I
stood patiently at the doors of exhibitions and concerts, and playhouses,
to be shoved back by policemen, and insulted by footmen--but in vain. Then
I tried the fashionable churches, one by one; and sat in the free seats,
to listen to prayers and sermons, not a word of which, alas! I cared to
understand, with my eyes searching carefully every pew and gallery, face
by face; always fancying, in self-torturing waywardness, that she might be
just in the part of the gallery which I could not see. Oh! miserable
days of hope deferred, making the heart sick! Miserable gnawing of
disappointment with which I returned at nightfall, to force myself down to
my books! Equally miserable rack of hope on which my nerves were stretched
every morning when I rose, counting the hours till my day's work should be
over, and my mad search begin again! At last "my torment did by length of
time become my element." I returned steadily as ever to the studies which
I had at first neglected, much to Mackaye's wonder and disgust; and a vain
hunt after that face became a part of my daily task, to be got through with
the same dull, sullen effort, with which all I did was now transacted.
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