The Fall of the House of Usher Quotes

“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!”
― Edgar Alan Poe, The Fall of the House of Usher

“His heart is a suspended lute; As soon as you touch it, it resonates.”
― Edgar Allan Poe, The Fall of the House of Usher

“I was forced to fall back upon the unsatisfactory conclusion, that while, beyond doubt, there are combinations of very simple natural objects which have the power of thus affecting us, still the analysis of this power lies among considerations beyond our depth. It was possible, I reflected, that a mere different arrangement of the particulars of the scene, of the details of the picture, would be sufficient to modify, or perhaps to annihilate its capacity for sorrowful impression.”
― Edgar Allan Poe, The Fall of the House of Usher

“I had been passing alone, on horseback, through a singularly dreary tract of country, and at length found myself, as the shades of evening drew on, within view of the melancholy House of Usher.”
― Edgar Allan Poe, The Fall of the House of Usher

“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 the period will sooner or later arrive when I must abandon life and reason together, in some struggle with the grim phantasm, FEAR.”
― Edgar Allan Poe, The Fall of the House of Usher

“A cadaverousness of complexion; an eye large, liquid and very luminous...finely molded chin, speaking, in its want of prominence, of a want of moral energy.”
― Edgar Allan Poe, The Fall of the House of Usher

“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...”
― Edgar Allan Poe, The Fall of the House of Usher

“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.”
― Edgar Allan Poe, The Fall of the House of Usher

“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 every-day life—the 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.”
― Edgar Allan Poe, The Fall of the House of Usher

“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 odours 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.”
― Edgar Allan Poe, The Fall of the House of Usher

“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.”
― Edgar Allan Poe, The Fall of the House of Usher

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

“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 the period will sooner or later arrive when I must abandon life and reason together, in some struggle with the grim phantasm, FEAR.”
― Edgar Allan Poe, The Fall of the House of Usher

“I.
In the greenest of our valleys,
By good angels tenanted,
Once a fair and stately palace—
Radiant palace—reared its head.
In the monarch Thought’s dominion—
It stood there!
Never seraph spread a pinion
Over fabric half so fair.

II.
Banners yellow, glorious, golden,
On its roof did float and flow
(This—all this—was in the olden
Time long ago);
THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF USHER14
And every gentle air that dallied,
In that sweet day,
Along the ramparts plumed and pallid,
A winged odor went away.

III.
Wanderers in that happy valley
Through two luminous windows saw
Spirits moving musically
To a lute’s well-tunèd law;
Round about a throne, where sitting
(Porphyrogene!)
In state his glory well befitting,
The ruler of the realm was seen.

IV.
And all with pearl and ruby glowing
Was the fair palace door,
Through which came flowing, flowing, flowing
And sparkling evermore,
A troop of Echoes whose sweet duty
Was but to sing,
In voices of surpassing beauty,
The wit and wisdom of their king.

V.
But evil things, in robes of sorrow,
Assailed the monarch’s high estate;
(Ah, let us mourn, for never morrow
Shall dawn upon him, desolate!)
And, round about his home, the glory
That blushed and bloomed
EDGAR ALLAN POE 15
Is but a dim-remembered story
Of the old time entombed.

VI.
And travellers now within that valley,
Through the red-litten windows see
Vast forms that move fantastically
To a discordant melody;
While, like a rapid ghastly river,
Through the pale door,
A hideous throng rush out forever,
And laugh—but smile no more.”
― Edgar Allan Poe, The Fall of the House of Usher

“say unbearable; for the sensation was unrelieved with the aid of any of that half of-gratifying, because poetic, sentiment, with which the mind typically gets even the sternest natural photos of the desolate or terrible.”
― Edgar Allan Poe, The Fall of the House of Usher

“Me ocurría a veces, en realidad, pensar que su mente, agitada sin tregua, estaba torturada por algún secreto opresor, cuya divulgación no tenía el valor para efectuar.”
― Edgar Allan Poe, El hundimiento de la casa Usher

“Era una sensación glacial, un abatimiento, una náusea en el corazón, una irremediable tristeza de pensamiento que ningún estímulo de la imaginación podía impulsar a lo sublime.”
― Edgar Allan Poe, El hundimiento de la casa Usher

“And, round about his home, the glory That blushed and bloomed Is but a dim-remembered story Of the old time entombed.”
― Edgar Allan Poe, The Fall of the House of Usher

“I do not know how it was — but, with my first sight of the building, a sense of heavy sadness filled my spirit. I looked at the scene before me — at the house itself — at the ground around it — at the cold stone walls of the building — at its empty eye-like windows — and at a few dead trees — I looked at this scene, I say, with a complete sadness of soul which was no healthy, earthly feeling. There was a coldness, a sickening of the heart, in which I could discover nothing to lighten the weight I felt.”
― Edgar Allan Poe, The Fall of the House of Usher

“I do not know how it was — but, with my first sight of the building, a sense of heavy sadness filled my spirit. I looked at the scene before me — at the house itself — at the ground around it — at the cold stone walls of the
building — at its empty eye-like windows — and at a few dead trees — I looked at this scene, I say, with a complete sadness of soul which was no healthy, earthly feeling. There was a coldness, a sickening of the heart, in which I could discover nothing to lighten the weight I felt.”
― Edgar Allan Poe, The Fall of the House of Usher

“[Son] cœur est un luth suspendu;
Sitôt qu'on le touche il résonne.
—De Béranger”
― Edgar Allan Poe, The Fall of the House of Usher

“Son cœur est un luth suspendu; Sitôt qu’on le touche il résonne. —DE BÉRANGER.”
― Edgar Allan Poe, The Fall of the House of Usher

“Er is geen twijfel mogelijk dat mijn bewustzijn van de snelle groei van mijn bijgeloof (want waarom zou ik het niet zo noemen?) de groei alleen maar scheen te versnellen. Dat is, zoals ik al lange tijd weet, de paradoxale wet van alle gewaarwordingen die angst als basis hebben.”
― Edgar Allan Poe, The Fall of the House of Usher

“Who slayeth”
― Edgar Allan Poe, The Fall of the House of Usher