Poe, Edgar Allen - The Complete Works of Edgar Allen Poe

by Volume 01-05 (lit)

  substantive moods and phases of creation?

  Induction, a posteriori, would have brought phrenology to admit, as

  an innate and primitive principle of human action, a paradoxical

  something, which we may call perverseness, for want of a more

  characteristic term. In the sense I intend, it is, in fact, a mobile

  without motive, a motive not motivirt. Through its promptings we act

  without comprehensible object; or, if this shall be understood as a

  contradiction in terms, we may so far modify the proposition as to

  say, that through its promptings we act, for the reason that we

  should not. In theory, no reason can be more unreasonable, but, in

  fact, there is none more strong. With certain minds, under certain

  conditions, it becomes absolutely irresistible. I am not more certain

  that I breathe, than that the assurance of the wrong or error of any

  action is often the one unconquerable force which impels us, and

  alone impels us to its prosecution. Nor will this overwhelming

  tendency to do wrong for the wrong's sake, admit of analysis, or

  resolution into ulterior elements. It is a radical, a primitive

  impulse-elementary. It will be said, I am aware, that when we persist

  in acts because we feel we should not persist in them, our conduct is

  but a modification of that which ordinarily springs from the

  combativeness of phrenology. But a glance will show the fallacy of

  this idea. The phrenological combativeness has for its essence, the

  necessity of self-defence. It is our safeguard against injury. Its

  principle regards our well-being; and thus the desire to be well is

  excited simultaneously with its development. It follows, that the

  desire to be well must be excited simultaneously with any principle

  which shall be merely a modification of combativeness, but in the

  case of that something which I term perverseness, the desire to be

  well is not only not aroused, but a strongly antagonistical sentiment

  exists.

  An appeal to one's own heart is, after all, the best reply to the

  sophistry just noticed. No one who trustingly consults and thoroughly

  questions his own soul, will be disposed to deny the entire

  radicalness of the propensity in question. It is not more

  incomprehensible than distinctive. There lives no man who at some

  period has not been tormented, for example, by an earnest desire to

  tantalize a listener by circumlocution. The speaker is aware that he

  displeases; he has every intention to please, he is usually curt,

  precise, and clear, the most laconic and luminous language is

  struggling for utterance upon his tongue, it is only with difficulty

  that he restrains himself from giving it flow; he dreads and

  deprecates the anger of him whom he addresses; yet, the thought

  strikes him, that by certain involutions and parentheses this anger

  may be engendered. That single thought is enough. The impulse

  increases to a wish, the wish to a desire, the desire to an

  uncontrollable longing, and the longing (to the deep regret and

  mortification of the speaker, and in defiance of all consequences) is

  indulged.

  We have a task before us which must be speedily performed. We know

  that it will be ruinous to make delay. The most important crisis of

  our life calls, trumpet-tongued, for immediate energy and action. We

  glow, we are consumed with eagerness to commence the work, with the

  anticipation of whose glorious result our whole souls are on fire. It

  must, it shall be undertaken to-day, and yet we put it off until

  to-morrow, and why? There is no answer, except that we feel perverse,

  using the word with no comprehension of the principle. To-morrow

  arrives, and with it a more impatient anxiety to do our duty, but

  with this very increase of anxiety arrives, also, a nameless, a

  positively fearful, because unfathomable, craving for delay. This

  craving gathers strength as the moments fly. The last hour for action

  is at hand. We tremble with the violence of the conflict within us,

  -- of the definite with the indefinite -- of the substance with the

  shadow. But, if the contest have proceeded thus far, it is the shadow

  which prevails, -- we struggle in vain. The clock strikes, and is the

  knell of our welfare. At the same time, it is the chanticleer -- note

  to the ghost that has so long overawed us. It flies -- it disappears

  -- we are free. The old energy returns. We will labor now. Alas, it

  is too late!

  We stand upon the brink of a precipice. We peer into the abyss -- we

  grow sick and dizzy. Our first impulse is to shrink from the danger.

  Unaccountably we remain. By slow degrees our sickness and dizziness

  and horror become merged in a cloud of unnamable feeling. By

  gradations, still more imperceptible, this cloud assumes shape, as

  did the vapor from the bottle out of which arose the genius in the

  Arabian Nights. But out of this our cloud upon the precipice's edge,

  there grows into palpability, a shape, far more terrible than any

  genius or any demon of a tale, and yet it is but a thought, although

  a fearful one, and one which chills the very marrow of our bones with

  the fierceness of the delight of its horror. It is merely the idea of

  what would be our sensations during the sweeping precipitancy of a

  fall from such a height. And this fall -- this rushing annihilation

  -- for the very reason that it involves that one most ghastly and

  loathsome of all the most ghastly and loathsome images of death and

  suffering which have ever presented themselves to our imagination --

  for this very cause do we now the most vividly desire it. And because

  our reason violently deters us from the brink, therefore do we the

  most impetuously approach it. There is no passion in nature so

  demoniacally impatient, as that of him who, shuddering upon the edge

  of a precipice, thus meditates a Plunge. To indulge, for a moment, in

  any attempt at thought, is to be inevitably lost; for reflection but

  urges us to forbear, and therefore it is, I say, that we cannot. If

  there be no friendly arm to check us, or if we fail in a sudden

  effort to prostrate ourselves backward from the abyss, we plunge, and

  are destroyed.

