I closed behind me the door into the wooden chamber, and turned to open the door out of a dreary world.
I left the chamber with a heart of stone.

Do what I might, all was fruitless.

I pulled the chains; adjusted and re-adjusted the hood; arranged and re-arranged the mirrors; no result followed.

I waited and waited to give the vision time; it would not come; the mirror stood blank; nothing lay in its dim old depth but the mirror opposite and my haggard face.
I went back to the library.

There the books were hateful to me--for I had once loved them.
That night I lay awake from down-lying to uprising, and the next day renewed my endeavours with the mystic door.