a wild
nervousness of manner for which his intoxication, I
thought, might partially, but could not altogether
account. In a very short period he had become my
debtor to a large amount of money, when, having
taken a long draught of port, he did precisely what
I had been coolly anticipating, he proposed to double
our already extravagant stakes. With a well-feigned
show of reluctance, and not until after my repeated
refusal had seduced him into some angry words
which gave a color of pique to my compliance, did I
finally comply. The result, of course, did but prove
how entirely the prey was in my toils—in less than
a single hour he had quadrupled his debt. For some

[figure description] Page 049.[end figure description]

time his countenance had been losing the florid tinge
lent it by the wine—but now, to my astonishment,
I perceived that it had grown to a palor truly fearful.
I say to my astonishment. Glendinning had
been represented to my eager inquiries as immeasurably
wealthy; and the sums which he had as yet
lost, although in themselves vast, could not, I supposed,
very seriously annoy, much less so violently
affect him. That he was overcome by the wine just
swallowed, was the idea which most readily presented
itself; and, rather with a view to the preservation of
my own character in the eyes of my associates, than
from any less interested motive, I was about to insist,
peremptorily, upon a discontinuance of the play,
when some expressions at my elbow from among
the company, and an ejaculation evincing utter
despair on the part of Glendinning, gave me to
understand that I had effected his total ruin under
circumstances which, rendering him an object for
the pity of all, should have protected him from the
ill offices even of a fiend.

What now might have been my conduct it is difficult
to say. The pitiable condition of my dupe had
thrown an air of embarrassed gloom over all, and,
for some moments, a profound and unbroken silence
was maintained, during which I could not help feeling
my cheeks tingle with the many burning glances
of scorn or reproach cast upon me by the less abandoned
of the party. I will even own that an intolerable
weight of anxiety was for a brief instant
lifted from my bosom by the sudden and

[figure description] Page 050.[end figure description]

extraordinary interruption which ensued. The wide, heavy,
folding doors of the apartment were all at once
thrown open, to their full extent, with a vigorous
and rushing impetuosity that extinguished, as if by
magic, every candle in the room. Their light, in
dying, enabled us just to perceive that a stranger had
entered, of about my own height, and closely muffled
in a cloak. The darkness, however, was now total;
and we could only feel that he was standing in our
midst. Before any one of us could recover from the
extreme astonishment into which this rudeness had
thrown all, we heard the voice of the intruder.

“Gentlemen,” he said, in a low, distinct, and never-to-be-forgotten
whisper which thrilled to the very
marrow of my bones, “Gentlemen, I make no apology
for this behaviour, because in thus behaving I
am but fulfilling a duty. You are, beyond doubt,
uninformed of the true character of the person who
has to-night won at écarté a large sum of money from
Lord Glendinning. I will therefore put you upon an
expeditious and decisive plan of obtaining this very
necessary information. Please to examine, at your
leisure, the inner linings of the cuff of his left sleeve,
and the several little packages which may be found
in the somewhat capacious pockets of his embroidered
morning wrapper.”

While he spoke, so profound was the stillness that
one might have heard a pin dropping upon the floor.
In ceasing, he at once departed, and as abruptly as
he had entered. Can I—shall I describe my sensations?—
must I say that I felt all the horrors of the

[figure description] Page 051.[end figure description]

damned? Most assuredly I had little time given for
reflection. Many hands roughly seized me upon the
spot, and lights were immediately reprocured. A
search ensued. In the lining of my sleeve were
found all of the court-cards essential in écarté, and,
in the pockets of my wrapper, a number of packs,
fac-similes of those used at our sittings, with the single
exception that mine were of the species called, technically,
arrondées; the honors being slightly convex
at the ends, the lower cards slightly convex at the
sides. In this disposition, the dupe who cuts, as customary,
at the breadth of the pack, will invariably
find that he cuts his antagonist an honor; while the
gambler, cutting at the length, will, as certainly, cut
nothing for his victim which may count in the
records of the game.

Any outrageous burst of indignation upon this
shameful discovery would have affected me less than
the silent contempt, or the sarcastic composure with
which it was received.

“Mr. Wilson,” said our host, stooping to remove
from beneath his feet an exceedingly luxurious cloak
of rare furs, “Mr. Wilson, this is your property.” (The
weather was cold; and, upon quitting my own room,
I had thrown a cloak over my dressing wrapper,
putting it off upon reaching the scene of play.) “I
presume it is supererogatory to seek here (eyeing the
folds of the garment with a bitter smile), for any
farther evidence of your skill. Indeed we have had
enough. You will see the necessity, I hope, of

[figure description] Page 052.[end figure description]

quitting Oxford—at all events, of quitting, instantly,
my chambers.”

Abased, humbled to the dust as I then was, it is
probable that I should have resented this galling
language by immediate personal violence, had not
my whole attention been at the moment arrested, by
a fact of the most startling character. The cloak
which I had worn was of a rare description of fur;
how rare, how extravagantly costly, I shall not
venture to say. Its fashion, too, was of my own
fantastic invention; for I was fastidious, to a degree
of absurd coxcombry, in matters of this frivolous
nature. When, therefore, Mr. Preston reached me
that which he had picked up upon the floor, and near
the folding doors of the apartment, it was with an
astonishment nearly bordering upon terror, that I perceived
my own already hanging on my arm, (where
I had no doubt unwittingly placed it,) and that the
one presented me was but its exact counterpart in
every, in even the minutest possible particular.
The singular being who had so disastrously exposed
me, had been muffled, I remembered, in a cloak;
and none had been worn at all by any of the members
of our party with the exception of myself. Retaining
some presence of mind, I took the one offered
me by Preston, placed it, unnoticed, over my own,
left the apartment with a resolute scowl of defiance,
and, next morning ere dawn of day, commenced a
hurried journey from Oxford to the continent, in a
perfect agony of horror and of shame.

[figure description] Page 053.[end figure description]

I fled in vain. My evil destiny pursued me as if
in exultation, and proved, indeed, that the exercise
of its mysterious dominion had as yet only begun.
Scarcely had I set foot in Paris ere I had fresh
evidence of the detestable interest taken by this
Wilson in my concerns. Years flew, while I experienced
no relief. Villain!—at Rome, with how
untimely, yet with how spectral an officiousness,
stepped he in between me and my ambition! At
Vienna, too, at Berlin, and at Moscow! Where, in
truth, had I not bitter cause to curse him within my
heart? From his inscrutable tyranny did I at length
flee, panic-stricken, as from a pestilence; and to the
very ends of the earth I fled in vain.

And again, and again, in secret communion with
my own spirit, would I demand the questions “Who
is he?—whence came he?—and what are his objects?”
But no answer was there found. And now
I scrutinized, with a minute scrutiny, the forms, and
the methods, and the leading traits of his impertinent
supervision. But even here there was very little
upon which to base a conjecture. It was noticeable,
indeed, that, in no one of the multiplied instances in
which he had of late crossed my path, had he so
crossed it except to frustrate those schemes, or to
disturb those actions, which, fully carried out, might
have resulted in bitter mischief. Poor justification
this, in truth, for an authority so imperiously assumed!
Poor indemnity for natural rights of self-agency so
pertinaciously, so insultingly denied!

I had also been forced to notice that my tormentor,

[figure description] Page 054.[end figure description]

for a very long period of time, (while scrupulously
and with miraculous dexterity maintaining his whim
of an identity of apparel with myself,) had so contrived
it, in the execution of his varied interference
with my will, that I saw not, at any moment, the
features of his face. Be Wilson what he might, this,
at least, was but the veriest of affectation, or of folly.
Could he, for an instant, have supposed that, in my
admonisher at Eton, in the destroyer of my honor
at Oxford, in him who thwarted my ambition at
Rome, my revenge in Paris, my passionate love at
Naples, or what he falsely termed my avarice in
Egypt, that in this, my arch-enemy and evil genius,
I could fail to recognise the William Wilson of my
schoolboy days, the namesake, the companion, the
rival, the hatred and dreaded rival at Dr. Bransby's?
Impossible!—But let me hasten to the last eventful
scene of the drama.

