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Updated: June 16, 2025
Coleridge has admirably described the first great soliloquy which opens to us the pit of hell within as "the motive-hunting of a motiveless malignity." But subtle and profound and just as is this definitive appreciation, there is more in the matter yet than even this.
In a tale like this, which is only one out of a vast number, exactly analogous, Common-sense is ill-advised in simply alleging imposture, so long maintained, so motiveless, and, on the whole, so very difficult to execute. M. Leleu brought in the Church, with its exorcisms, but our Dominican authority does not say whether or not the noises ceased after the rites had been performed.
Hurry's companions did not view his conduct with the same indulgence as that with which he appeared disposed to regard it himself. Hutter growled out his dissatisfaction, for the act led to no advantage, while it threatened to render the warfare more vindictive than ever, and none censure motiveless departures from the right more severely than the mercenary and unprincipled.
"There can only be two possible situations," he said; "either this was a motiveless murder and lack of motive means insanity; or else there was a deep reason for it and Redmayne killed Pendean, after plotting far in advance to do so and get clear himself. In the first case he would have been found, unless he had committed suicide in some such cunning fashion that we can't discover the body.
Robert stood hat in hand, tormented with a dozen crosscurrents of feeling. He was forcibly struck with the blind and comparatively motiveless pugnacity of the squire's conduct. There was an extravagance in it which for the first time recalled to him old Meyrick's lucubrations. 'I have done no good, I see, Mr. Wendover, he said at last, slowly.
The case was full of sinister possibilities and perplexities. It bore the stamp of deep premeditation and calculated skill. As the crime was apparently motiveless, it was certain that the motive was deep and carefully hidden.
While, however, he was thus playing the motiveless ogre, his brother-in-law, Sir Henry Stisted, at the other end of the table, was doing his utmost to render himself agreeable, and by the extraordinary means of rolling out anecdote after anecdote that told against the Scotch character.
"Consider, gentlemen," he said, "you are now possibly convinced in your own minds that the source of these horrible things is to be found outside the Grey Room, and not in it. I agree with you, so far. We have reached a pitch where, in my judgment, we are justified in believing that some motiveless malignity is at work.
False lights, dubious foreshortenings, shallow colourings, ill-studied forms, and motiveless agitation suited the taste that cared for gaudy brightness and sensational effects.
The European can hardly imagine a sensible person doing anything without an object: he thinks it almost profane to ascribe motiveless action to the Creator: he racks his brain to discover any purpose in creation which is morally worthy and moderately in accord with the facts of experience. But he can find none.
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