We perpetrate them
because we feel that we should not. Beyond or behind this there is
no intelligible principle; and we might, indeed, deem this
perverseness a direct instigation of the Arch-Fiend, were it not
occasionally known to operate in furtherance of good.
I have said thus much, that in some measure I may answer your
question, that I may explain to you why I am here, that I may assign
to you something that shall have at least the faint aspect of a
cause for my wearing these fetters, and for my tenanting this cell
of the condemned. Had I not been thus prolix, you might either have
misunderstood me altogether, or, with the rabble, have fancied me mad.
As it is, you will easily perceive that I am one of the many uncounted
victims of the Imp of the Perverse.
It is impossible that any deed could have been wrought with a more
thorough deliberation. For weeks, for months, I pondered upon the
means of the murder. I rejected a thousand schemes, because their
accomplishment involved a chance of detection.
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