be the laziest creature in existence all the time--how did Thomas
Idle, crippled and confined to the house, contrive to get through
the hours of the day?

Prone on the sofa, Thomas made no attempt to get through the hours,
but passively allowed the hours to get through HIM. Where other
men in his situation would have read books and improved their
minds, Thomas slept and rested his body. Where other men would
have pondered anxiously over their future prospects, Thomas dreamed
lazily of his past life. The one solitary thing he did, which most
other people would have done in his place, was to resolve on making
certain alterations and improvements in his mode of existence, as
soon as the effects of the misfortune that had overtaken him had
all passed away. Remembering that the current of his life had
hitherto oozed along in one smooth stream of laziness, occasionally
troubled on the surface by a slight passing ripple of industry, his
present ideas on the subject of self-reform, inclined him--not as
the reader may be disposed to imagine, to project schemes for a new
existence of enterprise and exertion--but, on the contrary, to
resolve that he would never, if he could possibly help it, be
active or industrious again, throughout the whole of his future
career.

It is due to Mr. Idle to relate that his mind sauntered towards
this peculiar conclusion on distinct and logically-producible
grounds. After reviewing, quite at his ease, and with many needful
intervals of repose, the generally-placid spectacle of his past
existence, he arrived at the discovery that all the great disasters
which had tried his patience and equanimity in early life, had been
caused by his having allowed himself to be deluded into imitating