"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--that 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 supersition for why should I not so term it? served mainly to accelerate the increase itself."