MS-HRC-SB-4-3

[1880] move my bed. [1881] It may well be on castors, many beds are. [1882] Incredible
I should never have thought of this, all the time I have been e^here.
[1883] I might even suc^ceed in steering it, it is so narrow, through the
f^door, and even down the stairs, if there is a stairs that goes
down. [1884] To be off ^{and away}. [1885] The dark is against me, in a sense. [1886] But I can
always try and see if the bed will move.

[1887] I have only to set the
stick against the wall and push. [1888] And I can see myself already, if
successful, taking a little turn in the room, until it is light
enough for me to set forth. [1889] At least while thus employed I shall
stop telling myself lies. [1890] And then, who knows, the physical effort
may finish ^polish me off, by menas ^means of heart failure.

[1891] I have lost my stick. [1892] That is the outstanding ec^vent of the
day, for it is day again. [1893] The bed has not stirred. [1894] I must have
miss"^ed my point of purchase, in the dark. [1895] Sine qua non, Archimedes
was right. [1896] The stick, having slipped, would have plucked me from
the bed if I had not let it go. [1897] It would of course have been better
for me to relinquish my bed than to lose my stick. [1898] But I had not
time to think. [1899] The fear of falling is the source of many a folly.

[1900] It is a disaster. [1901] I suppose the wisest thing now is to live it
over again, meditate upon it and be edified. [1902] It is thus that man
distinguishes himself from the ape and rises, from discovery to
discovery, ever higher, towards the light. [1903] Now that I have lost
my stick I realize what it is I have lost and all it meant to me.
[1904] And thence ascend, painfully, to an understanding of the Stick,
shorn of all its accidents, such as I had never dreamt of. [1905] What
a boradening ^[  ] of the mind. [1906] So that I half discern, in the veritable