Thus far I had succumbed supinely to this imperious
domination. The sentiments of deep awe
with which I habitually regarded the elevated
character, the majestic wisdom, the apparent omnipresence
and omnipotence of Wilson, added to a
feeling of even terror, with which certain other traits
in his nature and assumptions inspired me, had
operated, hitherto, to impress me with an idea of my
own utter weakness and helplessness, and to suggest
an implicit, although bitterly reluctant submission to
his arbitrary will. But, of late days, I had given
myself up entirely to wine; and its maddening influence
upon my hereditary temper rendered me more

[figure description] Page 055.[end figure description]

and more impatient of control. I began to murmur, to
hesitate, to resist. And was it only fancy which
induced me to believe that, with the increase of my
own firmness, that of my tormentor underwent a
proportional diminution? Be this as it may, I now
began to feel the inspiration of a burning hope, and
at length nurtured in my secret thoughts a stern and
desperate resolution that I would submit no longer
to be enslaved.

It was at Rome, during the carnival of 18—, that
I attended a masquerade in the palazzo of the
Neapolitan Duke Di Broglio. I had indulged more
freely than usual in the excesses of the wine-table;
and now the suffocating atmosphere of the crowded
rooms irritated me beyond endurance. The difficulty,
too, of forcing my way through the mazes of
the company contributed not a little to the ruffling
of my temper; for I was anxiously seeking, let me
not say with what unworthy motive, the young, the
gay, the beautiful wife of the aged and doting Di
Broglio. With a too unscrupulous confidence she
had previously communicated to me the secret of
the costume in which she would be habited, and
now, having caught a glimpse of her person, I was
hurrying to make my way into her presence. At
this moment I felt a light hand placed upon my
shoulder, and that ever-remembered, low, damnable
whisper within my ear.

In a perfect whirlwind of wrath, I turned at once
upon him who had thus interrupted me, and seized
him violently by the collar. He was attired, as I

[figure description] Page 056.[end figure description]

had expected, like myself; wearing a large Spanish
cloak, and a mask of black silk which entirely covered
his features.

“Scoundrel!” I said, in a voice husky with rage,
while every syllable I uttered seemed as new fuel to
my fury, “scoundrel! impostor! accursed villain!
you shall not—you shall not dog me unto death!
Follow me, or I stab you where you stand,” and I
broke my way from the room into a small antechamber
adjoining, dragging him unresistingly with
me as I went.

Upon entering, I thrust him furiously from me.
He staggered against the wall, while I closed the
door with an oath, and commanded him to draw. He
hesitated but for an instant, then, with a slight sigh,
drew in silence, and put himself upon his defence.

The contest was brief indeed. I was frantic with
every species of wild excitement, and felt within my
single arm the energy and the power of a multitude.
In a few seconds I forced him by sheer strength
against the wainscoting, and thus, getting him at
mercy, plunged my sword, with brute ferocity, repeatedly
through and through his bosom.

At this instant some person tried the latch of the
door. I hastened to prevent an intrusion, and then
immediately returned to my dying antagonist. But
what human language can adequately portray that
astonishment, that horror which possessed me at the
spectacle then presented to view. The brief moment
in which I averted my eyes had been sufficient to
produce, apparently, a material change in the

[figure description] Page 057.[end figure description]

arrangements at the upper or farther end of the room.
A large mirror, it appeared to me, now stood where
none had been perceptible before; and, as I stepped
up to it in extremity of terror, mine own image, but
with features all pale and dabbled in blood, advanced,
with a feeble and tottering gait, to meet me.

Thus it appeared, I say, but was not. It was my
antagonist—it was Wilson, who then stood before
me in the agonies of his dissolution. Not a line in
all the marked and singular lineaments of that face
which was not, even identically, mine own! His
mask and cloak lay where he had thrown them,
upon the floor.

It was Wilson, but he spoke no longer in a whisper,
and I could have fancied that I myself was speaking
while he said—

“You have conquered, and I yield. Yet, hence-forward
art thou also dead—dead to the world and
its hopes. In me didst thou exist—and, in my death,
see by this image, which is thine own, how utterly thou
hast murdered thyself.”

[figure description] Blank Leaf.[end figure description]

p320-064 THE MAN THAT WAS USED UP. A TALE OF THE LATE BUGABOO AND KICKAPOO CAMPAIGN.

[figure description] Page 059.[end figure description]

I cannot just now remember when or where I first
made the acquaintance of that truly fine-looking
fellow, Brevet Brigadier General John A. B. C.
Smith. Some one did introduce me to the gentleman,
I am sure—at some public meeting, I know
very well—held about something of great importance,
no doubt—and at some place or other, of this
I feel convinced—whose name I have unaccountably
forgotten. The truth is—that the introduction
was attended, upon my part, with a degree of anxious
and tremulous embarrassment which operated to
prevent any definite impressions of either time or
place. I am constitutionally nervous—this, with
me, is a family failing, and I can't help it. In
especial, the slightest appearance of mystery—of
any point I cannot exactly comprehend—puts me
at once into a pitiable state of agitation.

There was something, as it were, remarkable—
yes, remarkable, although this is but a feeble term to

[figure description] Page 060.[end figure description]

express my full meaning—about the entire individuality
of the personage in question. What this
something was, however, I found it impossible to
say. He was, perhaps, six feet in height, and of a
presence singularly commanding. There was an
air distingué pervading the whole man, which spoke
of high breeding, and hinted at high birth. Upon
this topic—the topic of Smith's personal appearance—
I have a kind of melancholy satisfaction in being
minute. His head of hair would have done honor
to a Brutus—nothing could be more richly flowing,
or possess a brighter gloss. It was of a jetty black—
which was also the color, or more properly the
no color, of his unimaginable whiskers. You perceive
I cannot speak of these latter without enthusiasm;
it is not too much to say that they were
the handsomest pair of whiskers under the sun. At
all events, they encircled, and at times partially
overshadowed, a mouth utterly unequalled. Here
were the most entirely even, and the most brilliantly
white of all conceivable teeth. From between them,
upon every proper occasion, issued a voice of surpassing
clearness, melody, and strength. In the
matter of eyes, my acquaintance was, also, preeminently
endowed. Either one of such a pair was
worth a couple of the ordinary ocular organs. They
were of a deep hazel, exceedingly large and lustrous:
and there was perceptible about them, ever and
anon, just that amount of interesting obliquity which
gives pregnancy to expression.

The bust of the General was unquestionably the

[figure description] Page 061.[end figure description]

finest bust I ever saw. For your life you could not
have found a fault with its wonderful proportion.
This rare peculiarity set off to great advantage a
pair of shoulders which would have called up a blush
of conscious inferiority into the countenance of the
marble Apollo. I have a passion for fine shoulders,
and may say that I never beheld them in perfection
before. His arms altogether were admirably
modelled, and the fact of his wearing the right in a
sling, gave a greater decision of beauty to the left.
Nor were the lower limbs less marvellously superb.
These were, indeed, the ne plus ultra of good legs.
Every connoisseur in such matters admitted the legs
to be good. There was neither too much flesh, nor
too little—neither rudeness nor fragility. I could
not imagine a more graceful curve than that of the
os femoris, and there was just that due gentle
prominence in the rear of the fibula which goes to
the conformation of a properly proportioned calf.
I wish to God my young and talented friend Chiponchipino,
the sculptor, had but seen the legs of
Brevet Brigadier General John A. B. C. Smith.

But although men so absolutely fine-looking are
neither as plenty as reasons or blackberries, still I
could not bring myself to believe that the remarkable
something to which I alluded just now—that the
odd air of je ne sais quoi which hung about my
new acquaintance—lay altogether, or indeed at all,
in the supreme excellence of his bodily endowments.
Perhaps it might be traced to the manner—yet

[figure description] Page 062.[end figure description]

here again I could not pretend to be positive. There
was a primness, not to say stiffness, in his carriage—
a degree of measured, and, if I may so express it, of
rectangular precision, attending his every movement,
which, observed in a more petite figure, would have
had the least little savor in the world of affectation,
pomposity, or constraint, but which, noticed in a
gentleman of his undoubted dimension, was readily
placed to the account of reserve, hauteur, of a commendable
sense, in short, of what is due to the dignity
of colossal proportion.

