Perhaps Webster's case is the clearest of the three. Here we
have a selfish, self-indulgent and spendthrift gentleman who has
landed himself in serious financial embarrassment, seeking by
murder to escape from an importunate and relentless creditor. He
has not, apparently, the moral courage to face the consequences
of his own weakness. He forgets the happiness of his home, the
love of those dear to him, in the desire to free himself from a
disgrace insignificent{sic} in comparison with that entailed by
committing the highest of all crimes. One would wish to believe
that Webster's deed was unpremeditated, the result of a sudden
gust of passion caused by his victim's acrimonious pursuit of his
debtor. But there are circumstances in the case which tell
powerfully against such a view. The character of the murderer
seems curiously contradictory; both cunning and simplicity mark
his proceedings; he makes a determined attempt to escape from the
horrors of his situation and shows at the same time a curious
insensibility to its real gravity. Webster was a man of refined
tastes and seemingly gentle character, loved by those near to
him, well liked by his friends.

The mystery that surrounds the real character of Eugene Aram is
greater, and we possess little or no means of solving it. From
what motive this silent, arrogant man, despising his ineffectual
wife, this reserved and moody scholar stooped to fraud and murder
the facts of the case help us little to determine. Was it the
hope of leaving the narrow surroundings of Knaresborough, his
tiresome belongings, his own poor way of life, and seeking a
wider field for the exercise of those gifts of scholarship which
he undoubtedly possessed that drove him to commit fraud in