He had learning and refinement, and he had not great practical experience, and such men are most open to impression from the stage.

He saw a being, all grace and bright nature, move like a goddess among the stiff puppets of the scene; her glee and her pathos were equally catching, she held a golden key at which all the doors of the heart flew open.

Her face, too, was as full of goodness as intelligence--it was like no other farce; the heart bounded to meet it.
He rented a box at her theater.

He was there every night before the curtain drew up; and I'm sorry to say, he at last took half a dislike to Sunday--Sunday "which knits up the raveled sleave of care," Sunday "tired nature's sweet restorer," because on Sunday there was no Peg Woffington.

At first he regarded her as a being of another sphere, an incarnation of poetry and art; but by degrees his secret aspirations became bolder.