The kind friend who presented me to General
Smith whispered in my ear, at the instant, some few
words of comment upon the man. He was a remarkable
man—a very remarkable man—indeed
one of the most remarkable men of the age. He
was an especial favorite, too, with the ladies—
chiefly on account of his high reputation for
courage.

“In that point he is unrivalled—indeed he is a
perfect desperado—a downright fire-eater, and no
mistake,” said my friend, here dropping his voice
excessively low, and thrilling me with the mystery
of his tone.

“A downright fire-eater, and no mistake—showed
that, I should say, to some purpose, in the late
tremendous swamp-fight away down south, with the
Bugaboo and Kickapoo Indians. (Here my friend
placed his forefinger to the side of his nose, and
opened his eyes to some extent.) Bless my soul!—

[figure description] Page 063.[end figure description]

blood and thunder, and all that!—prodigies of valor!—
heard of him, of course?—you know he's the
man”—

“Man alive, how do you do? why how are ye?
very glad to see ye, indeed!” here interrupted the
General himself, seizing my companian by the hand
as he drew near, and bowing stiffly, but profoundly,
as I was presented. I then thought, (and I think so
still,) that I never heard a clearer nor a stronger
voice, nor beheld a finer set of teeth—but I must
say that I was sorry for the interruption just at that
moment, as, owing to the whispers and insinuations
aforesaid, my interest had been greatly excited in
the hero of the Bugaboo and Kickapoo campaign.

However, the delightfully luminous conversation
of Brevet Brigadier General John A. B. C. Smith
soon completely dissipated this chagrin. My friend
leaving us immediately, we had quite a long tête-à-tête,
and I was not only pleased but really instructed. I
never heard a more fluent talker, or a man of greater
general information. With becoming modesty, he
forbore, nevertheless, to touch upon the theme I had
just then most at heart—I mean the mysterious
circumstances attending the Bugaboo war—and,
on my own part, what I conceive to be a proper
sense of delicacy forbade me to broach the subject,
although, in truth, I was exceedingly tempted to do
so. I perceived, too, that the gallant soldier preferred
topics of philosophical interest, and that he
delighted, especially, in commenting upon the rapid
march of mechanical invention. Indeed—lead him

[figure description] Page 064.[end figure description]

where I would—this was a point to which he invariably
came back.

“There is nothing at all like it,” he would say;
“we are a wonderful people, and live in a wonderful
age. Parachutes and rail-roads—man-traps and
spring-guns! Our steam-boats are upon every sea,
and the Nassau balloon packet is about to run regular
trips (fare either way only twenty pounds sterling)
between London and Timbuctoo. And who shall
calculate the immense influence upon social life—
upon arts—upon commerce—upon literature—
which will be the immediate result of the application
of the great principles of electro-magnetics? Nor is
this all, let me assure you! There is really no end
to the march of invention. The most wonderful—
the most ingenious—and let me add, Mr.—Mr.—
Thompson, I believe, is your name—let me add, I
say, the most useful—the most truly useful mechanical
contrivances, are daily springing up like
mushrooms, if I may so express myself, or, more
figuratively, like—grasshoppers—like grasshoppers,
Mr. Thompson—about us and—ah—around us!”

Thompson, to be sure, is not my name; but it is
needless to say that I left General Smith with a
heightened interest in the man, with an exalted
opinion of his conversational powers, and a deep
sense of the valuable privileges we enjoy in living in
this age of mechanical invention. My curiosity,
however, had not been altogether satisfied, and I
resolved to prosecute immediate inquiry among my
acquaintances touching the Brevet Brigadier General

[figure description] Page 065.[end figure description]

himself, and particularly respecting the tremendous
events in which he performed so conspicuous a part—
quorum pars magna fuit—during the Bugaboo
and Kickapoo campaign.

The first opportunity which presented itself, and
which (horresco referens) I did not in the least
scruple to seize, occurred at the church of the
Reverend Doctor Drummummupp, where I found
myself established, one Sunday, just at sermon time,
not only in the pew, but by the side, of that worthy and
communicative little friend of mine, Miss Tabitha T.
Thus seated, I congratulated myself, and with much
reason, upon the very flattering state of affairs.
If any person knew anything about Brevet Brigadier
General John A. B. C. Smith, that person, it
was clear to me, was Miss Tabitha T. We telegraphed
a few signals, and then commenced, sotto
voce, a brisk tête-à-tête.

“Smith!” said she, in reply to my very earnest
inquiry; “Smith!—why, not General John A. B. C.?
Bless me, I thought you knew all about him! This
is a wonderfully inventive age! Horrid affair that!—
a bloody set of wretches, those Kickapoos!—
fought like a hero—prodigies of valor—immortal
renown. Smith!—Brevet Brigadier General John
A. B. C.!—why, you know he's the man”—

“Man,” here broke in Doctor Drummummupp,
at the top of his voice, and with a thump that came
near knocking down the pulpit about our ears;
“man that is born of a woman hath but a short time
to live—he cometh up and is cut down like a

[figure description] Page 066.[end figure description]

flower!” I started to the extremity of the pew, and
perceived by the animated looks of the divine, that
the wrath which had proved so nearly fatal to the
pulpit had been excited by the whispers of the lady
and myself. There was no help for it—so I submitted
with a good grace, and listened, in all the
martyrdom of a dignified silence, to the balance of
that very capital discourse.

Next evening found me a somewhat late visitor at
the Rantipole theatre, where I felt sure of satisfying
my curiosity at once, by merely stepping into the
box of those exquisite specimens of affability and omniscience,
the Misses Arabella and Miranda Cognoscenti.
That fine tragedian, Climax, however, was doing
Iago to a very crowded house, and I experienced
some little difficulty in making my wishes understood;
especially, as our box was next to the slips,
and completely overlooked the stage.

“Smith?” said Miss Arabella, as she at length
comprehended the purport of my query; “Smith?—
why, not General John A. B. C.?”

“Smith?” inquired Miranda, musingly. “God
bless me, did you ever behold a finer figure?”

“Never, madam; but do tell me”—

“Or so inimitable grace?”

“Never, upon my word!—but pray inform
me”—

“Or so just an appreciation of stage effect?”

“Madam!”

[figure description] Page 067.[end figure description]

“Or a more delicate sense of the true beauties
of Shakspeare? Be so good as to look at that
leg!”

“The devil!” and I turned again to her sister.

“Smith?” said she, “why, not General John
A. B. C.? Horrid affair that, was'nt it?—great
wretches, those Bugaboos—savage and so on—
but we live in a wonderfully inventive age!—Smith!—
O yes! great man!—perfect desperado—immortal
renown—prodigies of valor! Never heard!
(This was given in a scream.) Bless my soul!—
why he's the man”—


—“mandragora,
Nor all the drowsy syrups of the world,
Shall ever medicine thee to that sweet sleep
Which thou owd'st yesterday!”
here roared out Climax just in my ear, and shaking
his fist in my face all the time, in a way that I
couldn't stand, and I wouldn't. I left the Misses
Cognoscenti immediately, and went behind the scenes
for the purpose of giving the scoundrel a sound
thrashing.

At the soirée of the lovely widow, Mrs. Kathleen
O'Trump, I was very confident that I should meet
with no similar disappointment. Accordingly, I
was no sooner seated at the card table, with my
pretty hostess for a partner, than I propounded those
questions whose solution had become a matter so
essential to my peace.

[figure description] Page 068.[end figure description]

“Smith?” said my partner, “why, not General
John A. B. C.? Horrid affair that, wasn't it?—
diamonds, did you say?—terrible wretches, those
Kickapoos!—we are playing whist, if you please,
Mr. Tattle—however, this is the age of invention,
most certainly—the age, one may say—the age
par excellence—speak French?—oh, quite a hero—
perfect desperado!—no hearts, Mr. Tattle!—I
don't believe it—immortal renown and all that—
prodigies of valor! Never heard!!—why, bless
me, he's the man”—

“Mann?—Captain Mann?” here screamed some
little feminine interloper from the farthest corner of
the room. “Are you talking about Captain Mann
and the duel?—oh, I must hear—do tell—go on,
Mrs. O'Trump!—do now go on!” And go on
Mrs. O'Trump did—all about a certain Captain
Mann who was either shot or hung, or should have
been both shot and hung. Yes! Mrs. O'Trump, she
went on, and I—I went off. There was no chance
of hearing anything farther that evening in regard
to Brevet Brigadier General John A. B. C. Smith.

