“A little while ago a very amusing idea struck me. What if I were now to commit some terrible crime⁠—murder ten fellow-creatures, for instance, or anything else that is thought most shocking and dreadful in this world⁠—what a dilemma my judges would be in, with a criminal who only has a fortnight to live in any case, now that the rack and other forms of torture are abolished! Why, I should die comfortably in their own hospital⁠—in a warm, clean room, with an attentive doctor⁠—probably much more comfortably than I should at home.

“I don’t understand why people in my position do not oftener indulge in such ideas⁠—if only for a joke! Perhaps they do! Who knows! There are plenty of merry souls among us!