Which two sentences contribute to the overall eerie mood of the adapted excerpt from "The Fall of the House of Usher" by Edgar Allan Poe? In this mansion of gloom I now proposed to myself a stay of some weeks. Its proprietor, Roderick Usher, had been one of my closest friends in boyhood. But many years had passed since our last meeting.
A letter, however, had lately reached me in a distant part of the country. A letter from him, which, in its wildly insistent nature, had allowed no other than a personal reply.
The handwriting gave evidence of nervous agitation. The writer spoke of a kind of illness--of a disorder which oppressed him--and of an earnest desire to see me.
As his best and indeed his only personal friend, with a view of attempting, by the cheerfulness of my society, to provide some relief from his malady.

the vast majority of ballots have been counted nearly two weeks after one of the biggest political upsets in modern u.s. history catapulted donald trump to the presidency.

estimates show more than 58 percent of eligible voters went to the polls during the 2016 election, nearly breaking even with the turnout rate set during the last presidential election in 2012, even as the final tallies in states like california continue to be calculated, according to statistics collected by the u.s. elections project.

but among those figures were stark contrasts in key states that swing the election to trump — in ohio, wisconsin, iowa, michigan and elsewhere — indicating the president-elect’s leap from long-shot candidate to the most powerful political position in the world may have happened in part because of apathy toward hillary clinton’s candidacy, especially among the democratic base, several political scientists and organizations monitoring voter turnout told the pbs newshour.

while clinton is leading the popular vote by more than 1.5 million over trump as of sunday, she trails president obama’s 2012 totals by more than 2 million ballots — a chasm that may have cost her the election, said david becker, co-founder of the center for election and innovation and research.

“several million voters didn’t come out to vote,” becker said. “which is telling me that this idea of the trump wave, a huge number of voters shifting over to trump, is certainly not the story.”