Our narrator describes how he feels as he arrives at the house. He says at "the first glimpse of the building, a sense of insufferable gloom pervaded my spirit." He also says that as he looked at what was before him "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 edges, and upon a few white trunks of decayed trees" he wondered if this was truly his friend's house. Immediately the feelings of depression and despair come upon the visitor at arrival. This image of the house can be use as a representation of its owner, and of what is to come later in the story.