He could always see it when he
closed his eyes. At night he dreamed of it continuously--of meeting it
on the subway and looking into eyes of ineffable kindness.
It came finally to affect his life--this search for the unseen face. It
gradually altered his attitude toward all his subway folk. He came to
have a great pity for the ignorant, and pain filled his heart at all the
marks of Cain he saw. He came to have an inexpressible hunger for the
sight of spiritual quality lighting the faces of the people of the
subway crowds. He did not express his hunger in words, as people do when
they want to make a thing definite and tangible. It was perfectly clear
and distinct to him when he closed his eyes; then he saw the face.
The time came when Mr. Neal could not sleep of nights for the evil faces
that leered at him from every side out of the darkness. It was only when
he slept that he could see, in his dreams, the "good face." Finally, he
was driven to make a resolution. He would consciously seek for the good
faces; evil ones he would pass over quickly. Thenceforward he was
happier. As his train roared through the tunnels of night under New
York, his eyes dwelt most upon the faces that were marked, however
lightly, with the qualities that reached their united culmination in the
"good face.
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