“I may as well be warm,” thought I, “while I prove to my complete satisfaction that it is more cowardly to live than to die. There is no very great hurry.” I caught up a travelling-rug with which I had tried to soften the asperities of an imitation Louis XV couch, and throwing it over my shoulders, resumed my pilgrimage. I soon lost myself in the problem and did not notice a corner of the rug gradually slipping down towards the floor. “I’ll do it!” I cried at last, making a sudden dive towards the table. But the ironical corner of the rug had reached the ground. I stepped on it, tripped, and instinctively caught the table to steady myself. The table, a rickety gueridon, overbalanced, and away rolled my uncorked phial of prussic acid and fell into a hundred pieces on the tessellated floor. “_Solvitur_,” said I, grimly, “_ambulando_.” Looking back now, I am inclined to treat myself tenderly. Whether I should have drunk the poison, if the accident had not occurred, I cannot say. At the moment of my rush I intended to do so. After the catastrophe, which I attributed to the curse of ineffectuality that pursued me, I must confess that I was glad. Not that life looked more attractive than before, but that the decision had been taken out of my hands. I could not go about the shops of Verona buying prussic acid or revolvers or metres of stout rope. And my razors (without Stenson’s care) were benignantly blunt, and I would not condescend to braces. I groaned and pished and pshawed, but as it was written that I was to live, I resigned myself to a barren and theoryless existence. After a day or two the vital instinct asserted itself more strongly. I became inspired by an illuminating revelation. I had a preliminary aim in life. I would go out into the world in search of a theory. When found I would apply it to the regulation of the score and a half years during which I might possibly expect to remain on this planet. I must take my chances of it leading me to the corpse of another Polyphemus.