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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 that 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 wore
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 thenceforward to despair.
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