Spilt beer or water seems sometimes almost human in its uncertainty
whether or no it is worth while to get ever such a little nearer to the
earth’s centre by such and such a slight trickle forward.
I saw my cat undecided in his mind whether he should get up on the table
and steal the remains of my dinner or not. The chair was some eighteen
inches away with its back towards the table, so it was a little
troublesome for him to get his feet first on the bar and then on the
table. He was not at all hungry but he tried, saw it would not be quite
easy and gave it up; then he thought better of it and tried again, and
saw again that it was not all perfectly plain sailing; and so backwards
and forwards with the first-he-would-and-then-he-wouldn’tism of a mind so
nearly in equilibrium that a hair’s weight would turn the scale one way
or the other.
I thought how closely it resembled the action of beer trickling on a
slightly sloping table.