* Watson, Dr. Percival, Spallanzani, and especially the Bishop of
      Landaff.—See “Chemical Essays,” vol v.

      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 Heaven and Hell of
      Swedenborg; the Subterranean Voyage of Nicholas Klimm by 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 OEgipans, over
      which Usher would sit dreaming for hours. His chief delight,
      however, was found in the perusal of an exceedingly rare and
      curious book in quarto Gothic—the manual of a forgotten
      church—the _Vigiliae 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 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 worldly 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 consideration 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 by no 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 some
      other highly combustible substance, as a portion 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. A striking
      similitude between the brother and sister now first arrested my
      attention; and 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 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 some
      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, for 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, 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 endeavored to believe that much, if not all
      of what I felt, was due to the bewildering influence of the
      gloomy furniture of the room—of the dark and tattered draperies,
      which, tortured into motion by 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.