"If not a maniac," said I, hoping to pique him, "he must be a man of stupendous and pitiable vanity,—perhaps one of your constant- minded friends, whom you refuse to call bloodthirsty."
"Constant-minded, perhaps; but why pitiably vain?"
"Why? Because only a diseased atrocity of imagination, stimulating a nature essentially base and weak in its desire to make itself conspicuous, would or could suggest such things. The silly youth who 'fired the Ephesian dome,' the vain idiot who set fire to York Minster, the miserable Frenchmen who have committed murder and suicide with a view of making their exit striking from a world in which their appearance had been contemptible, would all sink into insignificance beside the towering infamy of baseness which—for the mere love of producing an effect on the minds of men, and thus drawing their attention upon him, which otherwise would never have marked him at all—could scheme and execute crimes so horrible and inexcusable. In common charity to human nature, let us suppose the wretch is mad; because otherwise his miserable vanity would be too loathsome." I spoke with warmth and bitterness, which increased as I perceived him wincing under the degradation of my contempt.
"If his motive WERE vanity," he said, "no doubt it would be horrible; but may it not have been revenge?"
"Revenge!" I exclaimed; "what! on innocent women?"
"You assume their innocence."
"Good God! do you know anything to the contrary?"
"Not I. But as we are conjecturing, I may as well conjecture it to have been the desire to produce a startling effect."
"How do you justify your conjecture?"
"Simply enough. We have to suppose a motive; let us say it was revenge, and see whether that will furnish a clue."