satisfied with writing an article about anything so simple and
straight-ahead as the "Crimes of Futurity," that any ass might arrive at,
ay, simply deduct from history. I felt capable of a much greater effort
than that; I was in a fitting mood to overcome difficulties, and I decided
on a treatise, in three sections, on "Philosophical Cognition." This
would, naturally, give me an opportunity of crushing pitiably some of
Kant's sophistries ... but, on taking out my writing materials to commence
work, I discovered that I no longer owned a pencil: I had forgotten it in
the pawn-office. My pencil was lying in my waistcoat pocket.

Good Lord! how everything seems to take a delight in thwarting me today! I
swore a few times, rose from the seat, and took a couple of turns up and
down the path. It was very quiet all around me; down near the Queen's
arbour two nursemaids were trundling their perambulators; otherwise, there
was not a creature anywhere in sight. I was in a thoroughly embittered
temper; I paced up and down before my seat like a maniac. How strangely
awry things seemed to go! To think that an article in three sections
should be downright stranded by the simple fact of my not having a
pennyworth of pencil in my pocket. Supposing I were to return to Pyle
Street and ask to get my pencil back? There would be still time to get a
good piece finished before the promenading public commenced to fill the
parks. So much, too, depended on this treatise on "Philosophical
Cognition"--mayhap many human beings' welfare, no one could say; and I
told myself it might be of the greatest possible help to many young
people. On second thoughts, I would not lay violent hands on Kant; I might
easily avoid doing that; I would only need to make an almost imperceptible
gliding over when I came to query Time and Space; but I would not answer
for Renan, old Parson Renan....

At all events, an article of so-and-so many columns has to be completed.