Still, I consoled myself with the reflection that the
tide of ill luck would not run against me for ever,
and so determined to make a bold push for information
at the rout of that bewitching little angel, the
graceful Mrs. Pirouette.

“Smith?” said Mrs. P., as we twirled about
together in a pas de zephyr, “Smith?—why not
General John A. B. C.? Dreadful business that of
the Bugaboos, wasn't it?—terrible creatures, those

[figure description] Page 069.[end figure description]

Indians!—do turn out your toes, I really am ashamed
of you—man of great courage, poor fellow—but
this is a wonderful age for invention—O dear me,
I'm out of breath—quite a desperado—prodigies of
valor—never heard!!—can't believe it—I shall
have to sit down and tell you—Smith! why he's the
man”—

“Man-fred, I tell you!” here bawled out Miss
Bas-Bleu, as I led Mrs. Pirouette to a seat. “Did
ever any body hear the like? It's Man-fred, I say,
and not at all by any means Man-Friday.” Here
Miss Bas-Bleu beckoned to me in a very peremptory
manner; and I was obliged, will I nill I, to leave
Mrs. P. for the purpose of deciding a dispute touching
the title of a certain poetical drama of Lord
Byron's. Although I pronounced, with great promptness,
that the true title was Man-Friday, and not by
any means Man-fred, yet when I returned to seek
for Mrs. Pirouette she was not to be discovered, and
I made my retreat from the house in a very bitter
spirit of animosity against the whole race of the
Bas-Bleus.

Matters had now assumed a really serious aspect,
and I resolved to call at once upon my particular
friend, Mr. Theodore Sinivate—for I knew that
here at least I should get something like definite information.

“Smith?” said he, in his well known peculiar
way of drawling out his syllables; “Smith?—why,
not General John A—B—C.? Savage affair that
with the Kickapo-o-o-o-os, was'nt it? Say! don't

[figure description] Page 070.[end figure description]

you think so?—perfect despera-a-ado—great pity,
'pon my honor!—wonderfully inventive age!—
pro-o-odigies of valor! By the by, did you ever
hear about Captain Mann?”

“Captain Mann be d—d!” said I, “please to
go on with your story.”

“Hem!—oh well!—toute la même cho-o-ose, as
we say in France. Smith, eh? Brigadier General
John A—B—C.? I say—(here Mr. S. thought
proper to put his finger to the side of his nose)—I
say, you don't mean to insinuate now, really, and
truly, and conscientiously, that you don't know all
about that affair of Smith's as well as I do, eh?
Smith? John A—B—C.? Why, bless me, he's the
ma-a-an”—

“Mr. Sinivate,” said I, imploringly, “is he the
man in the mask?”

“No-o-o!” said he, looking wise, “nor the man in
the mo-o-o-on.”

This reply I considered a pointed and positive
insult, and I left the house at once in high dudgeon,
with a firm resolve to call my friend, Mr. Sinivate,
to a speedy account for his ungentlemanly conduct
and ill breeding.

In the meantime, however, I had no notion of
being thwarted touching the information I desired.
There was one resource left me yet. I would go to
the fountain head. I would call forthwith upon the
General himself, and demand, in explicit terms, a
solution of this abominable piece of mystery. Here
at least there should be no chance for equivocation.

[figure description] Page 071.[end figure description]

I would be plain, positive, peremptory—as short as
pie-crust—as concise as Tacitus or Montesquieu.

It was early when I called, and the General was
dressing; but I pleaded urgent business, and was
shown at once into his bed-room by an old negro
valet, who remained in attendance during my visit
As I entered the chamber, I looked about, of course,
for the occupant, but did not immediately perceive
him. There was a large and exceedingly odd-looking
bundle of something which lay close by my feet,
on the floor, and, as I was not in the best humour
in the world, I gave it a kick out of the way.

“Hem! ahem! rather civil that, I should say!”
said the bundle, in one of the smallest, the weakest,
and altogether the funniest little voices, between a
squeak and a whistle, that ever I heard in all the
days of my existence.

“Ahem! rather civil that, I should observe!”—I
fairly shouted with terror, and made off at a tangent,
into the farthest extremity of the room.

“God bless me, my dear fellow,” here again
whistled the bundle, “what—what—what—why,
what is the matter? I really believe you don't know
me at all.”

“No—no—no!” said I, getting as close to the
wall as possible, and holding up both hands in the
way of expostulation; “don't know you—know you—
know you—don't know you at all! Where's
your master?” here I gave an impatient squint towards
the negro, still keeping a tight eye upon the
bundle.

[figure description] Page 072.[end figure description]

“He! he! he! he-aw! he-aw!” cachinnated that
delectable specimen of the human family, with his
mouth fairly extended from ear to ear, and with his
forefinger held up close to his face, and levelled at
the object of my apprehension, as if he was taking
aim at it with a pistol.

“He! he! he! he-aw! he-aw! he-aw!—what? you
want Mass Smif? Why, dar's him!”

What could I say to all this—what could I?” I
staggered into an arm-chair, and, with staring eyes
and open mouth, awaited the solution of the wonder.

“Strange you shouldn't know me though, isn't
it?” presently re-squeaked the bundle, which I now
perceived was performing, upon the floor, some inexplicable
evolution, very analogous to the drawing
on of a stocking. There was only a single leg,
however, apparent.

“Strange you shouldn't know me, though, isn't it?
Pompey, bring me that leg!” Here Pompey handed
the bundle a very capital cork leg, all ready dressed,
which it screwed on in a trice, and then it stood upright
before my eyes. Devil the word could I say.

“And a bloody action it was,” continued the thing,
as if in a soliloquy; “but then one musn't fight with
the Bugaboos and Kickapoos, and think of coming
off with a mere scratch. Pompey, I'll thank you
now for that arm. Thomas (turning to me) is decidedly
the best hand at a cork leg; he lives in Race
street, No. 79—stop, I'll give you his card; but if
you should ever want an arm, my dear fellow, you

[figure description] Page 073.[end figure description]

must really let me recommend you to Bishop.”
Here Pompey screwed on an arm.

“We had rather hot work of it, that you may
say. Now, you dog, slip on my shoulders and bosom—
Pettitt makes the best shoulders, but for a bosom
you will have to go to Ducrow.”

“Bosom!” said I.

“Pompey, will you never be ready with that
wig? Scalping is a rough process after all; but
then you can procure such a capital scratch at De
L'Orme's.”

“Scratch!”

“Now, you nigger, my teeth! For a good set of
these you had better go to Parmly's at once; high
prices, but excellent work. I swallowed some very
capital articles, though, when the big Bugaboo
rammed me down with the butt end of his rifle.”

“Butt end!—ram down!—my eye!”

“O yes, by the by, my eye—here, Pompey, you
scamp, screw it in! Those Kickapoos are not so
very slow at a gouge—but he's a belied man, that
Dr. Williams, after all; you can't imagine how well
I see with the eyes of his make.”

I now began very clearly to perceive that the
object before me was nothing more or less than my
new acquaintance, Brevet Brigadier General John
A. B. C. Smith. The manipulations of Pompey had
made, I must confess, a very striking difference in
the appearance of the personal man. The voice,
however, still puzzled me no little; but even this apparent
mystery was speedily cleared up.

[figure description] Page 074.[end figure description]

“Pompey, you black rascal,” squeaked the General,
“I really do believe you would let me go out without
my palate.”

Hereupon the negro, grumbling out an apology,
went up to his master, opened his mouth with the
knowing air of a horse-jockey, and adjusted therein a
somewhat singular looking machine, in a very dexterous
manner that I could not altogether comprehend.
The alteration, however, in the whole
expression of the countenance of the General was instantaneous
and surprising. When he again spoke,
his voice had resumed the whole of that rich melody
and strength which I had noticed upon our original
introduction.

