So drifted away the days, and this strong-limbed young fellow became hungrier and hungrier, and more shiny at knees and elbows, and more lapsided of foot-gear, and more thoroughly puzzled at, and disgusted with, the city world.
Sometimes the young man would resolve that in the morning he would abandon all his plans, and seek the country again, and there, where he could hold his own and more, live and die apart from all the feverishness and chances of another way of living.

And he would awake and sniff in the morning air, and say to himself that he was a cur last night, and that he would stay and hold his own, and, in the end, win somehow.

The bulldog strain asserted itself, and he was his own again.
At night, after a fruitless day, he might become again depressed, but the morning restrung the bow.

Sometimes--these were his weaker days--he would abandon all effort, and seek the free public library, and there plunge into books and find, for the passing time, forgetfulness.

These were his only draughts of absolute nepenthe, for at night he dreamed of the yesterday or of the morrow, and it marred his rest.