The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from The Fall of the House of Usher by Edgar Allan Poe: 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 well have 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
The Fall of the House of Usher |