“D—n the vagabonds!” said he, in so clear a
tone that I positively started at the change, “d—n
the vagabonds! they not only knocked in the roof of
my mouth, but took the trouble to cut off at least
seven-eighths of my tongue. There isn't Bonfanti's
equal, however, in America, for really good articles of
this description. I can recommend you to him with
confidence, (here the General bowed,) and assure
you that I have the greatest pleasure in so doing.”

I acknowledged this kindness in my best manner,
and now took leave of my friend at once, with a
perfect understanding of the state of affairs—with a
full comprehension of the mystery which had troubled
me so long. It was evident. It was a clear case.
Brevet Brigadier General John A. B. C. Smith was
the man—was

p320-080 THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF USHER.

[figure description] Page 075.[end figure description]

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, through a singularly dreary tract
of country; and at length found myself, as the shades
of the 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 insufferable;
for the feeling was unrelieved by any of that
half-pleasurable, because poetic, sentiment, with which
the mind usually receives even the sternest natural
images of the desolate or terrible. I looked upon
the scene before me—upon the mere house, and the
simple landscape features of the domain—upon the
bleak walls—upon the vacant eye-like 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 reveller
upon opium—the bitter lapse into common life—the

[figure description] Page 076.[end figure description]

hideous dropping off of the veil. 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 reason, and
the analysis, of this power, lie 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 re-modelled
and inverted images of the gray sedge, and the
ghastly tree-stems, and the vacant and eye-like
windows.

Nevertheless, in this mansion of gloom I now proposed
to myself a sojourn of some weeks. Its proprietor,
Roderick Usher, had been one of my boon
companions in boyhood; but many years had elapsed
since our last meeting. A letter, however, had

[figure description] Page 077.[end figure description]

lately reached me in a distant part of the country—
a letter from him—which, in its wildly importunate
nature, had admitted of no other than a personal
reply. The MS. gave evidence of nervous agitation.
The writer spoke of acute bodily illness—of a
pitiable mental idiosyncrasy which oppressed him—
and of an earnest desire to see me, as his best, and
indeed, his only personal friend, with a view of
attempting, by the cheerfulness of my society, some
alleviation of his malady. It was the manner in
which all this, and much more, was said—it was
the apparent heart that went with his request—
which allowed me no room for hesitation—and I
accordingly obeyed, what I still considered a very
singular summons, forthwith.

Although, as boys, we had been even intimate associates,
yet I really knew little of my friend. His
reserve had been always excessive and habitual. I
was aware, however, that his very ancient family had
been noted, time out of mind, for a peculiar sensibility
of temperament, displaying itself, through long ages,
in many works of exalted art, and manifested, of
late, in repeated deeds of munificent yet unobtrusive
charity, as well as in a passionate devotion to the
intricacies, perhaps even more than to the orthodox
and easily recognisable beauties, of musical science.
I had learned, too, the very remarkable fact, that the
stem of the Usher race, all time-honored as it was,
had put forth, at no period, any enduring branch;
in other words, that the entire family lay in the
direct line of descent, and had always, with very

[figure description] Page 078.[end figure description]

trifling and very temporary variation, so lain. It
was this deficiency, I considered, while running over
in thought the perfect keeping of the character of
the premises with the accredited character of the
people, and while speculating upon the possible influence
which the one, in the long lapse of centuries,
might have exercised upon the other—it was this
deficiency, perhaps, of collateral issue, and the consequent
undeviating transmission, from sire to son,
of the patrimony with the name, which had, at
length, so identified the two as to merge the original
title of the estate in the quaint and equivocal appellation
of the “House of Usher”—an appellation which
seemed to include, in the minds of the peasantry who
used it, both the family and the family mansion.

I have said that the sole effect of my somewhat
childish experiment, of looking down within the tarn,
had been to deepen the first singular impression.
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 around
about the whole mansion and domain there hung an

[figure description] Page 079.[end figure description]

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, in the form of an inelastic vapor or
gas—dull, sluggish, faintly discernible, and leadenhued.
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. The discoloration
of ages had been great. Minute fungi over-spread
the whole exterior, hanging in a fine tangled
web-work from the eaves. Yet all this 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 utterly porous, and evidently
decayed condition of the individual stones. In this
there was much that reminded me of the specious
totality of old wood-work 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 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 zig-zag direction, until it became lost in the
sullen waters of the tarn.

Noticing these things, I rode over a short cause-way
to the house. A servant in waiting took my

[figure description] Page 080.[end figure description]

horse, and I entered the Gothic archway of the hall.
A valet, of stealthy step, thence conducted me, in
silence, through many dark and intricate passages
in my progress to the studio of his master. Much
that I encountered on the way contributed, I know
not how, to heighten the vague sentiments of which
I have already spoken. While the objects around
me—while the carvings of the ceilings, the sombre
tapestries of the walls, the ebon blackness of the
floors, and the phantasmagoric armorial trophies
which rattled as I strode, were but matters to which,
or to such as which, I had been accustomed from
my infancy—while I hesitated not to acknowledge
how familiar was all this—I still wondered to find
how unfamiliar were the fancies which ordinary
images were stirring up. On one of the staircases, I
met the physician of the family. His countenance,
I thought, wore a mingled expression of low cunning
and perplexity. He accosted me with trepidation
and passed on. The valet now threw open a door
and ushered me into the presence of his master.

The room in which I found myself was very large
and excessively lofty. The windows were long,
narrow, and pointed, and at so vast a distance from
the black oaken floor as to be altogether inaccessible
from within. Feeble gleams of encrimsoned light
made their way through the trelliced panes, and
served to render sufficiently distinct the more
prominent objects around; the eye, however, struggled
in vain to reach the remoter angles of the
chamber, or the recesses of the vaulted and fretted

[figure description] Page 081.[end figure description]

ceiling. Dark draperies hung upon the walls. The
general furniture was profuse, comfortless, antique,
and tattered. Many books and musical instruments
lay scattered about, but failed to give any vitality to
the scene. I felt that I breathed an atmosphere of
sorrow. An air of stern, deep, and irredeemable
gloom hung over and pervaded all.

Upon my entrance, Usher arose from a sofa upon
which he had been lying at full length, and greeted
me with a vivacious warmth which had much in it,
I at first thought, of an overdone cordiality—of the
constrained effort of the ennuyé man of the world.
A glance, however, at his countenance convinced
me of his perfect sincerity. We sat down; and for
some moments, while he spoke not, I gazed upon
him with a feeling half of pity, half of awe. Surely,
man had never before so terribly altered, in so brief
a period, as had Roderick Usher! It was with difficulty
that I could bring myself to admit the identity
of the wan being before me with the companion of
my early boyhood. Yet the character of his face had
been at all times remarkable. A cadaverousness of
complexion; an eye large, liquid, and luminous beyond
comparison; lips somewhat thin and very
pallid, but of a surpassingly beautiful curve; a nose
of a delicate Hebrew model, but with a breadth of
nostril unusual in similar formations; a finely moulded
chin, speaking, in its want of prominence, of a want
of moral energy; hair of a more than web-like softness
and tenuity; these features, with an inordinate
expansion above the regions of the temple, made up

[figure description] Page 082.[end figure description]

altogether a countenance not easily to be forgotten.
And now in the mere exaggeration of the prevailing
character of these features, and of the expression
they were wont to convey, lay so much of change
that I doubted to whom I spoke. The now ghastly
pallor of the skin, and the now miraculous lustre of
the eye, above all things startled and even awed me.
The silken hair, too, had been suffered to grow all
unheeded, and as, in its wild gossamer texture, it
floated rather than fell about the face, I could not,
even with effort, connect its arabesque expression
with any idea of simply humanity.

