"One day I sat at the breakfast-table gazing vacantly around me, my mind was in a state of inexpressible misery; there was a whirl in my brain, probably like that which people feel who are rapidly going mad; this increased to such a degree that I felt giddiness coming upon me. To abate this feeling I no longer permitted my eyes to wander about, but fixed them upon an object on the table, and continued gazing at it for several minutes without knowing what it was; at length, the misery in my head was somewhat stilled, my lips moved, and I heard myself saying, 'What odd marks!' I had fastened my eyes on the side of a teapot, and by keeping them fixed upon it, had become aware of a fact that had escaped my notice before--namely, that there were marks upon it. I kept my eyes fixed upon them, and repeated at intervals, 'What strange marks!'--for I thought that looking upon the marks tended to abate the whirl in my head: I kept tracing the marks one after the other, and I observed that though they all bore a general resemblance to each other, they were all to a certain extent different. The smallest portion possible of curious interest had been awakened within me, and, at last, I asked myself, within my own mind, 'What motive could induce people to put such odd marks on their crockery? they were not pictures, they were not letters; what motive could people have for putting them there?' At last I removed my eyes from the teapot, and thought for a few moments about the marks; presently, however, I felt the whirl returning; the marks became almost effaced from my mind, and I was beginning to revert to my miserable ruminations, when suddenly methought I heard a voice say, 'The marks! the marks! cling to the marks? or--' So I fixed my eyes again upon the marks, inspecting them more attentively, if possible, than I had done before, and, at last, I came to the conclusion that they were not capricious or fanciful marks, but were arranged systematically; when I had gazed at them for a considerable time, I turned the teapot round, and on the other side I observed marks of a similar kind, which I soon discovered were identical with the ones I had been observing. All the marks were something alike, but all somewhat different, and on comparing them with each other, I was struck with the frequent occurrence of a mark crossing an upright line, or projecting from it, now on the right, now on the left side; and I said to myself, 'Why does this mark sometimes cross the upright line, and sometimes project?' and the more I thought on the matter, the less did I feel of the misery in my head.