Read the excerpt from "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. how does poe develop a short story element in the excerpt? by characterizing usher as a depressed individual by revealing the setting as a dark universe by unfolding the events of the plot as the men interact by suggesting a closeness that supports the theme of friendship