In the manner of my friend I was at once struck with
an incoherence—an inconsistency; and I soon found
this to arise from a series of feeble and futile struggles
to overcome an habitual trepidancy, an excessive
nervous agitation. For something of this nature I
had indeed been prepared, no less by his letter, than
by reminiscences of certain boyish traits, and by
conclusions deduced from his peculiar physical conformation
and temperament. His action was alternately
vivacious and sullen. His voice varied rapidly
from a tremulous indecision (when the animal spirits
seemed utterly in abeyance) to that species of energetic
concision—that abrupt, weighty, unhurried,
and hollow-sounding enunciation—that leaden, selfbalanced
and perfectly modulated guttural utterance,
which may be observed in the moments of the intensest
excitement of the lost drunkard, or the irreclaimable
eater of opium.

It was thus that he spoke of the object of my visit,

[figure description] Page 083.[end figure description]

of his earnest desire to see me, and of the solace he
expected me to afford him. He entered, at some
length, into what he conceived to be the nature of
his malady. It was, he said, a constitutional and a
family evil, and one for which he despaired to find a
remedy—a mere nervous affection, he immediately
added, which would undoubtedly soon pass off. It
displayed itself in a host of unnatural sensations.
Some of these, as he detailed them, interested and
bewildered me—although, perhaps, the terms, and
the general manner of the narration had their weight.
He suffered much from a morbid acuteness of the
senses; the most insipid food was alone endurable;
he could wear only garments of certain texture; the
odors of all flowers were oppressive; his eyes were
tortured by even a faint light; and there were but
peculiar sounds, and these from stringed instruments,
which did not inspire him with horror.

To an anomalous species of terror I found him
a bounden slave. “I shall perish,” said he, “I
must perish in this deplorable folly. Thus, thus, and
not otherwise, shall I be lost. I dread the events
of the future, not in themselves, but in their results.
I shudder at the thought of any, even the most
trivial, incident, which may operate upon this intolerable
agitation of soul. I have, indeed, no abhorrence
of danger, except in its absolute effect—
in terror. In this unnerved—in this pitiable condition—
I feel that I must inevitably abandon life and
reason together in my struggles with some fatal
demon of fear.”

[figure description] Page 084.[end figure description]

I learned, moreover, at intervals, and through broken
and equivocal hints, another singular feature of his
mental condition. He was enchained by certain
superstitious impressions in regard to the dwelling
which he tenanted, and from which, for many years,
he had never ventured forth—in regard to an influence
whose supposititious force was conveyed in
terms too shadowy here to be restated—an influence
which some peculiarities in the mere form and substance
of his family mansion, had, by dint of long
sufferance, he said, obtained over his spirit—an
effect which the physique of the gray walls and
turrets, and of the dim tarn into which they all looked
down, had, at length, brought about upon the morale
of his existence.

He admitted, however, although with hesitation,
that much of the peculiar gloom which thus afflicted
him could be traced to a more natural and far more
palpable origin—to the severe and long-continued
illness—indeed to the evidently approaching dissolution—
of a tenderly beloved sister; his sole companion
for long years—his last and only relative on
earth. “Her decease,” he said, with a bitterness
which I can never forget, “would leave him (him
the hopeless and the frail) the last of the ancient race
of the Ushers.” As he spoke the lady Madeline (for
so was she called) passed slowly through a remote
portion of the apartment, and, without having noticed
my presence, disappeared. I regarded her with an
utter astonishment not unmingled with dread. Her
figure, her air, her features—all, in their very

[figure description] Page 085.[end figure description]

minutest development were those—were identically,
(I can use no other sufficient term,) were identically
those of the Roderick Usher who sat beside me. A
feeling of stupor oppressed me, as my eyes followed
her retreating steps. As a door, at length, closed
upon her exit, my glance sought instinctively and
eagerly the countenance of the brother—but he had
buried his face in his hands, and I could only perceive
that a far more than ordinary wanness had overspread
the emaciated fingers through which trickled many
passionate tears.

The disease of the lady Madeline had long baffled
the skill of her physicians. A settled apathy, a
gradual wasting away of the person, and frequent
although transient affections of a partially cataleptical
character, were the unusual diagnosis. Hitherto
she had steadily borne up against the pressure of her
malady, and had not betaken herself finally to bed;
but, on the closing in of the evening of my arrival at
the house, she succumbed, as her brother told me at
night with inexpressible agitation, to the prostrating
power of the destroyer—and I learned that the
glimpse I had obtained of her person would thus
probably be the last I should obtain—that the
lady, at least while living, would be seen by me no
more.

For several days ensuing, her name was unmentioned
by either Usher or myself; and during this period,
I was busied in earnest endeavors to alleviate the
melancholy of my friend. We painted and read
together—or I listened, as if in a dream, to the wild

[figure description] Page 086.[end figure description]

improvisations of his speaking guitar. And thus, as
a closer and still closer intimacy admitted me more
unreservedly into the recesses of his spirit, the more
bitterly did I perceive the futility of all attempt at
cheering a mind from which darkness, as if an inherent
positive quality, poured forth upon all objects of
the moral and physical universe, in one unceasing
radiation of gloom.

I shall ever bear about me a memory of the many
solemn hours I thus spent alone with the master of
the House of Usher. Yet I should fail in any attempt
to convey an idea of the exact character of the
studies, or of the occupations, in which he involved
me, or led me the way. An excited and highly distempered
ideality threw a sulphurous lustre over all.
His long improvised dirges will ring forever in my
ears. Among other things, I bear painfully in mind
a certain singular perversion and amplification of the
wild air of the last waltz of Von Weber. From the
paintings over which his elaborate fancy brooded,
and which grew, touch by touch, into vaguenesses
at which I shuddered the more thrillingly, because I
shuddered knowing not why, from these paintings
(vivid as their images now are before me) I would
in vain endeavor to educe more than a small portion
which should lie within the compass of merely written
words. By the utter simplicity, by the nakedness of
his designs, he arrested and overawed attention. If
ever mortal painted an idea, that mortal was Roderick
Usher. For me at least—in the circumstances
then surrounding me—there arose out of the pure

[figure description] Page 087.[end figure description]

abstractions which the hypochondriac contrived to
throw upon his canvas, an intensity of intolerable
awe, no shadow of which felt I ever yet in the contemplation
of the certainly glowing yet too concrete
reveries of Fuseli.

One of the phantasmagoric conceptions of my friend,
partaking not so rigidly of the spirit of abstraction,
may be shadowed forth, although feebly, in words.
A small picture presented the interior of an immensely
long and rectangular vault or tunnel, with low walls,
smooth, white, and without interruption or device.
Certain accessory points of the design served well to
convey the idea that this excavation lay at an exceeding
depth below the surface of the earth. No
outlet was observed in any portion of its vast extent,
and no torch, or other artificial source of light was
discernible—yet a flood of intense rays rolled
throughout, and bathed the whole in a ghastly and
inappropriate splendor.

I have just spoken of that morbid condition of the
auditory nerve which rendered all music intolerable
to the sufferer, with the exception of certain effects
of stringed instruments. It was, perhaps, the narrow
limits to which he thus confined himself upon the
guitar, which gave birth, in great measure, to the
fantastic character of his performances. But the
fervid facility of his impromptus could not be so accounted
for. They must have been, and were, in the
notes, as well as in the words of his wild fantasias,
(for he not unfrequently accompanied himself with
rhymed verbal improvisations,) the result of that

[figure description] Page 088.[end figure description]

intense mental collectedness and concentration to
which I have previously alluded as observable only
in particular moments of the highest artificial excitement.
The words of one of these rhapsodies I have
easily borne away in memory. I was, perhaps, the
more forcibly impressed with it, as he gave it, because,
in the under or mystic current of its meaning, I
fancied that I perceived, and for the first time, a full
consciousness on the part of Usher, of the tottering
of his lofty reason upon her throne. The verses,
which were entitled “The Haunted Palace,” ran very
nearly, if not accurately, thus:

[figure description] Page 089.[end figure description]

[figure description] Page 090.[end figure description]

I well remember that suggestions arising from
this ballad led us into a train of thought wherein there
became manifest an opinion of Usher's which I mention
not so much on account of its novelty, (for other
men have thought thus,) as on account of the pertinacity
with which he maintained it. This opinion,
in its general form, was that of the sentience of all
vegetable things. But, in his disordered fancy, the
idea had assumed a more daring character, and
trespassed, under certain conditions, upon the kingdom
of inorganization. I lack words to express the
full extent, or the earnest abandon of his persuasion.
The belief, however, was connected (as I have previously
hinted) with the gray stones of the home of
his forefathers. The conditions of the sentience had
been here, he imagined, fulfilled in the method of collocation
of these stones—in the order of their arrangement,
as well as in that of the many fungi
which overspread them, and of the decayed trees
which stood around—above all, in the long undisturbed
endurance of this arrangement, and in its
reduplication in the still waters of the tarn. Its evidence—
the evidence of the sentience—was to be
seen, he said, (and I here started as he spoke,) in
the gradual yet certain condensation of an atmosphere
of their own about the waters and the walls.
The result was discoverable, he added, in that silent,

[figure description] Page 091.[end figure description]

yet importunate and terrible influence which for
centuries had moulded the destinies of his family,
and which made him what I now saw him—what
he was. Such opinions need no comment, and I
will make none.

