Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1929-01-30
WORLD FAMOUS STORIES
THE IMP OF THE PERVERSE
BY EDGAR ALLAN POE

Edgar Allan Poe, 1sos-ls4s, was an
American poet and Story-writer, author OF
Murders in the Rue Morgue,'' Fall OF
Raven" etc.
There is an innate and primitive
principle of human action, paradox
cal something, which we may call per-
verseneSs, for want of a more char
acterlstic term. Through its prompt
ings we act without comprehensive OBJ
]ect or, perhaps better expressed. we
act for the reason that we should not.
In theory no reason can be more I'M
reasonable; but, in fact, there is none
more strong. With certain minds. under
certain conditions, it becomes absolutely
irresistible.
FOR example, suppose we stand upon
the Drink OF precipice. We peer into
the abyss--we grow sick and~dizzy. Our
Ilr6t impulse is to shrink from the dan
ger. Unaccountably, we remain. BY
slow degrees our sickness, and dizziness.
ana horror, become merged in a cloud
OF unnamable feeling. BY graduations,
stlll more imperceptible, this cloud as
Sumes shape, as did the vapor from the
Dottle out OF which arose the genii in
the Arabian Nights"
But out of this our cloud upon the
blilty shape, far more terrible than
any genii, or any demon of tale, and
yet 1t is but a thought, although a fear
ful one, and one which chillS the very
marrow of our bones with the ficrceness
OF the delight of its horror.
1t 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 an
nlhilatlon-for the very reason that il
involves that one most CHASTITY and
loathsome of all the most CHASTITY and
!oathsome images Of death and suffer-
ing which have ever presented them
selves to our imagination-for this very
cause do we now the most wildly desire
IL; ana because our reason violently
oeterS us from the brink, therefore do
we the more impetuouSly approach it.
There is no passion in nature SO
Economically impatient as that of him
who, Shuddering upon the edge of a
preclplce, thus meditateS a plunge. To
indulge Tor moment in any attempt
at thought is to be Inevitably lost: for
renection but urges us to forbear. and
therefore it is say that we cannot. If
there be no friendly arm to check us.
or II we fail in sudden effort to pros
trate ourselves backward from the
abyss, we plunge and are destroyed.
l have said thus much, that in some
measure l may answer your question
that l may explain to you why I am
here-that / may assign to you some
thing that shall have at least the faint
aspect of cause for my wearing these
letters and for my tenanting this cell
OF the condemned Had I not been
thus prolix, you might either have mis-
understood 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 PreverSe.
1t Is impossible that any deed could
have been wrought with a more thor
ough elaboration. For weeks, for
months. pondered upon the means OF
the murder. 1 rejected a thousand
schemes because their accomplishment
involved chance of detection. Al
length, in reading some French me-
molrs, I found an account of nearly
fatal illness that occurred to Nine
Pilau through the agency of a candle
accidentally poisoned.
The idea struck my fancy at once. ]
knew my victims habit of reading in
bed. I knew, too. that his apartment
was narrow and i'll ventilated. But ]
need not vex you with unimportant de-
tails. 1 need not describe the easy