  Examine these similar actions as we will, we shall find them

  resulting solely from the spirit of the Perverse. 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. At length, in reading

  some French Memoirs, I found an account of a nearly fatal illness

  that occurred to Madame Pilau, through the agency of a candle

  accidentally poisoned. The idea struck my fancy at once. I knew my

  victim's habit of reading in bed. I knew, too, that his apartment was

  narrow and ill-ventilated. But I need not vex you with impertinent

  details. I need not describe the easy artifices by which I

  substituted, in his bed-room candle-stand, a wax-light of my own

  making for the one which I there found. The next morning he was

  discovered dead in his bed, and the Coroner's verdict was -- "Death

  by the visitation of God."

  Having inherited his estate, all went well with me for years. The

  idea of detection never once entered my brain. Of the remains of the

  fatal taper I had myself carefully disposed. I had left no shadow of

  a clew by which it would be possible to convict, or even to suspect

  me of the crime. It is inconceivable how rich a sentiment of

  satisfaction arose in my bosom as I reflected upon my absolute

  security. For a very long period of time I was accustomed to revel in

  this sentiment. It afforded me more real delight than all the mere

  worldly advantages accruing from my sin. But there arrived at length

  an epoch, from which the pleasurable feeling grew, by scarcely

  perceptible gradations, into a haunting and harassing thought. It

  harassed because it haunted. I could scarcely get rid of it for an

  instant. It is quite a common thing to be thus annoyed with the

  ringing in our ears, or rather in our memories, of the burthen of

  some ordinary song, or some unimpressive snatches from an opera. Nor

  will we be the less tormented if the song in itself be good, or the

  opera air meritorious. In this manner, at last, I would perpetually

  catch myself pondering upon my security, and repeating, in a low

  undertone, the phrase, "I am safe."

  One day, whilst sauntering along the streets, I arrested myself in

  the act of murmuring, half aloud, these customary syllables. In a fit

  of petulance, I remodelled them thus; "I am safe -- I am safe -- yes

  -- if I be not fool enough to make open confession!"

  No sooner had I spoken these words, than I felt an icy chill creep to

  my heart. I had had some experience in these fits of perversity,

  (whose nature I have been at some trouble to explain), and I

  remembered well that in no instance I had successfully resisted their

  attacks. And now my own casual self-suggestion that I might possibly

  be fool enough to confess the murder of which I had been guilty,

  confronted me, as if the very ghost of him whom I had murdered -- and

  beckoned me on to death.

  At first, I made an effort to shake off this nightmare of the soul. I

  walked vigorously -- faster -- still faster -- at length I ran. I

  felt a maddening desire to shriek aloud. Every succeeding wave of

  thought overwhelmed me with new terror, for, alas! I well, too well

  understood that to think, in my situation, was to be lost. I still

  quickened my pace. I bounded like a madman through the crowded

  thoroughfares. At length, the populace took the alarm, and pursued

  me. I felt then the consummation of my fate. Could I have torn out my

  tongue, I would have done it, but a rough voice resounded in my ears

  -- a rougher grasp seized me by the shoulder. I turned -- I gasped

  for breath. For a moment I experienced all the pangs of suffocation;

  I became blind, and deaf, and giddy; and then some invisible fiend, I

  thought, struck me with his broad palm upon the back. The long

  imprisoned secret burst forth from my soul.

  They say that I spoke with a distinct enunciation, but with marked

  emphasis and passionate hurry, as if in dread of interruption before

  concluding the brief, but pregnant sentences that consigned me to the

  hangman and to hell.

  Having related all that was necessary for the fullest judicial

  conviction, I fell prostrate in a swoon.

  But why shall I say more? To-day I wear these chains, and am here!

  To-morrow I shall be fetterless! -- but where?

  ~~~ End of Text ~~~

  ======

  THE ISLAND OF THE FAY

  Nullus enim locus sine genio est. -- _Servius_.

  "LA MUSIQUE," says Marmontel, in those "Contes Moraux" {*1} which in

  all our translations, we have insisted upon calling "Moral Tales," as

  if in mockery of their spirit -- "la musique est le seul des talents

  qui jouissent de lui-meme; tous les autres veulent des temoins." He

  here confounds the pleasure derivable from sweet sounds with the

  capacity for creating them. No more than any other talent, is that

  for music susceptible of complete enjoyment, where there is no second

  party to appreciate its exercise. And it is only in common with other

  talents that it produces effects which may be fully enjoyed in

  solitude. The idea which the raconteur has either failed to entertain

  clearly, or has sacrificed in its expression to his national love of

  point, is, doubtless, the very tenable one that the higher order of

  music is the most thoroughly estimated when we are exclusively alone.

  The proposition, in this form, will be admitted at once by those who

  love the lyre for its own sake, and for its spiritual uses. But there

  is one pleasure still within the reach of fallen mortality and

  perhaps only one -- which owes even more than does music to the

  accessory sentiment of seclusion. I mean the happiness experienced in

  the contemplation of natural scenery. In truth, the man who would

  behold aright the glory of God upon earth must in solitude behold

  that glory. To me, at least, the presence -- not of human life only,

  but of life in any other form than that of the green things which

  grow upon the soil and are voiceless -- is a stain upon the landscape

  -- is at war with the genius of the scene. I love, indeed, to regard

  the dark valleys, and the gray rocks, and the waters that silently

  smile, and the forests that sigh in uneasy slumbers, and the proud

  watchful mountains that look down upon all, -- I love to regard these

  as themselves but the colossal members of one vast animate and

  sentient whole -- a whole whose form (that of the sphere) is the most

  perfect and most inclusive of all; whose path is among associate