Our books—the books which, for years, had
formed no small portion of the mental existence of
the invalid—were, as might be supposed, in strict
keeping with this character of phantasm. We pored
together over such works as the Ververt et Chartreuse
of Gresset; the Belphegor of Machiavelli; the
Selenography of Brewster; the Heaven and Hell of
Swedenborg; the Subterranean Voyage of Nicholas
Klimm de Holberg; the Chiromancy of Robert Flud,
of Jean d'Indaginé, and of De la Chambre; the
Journey into the Blue Distance of Tieck; and the
City of the Sun of Campanella. One favorite volume
was a small octavo edition of the Directorium Inquisitorium,
by the Dominican Eymeric de Gironne;
and there were passages in Pomponius Mela, about
the old African Satyrs and Ægipans, over which
Usher would sit dreaming for hours. His chief
delight, however, was found in the earnest and repeated
perusal of an exceedingly rare and curious
book in quarto Gothic—the manual of a forgotten
church—the Vigilae Mortuorum secundum Chorum
Ecclesiae Maguntinae.

I could not help thinking of the wild ritual of this
work, and of its probable influence upon the hypochondriac,
when, one evening, having informed me
abruptly that the lady Madeline was no more, he

[figure description] Page 092.[end figure description]

stated his intention of preserving her corpse for a
fortnight, (previously to its final interment,) in one of
the numerous vaults within the main walls of the
building. The wordly reason, however, assigned
for this singular proceeding, was one which I did
not feel at liberty to dispute. The brother had been
led to his resolution (so he told me) by considerations
of the unusual character of the malady of the deceased,
of certain obtrusive and eager inquiries on
the part of her medical men, and of the remote and
exposed situation of the burial-ground of the family.
I will not deny that when I called to mind the sinister
countenance of the person whom I met upon the
staircase, on the day of my arrival at the house, I
had no desire to oppose what I regarded as at best
but a harmless, and not by any means an unnatural,
precaution.

At the request of Usher, I personally aided him in
the arrangements for the temporary entombment.
The body having been encoffined, we two alone bore
it to its rest. The vault in which we placed it (and
which had been so long unopened that our torches,
half smothered in its oppressive atmosphere, gave us
little opportunity for investigation) was small, damp,
and entirely without means of admission for light;
lying, at great depth, immediately beneath that portion
of the building in which was my own sleeping
apartment. It had been used, apparently, in remote
feudal times, for the worst purposes of a donjon-keep,
and, in later days, as a place of deposit for powder,
or other highly combustible substance, as a portion

[figure description] Page 093.[end figure description]

of its floor, and the whole interior of a long archway
through which we reached it, were carefully sheathed
with copper. The door, of massive iron, had been,
also, similarly protected. Its immense weight caused
an unusually sharp grating sound, as it moved upon
its hinges.

Having deposited our mournful burden upon tressels
within this region of horror, we partially turned
aside the yet unscrewed lid of the coffin, and looked
upon the face of the tenant. The exact similitude
between the brother and sister even here again
startled and confounded me. Usher, divining, perhaps,
my thoughts, murmured out some few words
from which I learned that the deceased and himself
had been twins, and that sympathies of a scarcely
intelligible nature had always existed between them.
Our glances, however, rested not long upon the dead—
for we could not regard her unawed. The disease
which had thus entombed the lady in the maturity
of youth, had left, as usual in all maladies of a strictly
cataleptical character, the mockery of a faint blush
upon the bosom and the face, and that suspiciously
lingering smile upon the lip which is so terrible in
death. We replaced and screwed down the lid, and,
having secured the door of iron, made our way, with
toil, into the scarcely less gloomy apartments of the
upper portion of the house.

And now, some days of bitter grief having elapsed,
an observable change came over the features of the
mental disorder of my friend. His ordinary manner
had vanished. His ordinary occupations were

[figure description] Page 094.[end figure description]

neglected or forgotten. He roamed from chamber
to chamber with hurried, unequal, and objectless
step. The pallor of his countenance had assumed,
if possible, a more ghastly hue—but the luminousness
of his eye had utterly gone out. The once
occasional huskiness of his tone was heard no more;
and a tremulous quaver, as if of extreme terror,
habitually characterized his utterance.—There were
times, indeed, when I thought his unceasingly agitated
mind was laboring with an oppressive secret, to divulge
which he struggled for the necessary courage.
At times, again, I was obliged to resolve all into the
mere inexplicable vagaries of madness, as I beheld
him gazing upon vacancy for long hours, in an attitude
of the profoundest attention, as if listening to
some imaginary sound. It was no wonder that his
condition terrified—that it infected me. I felt creeping
upon me, by slow yet certain degrees, the wild
influences of his own fantastic yet impressive superstitions.

It was, most especially, upon retiring to bed late
in the night of the seventh or eighth day after the
placing of the lady Madeline within the donjon, that
I experienced the full power of such feelings. Sleep
came not near my couch—while the hours waned
and waned away. I struggled to reason off the
nervousness which had dominion over me. I endeavoured
to believe that much, if not all of what I
felt, was due to the phantasmagoric influence of the
gloomy furniture of the room—of the dark and
tattered draperies, which, tortured into motion by

[figure description] Page 095.[end figure description]

the breath of a rising tempest, swayed fitfully to and
fro upon the walls, and rustled uneasily about the
decorations of the bed. But my efforts were fruitless.
An irrepressible tremor gradually pervaded
my frame; and, at length, there sat upon my very
heart an incubus of utterly causeless alarm. Shaking
this off with a gasp and a struggle, I uplifted
myself upon the pillows, and, peering earnestly within
the intense darkness of the chamber, harkened—
I know not why, except that an instinctive spirit
prompted me—to certain low and indefinite sounds
which came, through the pauses of the storm, at
long intervals, I knew not whence. Overpowered
by an intense sentiment of horror, unaccountable yet
unendurable, I threw on my clothes with haste, for
I felt that I should sleep no more during the night,
and endeavored to arouse myself from the pitiable
condition into which I had fallen, by pacing rapidly
to and fro through the apartment.

I had taken but few turns in this manner, when a
light step on an adjoining staircase arrested my attention.
I presently recognised it as that of Usher.
In an instant afterwards he rapped, with a gentle
touch, at my door, and entered, bearing a lamp.
His countenance was, as usual, cadaverously wan—
but there was a species of mad hilarity in his eyes—
an evidently restrained hysteria in his whole demeanor.
His air appalled me—but anything was
preferable to the solitude which I had so long endured,
and I even welcomed his presence as a relief.

“And you have not seen it?” he said abruptly,

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after having stared about him for some moments in
silence—“you have not then seen it?—but, stay!
you shall.” Thus speaking, and having carefully
shaded his lamp, he hurried to one of the gigantic
casements, and threw it freely open to the storm.

The impetuous fury of the entering gust nearly
lifted us from our feet. It was, indeed, a tempestuous
yet sternly beautiful night, and one wildly singular
in its terror and its beauty. A whirlwind had apparently
collected its force in our vicinity; for there
were frequent and violent alterations in the direction
of the wind; and the exceeding density of the clouds
(which hung so low as to press upon the turrets of
the house) did not prevent our perceiving the life-like
velocity with which they flew careering from all
points against each other, without passing away into
the distance. I say that even their exceeding density
did not prevent our perceiving this—yet we had no
glimpse of the moon or stars—nor was there any
flashing forth of the lightning. But the under surfaces
of the huge masses of agitated vapor, as well
as all terrestrial objects immediately around us, were
glowing in the unnatural light of a faintly luminous
and distinctly visible gaseous exhalation which hung
about and enshrouded the mansion.

