I am getting really fond of the room in spite of the wallpaper. Perhaps because of the wallpaper. It dwells in my mind so! I lie here on this great immovable bed — it is nailed down, I believe — and follow that pattern about by the hour. It is as good as gymnastics, I assure you. I start at the bottom, down in the corner there, and I determine for the thousandth time that I will follow that pointless pattern to some sort of a conclusion. I know a little of the principle of design, and I know this thing was not arranged on any laws of radiation, or alternation, or repetition, or symmetry, or anything else that I ever heard of. It is repeated, of course, by the breadths, but not otherwise. Looked at in one way, each breadth stands alone. The bloated curves and flourishes go waddling up and down in isolated columns of fatuity. But on the other hand, they connect diagonally, and the sprawling outlines run off in great slanting waves of optic horror, like a lot of wallowing seaweeds in full chase. The whole thing goes horizontally, too, at least it seems so, and I exhaust myself trying to distinguish the order of its going in that direction. By daylight there is a lack of sequence, a defiance of law, that is a constant irritant to a normal mind. But by moonlight — and I lie awake a good deal watching it — it becomes bars! The outside pattern, I mean, and the woman behind it is as plain as can be. There is one thing about that paper that nobody seems to notice but myself, and that is the smell. It creeps all over the house, lying in wait for me on the stairs.