ives than I am that
perverseness is one of the primitive impulses of the human heart--one of
the indivisible primary faculties or sentiments which gave direction to
the character of Man. Who has not, a hundred times, found himself
committing a vile or a silly action for no other reason than because he
knows he should _not_? Have we not a perpetual inclination, in the teeth
of our best judgment, to violate that which is _Law_, merely because we
understand it to be such? This spirit of perverseness, I say, came to my
final overthrow. It was this unfathomable longing of the soul to _vex
itself_--to offer violence to its own nature--to do wrong for the
wrong's sake only--that urged me to continue and finally to consummate
the injury I had inflicted upon the unoffending brute. One morning, in
cool blood, I slipped a noose about its neck and hung it to the limb of
a tree; hung it with the tears streaming from my eyes, and with the
bitterest remorse at my heart; hung it _because_ I knew it had loved me,
and _because_ I felt it had given me no reason of offence; hung it
_because_ I knew that in so doing I was committing a sin--a deadly sin
that would so jeopardize my immortal soul as to place it, if such a
thing were possible, even beyond the reach of the infinite mercy of the
Most Merciful and Most Terrible God.

On the night of the day on which this cruel deed was done, I was aroused
from sleep by the cry of fire. The curtains of my bed were in flames.
The whole house was blazing. It was with great difficulty that my wife,
a servant, and myself, made our escape from the conflagration. The
destruction was complete. My entire worldly wealth was swallowed up, and
I resigned myself forward to despair.

I am above the weakness of seeking to establish a sequence of cause and
effect between the disaster and the atrocity. But I am detailing a chain
of facts, and wish not to leave even a possible link imperfect. On the
day succeeding the fire, I visited the ruins. The walls with one
exception had fallen in. This exception was found in a compartment wall,
not very thick, which stood about the middle of the house, and against
which had rested the head of my bed. The plastering had here in great
measure resisted the action of the fire, a fact which I attributed to
its having recently spread. About this wall a dense crowd were
collected, and many persons seemed to be examining a particular portion
of it with very minute and eager attenti