"
"You may well wonder, Munro. I could not well explain the mystery to
myself, were I to try; and it is this which made the question and doubt
which we set out to explain. To those who knew me well from the first,
it is not matter of surprise that I should be for ever in excitements of
one kind or another. From my childhood up, my temper was of a restless
and unquiet character--I was always a peevish, a fretful and
discontented person. I looked with scorn and contempt upon the humdrum
ways of those about me, and longed for perpetual change, and wild and
stirring incidents. My passions, always fretful and excitable, were
never satisfied except when I was employed in some way which enabled me
to feed and keep alive the irritation which was their and my very breath
of life. With such a spirit, how could I be what men style and consider
a good man? What folly to expect it. Virtue is but a sleepy, in-door,
domestic quality--inconsistent with enterprise or great activity. There
are no drones so perfect in the world as the truly orthodox.
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