“You must not—you shall not behold this!” said
I, shudderingly, to Usher, as I led him, with a gentle
violence, from the window to a seat. “These appearances,
which bewilder you, are merely electrical
phenomena not uncommon—or it may be that they
have their ghastly origin in the rank miasma of the

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tarn. Let us close this casement—the air is chilling
and dangerous to your frame. Here is one of
your favorite romances. I will read, and you shall
listen—and so we will pass away this terrible night
together.

The antique volume which I had taken up was the
“Mad Trist” of Sir Launcelot Canning—but I had
called it a favorite of Usher's more in sad jest than
in earnest; for, in truth, there is little in its uncouth
and unimaginative prolixity which could have had
interest for the lofty and spiritual ideality of my friend.
It was, however, the only book immediately at hand;
and I indulged a vague hope that the excitement
which now agitated the hypochondriac might find
relief (for the history of mental disorder is full of
similar anomalies) even in the extremeness of the
folly which I should read. Could I have judged, indeed
by the wild overstrained air of vivacity with
which he hearkened, or apparently hearkened, to the
words of the tale, I might have well congratulated
myself upon the success of my design.

I had arrived at that well-known portion of the
story where Ethelred, the hero of the Trist, having
sought in vain for peaceable admission into the
dwelling of the hermit, proceeds to make good an
entrance by force. Here, it will be remembered, the
words of the narrative run thus:—

“And Ethelred, who was by nature of a doughty
heart, and who was now mighty withal, on account
of the powerfulness of the wine which he had drunken,
waited no longer to hold parley with the hermit, who,

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in sooth, was of an obstinate and maliceful turn, but,
feeling the rain upon his shoulders, and fearing the
rising of the tempest, uplifted his mace outright, and,
with blows, made quickly room in the plankings of the
door for his gauntleted hand, and now pulling therewith
sturdily, he so cracked, and ripped, and tore all
asunder, that the noise of the dry and hollow-sounding
wood alarummed and reverberated throughout
the forest.”

At the termination of this sentence I started, and
for a moment, paused; for it appeared to me (although
I at once concluded that my excited fancy had deceived
me)—it appeared to me that, from some
very remote portion of the mansion or of its vicinity,
there came, indistinctly, to my ears, what might have
been, in its exact similarity of character, the echo
(but a stifled and dull one certainly) of the very
cracking and ripping sound which Sir Launcelot had
so particularly described. It was, beyond doubt, the
coincidence alone which had arrested my attention;
for, amid the rattling of the sashes of the casements,
and the ordinary commingled noises of the still increasing
storm, the sound, in itself, had nothing, surely,
which should have interested or disturbed me. I
continued the story.

“But the good champion Ethelred, now entering
within the door, was sore enraged and amazed to
perceive no signal of the maliceful hermit; but, in
the stead thereof, a dragon of a scaly and prodigious
demeanor, and of a fiery tongue, which sate in guard
before a palace of gold, with a floor of silver; and

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upon the wall there hung a shield of shining brass
with this legend enwritten—


Who entereth herein, a conqueror hath bin,
Who slayeth the dragon the shield he shall win.
And Ethelred uplifted his mace, and struck upon the
head of the dragon, which fell before him, and gave
up his pesty breath, with a shriek so horrid and
harsh, and withal so piercing, that Ethelred had fain
to close his ears with his hands against the dreadful
noise of it, the like whereof was never before
heard.”

Here again I paused abruptly, and now with a
feeling of wild amazement—for there could be no
doubt whatever that, in this instance, I did actually
hear (although from what direction it proceeded
I found it impossible to say) a low and apparently
distant, but harsh, protracted, and most unusual
screaming or grating sound—the exact counterpart
of what my fancy had already conjured up as the
sound of the dragon's unnatural shriek as described
by the romancer.

Oppressed, as I certainly was, upon the occurrence
of this second and most extraordinary coincidence,
by a thousand conflicting sensations, in which wonder
and extreme terror were predominant, I still retained
sufficient presence of mind to avoid exciting, by any
observation, the sensitive nervousness of my companion.
I was by no means certain that he had
noticed the sounds in question; although, assuredly,
a strange alteration had, during the last few minutes,

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taken place in his demeanor. From a position
fronting my own, he had gradually brought round
his chair, so as to sit with his face to the door of the
chamber, and thus I could but partially perceive his
features, although I saw that his lips trembled as if
he were murmuring inaudibly. His head had dropped
upon his breast—yet I knew that he was not asleep,
from the wide and rigid opening of the eye as I
caught a glance of it in profile. The motion of his
body, too, was at variance with this idea—for he
rocked from side to side with a gentle yet constant
and uniform sway. Having rapidly taken notice of
all this, I resumed the narrative of Sir Launcelot,
which thus proceeded:—

“And now, the champion, having escaped from the
terrible fury of the dragon, bethinking himself of the
brazen shield, and of the breaking up of the enchantment
which was upon it, removed the carcass from
out of the way before him, and approached valorously
over the silver pavement of the castle to where the
shield was upon the wall; which in sooth tarried
not for his full coming, but fell down at his feet upon
the silver floor, with a mighty great and terrible
ringing sound.”

No sooner had these syllables passed my lips, than—
as if a shield of brass had indeed, at the moment,
fallen heavily upon a floor of silver—I became aware
of a distinct, hollow, metallic, and clangorous, yet
apparently muffled reverberation. Completely unnerved,
I started convulsively to my feet; but the
measured rocking movement of Usher was

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undisturbed. I rushed to the chair in which he sat. His
eyes were bent fixedly before him, and throughout
his whole countenance there reigned a more than
stony rigidity. But, as I laid my hand upon his
shoulder, there came a strong shudder over his frame;
a sickly smile quivered about his lips; and I saw that
he spoke in a low, hurried, and gibbering murmur,
as if unconscious of my presence. Bending closely
over his person, I at length drank in the hideous
import of his words.

“Not hear it?—yes, I hear it, and have heard it.
Long—long—long—many minutes, many hours,
many days, have I heard it—yet I dared not—oh,
pity me, miserable wretch that I am!—I dared not—
I dared not speak! We have put her living in
the tomb! Said I not that my senses were acute?
I now tell you that I heard her first feeble movements
in the hollow coffin. I heard them—many, many
days ago—yet I dared not—I dared not speak!
And now—to-night—Ethelred—ha! ha!—the
breaking of the hermit's door, and the death-cry of
the dragon, and the clangor of the shield—say,
rather, the rending of the coffin, and the grating of
the iron hinges, and her struggles within the coppered
archway of the vault! Oh whither shall I fly?
Will she not be here anon? Is she not hurrying to
upbraid me for my haste? Have I not heard her
footsteps on the stair? Do I not distinguish that
heavy and horrible beating of her heart? Madman!”—
here he sprung violently to his feet, and shrieked
out his syllables, as if in the effort he were giving up

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his soul—“Madman! I tell you that she now
stands without the door!”

As if in the superhuman energy of his utterance
there had been found the potency of a spell—the
huge antique pannels to which the speaker pointed,
threw slowly back, upon the instant, their ponderous
and ebony jaws. It was the work of the rushing
gust—but then without those doors there did stand
the lofty and enshrouded figure of the lady Madeline
of Usher. There was blood upon her white robes,
and the evidence of some bitter struggle upon every
portion of her emaciated frame. For a moment she
remained trembling and reeling to and fro upon the
threshold—then, with a low moaning cry, fell
heavily inward upon the person of her brother, and
in her horrible and now final death-agonies, bore him
to the floor a corpse, and a victim to the terrors he
had dreaded.

From that chamber, and from that mansion, I fled
aghast. The storm was still abroad in all its wrath
as I found myself 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 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

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satellite burst 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.”

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