From the London Magazine for October 1821.
So then, Oxford Street, stony-hearted step-mother! thou that listenest
to the sighs of orphans and drinkest the tears of children, at length I
was dismissed from thee; the time was come at last that I no more
should pace in anguish thy never-ending terraces, no more should dream
and wake in captivity to the pangs of hunger. Successors too many, to
myself and Ann, have doubtless since then trodden in our footsteps,
inheritors of our calamities; other orphans than Ann have sighed; tears
have been shed by other children; and thou, Oxford Street, hast since
doubtless echoed to the groans of innumerable hearts. For myself,
however, the storm which I had outlived seemed to have been the pledge
of a long fair-weather—the premature sufferings which I had paid down
to have been accepted as a ransom for many years to come, as a price of
long immunity from sorrow; and if again I walked in London a solitary
and contemplative man (as oftentimes I did), I walked for the most part
in serenity and peace of mind. And although it is true that the
calamities of my noviciate in London had struck root so deeply in my
bodily constitution, that afterwards they shot up and flourished
afresh, and grew into a noxious umbrage that has overshadowed and
darkened my latter years, yet these second assaults of suffering were
met with a fortitude more confirmed, with the resources of a maturer
intellect, and with alleviations from sympathising affection—how deep
and tender!
Thus, however, with whatsoever alleviations, years that were far
asunder were bound together by subtle links of suffering derived from a
common root. And herein I notice an instance of the short-sightedness
of human desires, that oftentimes on moonlight nights, during my first
mournful abode in London, my consolation was (if such it could be
thought) to gaze from Oxford Street up every avenue in succession which
pierces through the heart of Marylebone to the fields and the woods;
for _that_, said I, travelling with my eyes up the long vistas which
lay part in light and part in shade, “_that_ is the road to the North,
and therefore to, and if I had the wings of a dove, _that_ way I would
fly for comfort.” Thus I said, and thus I wished, in my blindness. Yet
even in that very northern region it was, even in that very valley,
nay, in that very house to which my erroneous wishes pointed, that this
second birth of my sufferings began, and that they again threatened to
besiege the citadel of life and hope. There it was that for years I was
persecuted by visions as ugly, and as ghastly phantoms as ever haunted
the couch of an Orestes; and in this unhappier than he, that sleep,
which comes to all as a respite and a restoration, and to him
especially as a blessed {7} balm for his wounded heart and his haunted
brain, visited me as my bitterest scourge. Thus blind was I in my
desires; yet if a veil interposes between the dim-sightedness of man
and his future calamities, the same veil hides from him their
alleviations, and a grief which had not been feared is met by
consolations which had not been hoped. I therefore, who participated,
as it were, in the troubles of Orestes (excepting only in his agitated
conscience), participated no less in all his supports. My Eumenides,
like his, were at my bed-feet, and stared in upon me through the
curtains; but watching by my pillow, or defrauding herself of sleep to
bear me company through the heavy watches of the night, sate my
Electra; for thou, beloved M., dear companion of my later years, thou
wast my Electra! and neither in nobility of mind nor in long-suffering
affection wouldst permit that a Grecian sister should excel an English
wife. For thou thoughtest not much to stoop to humble offices of
kindness and to servile {8} ministrations of tenderest affection—to
wipe away for years the unwholesome dews upon the forehead, or to
refresh the lips when parched and baked with fever; nor even when thy
own peaceful slumbers had by long sympathy become infected with the
spectacle of my dread contest with phantoms and shadowy enemies that
oftentimes bade me “sleep no more!”—not even then didst thou utter a
complaint or any murmur, nor withdraw thy angelic smiles, nor shrink
from thy service of love, more than Electra did of old. For she too,
though she was a Grecian woman, and the daughter of the king {9} of
men, yet wept sometimes, and hid her face {10} in her robe.
But these troubles are past; and thou wilt read records of a period so
dolorous to us both as the legend of some hideous dream that can return
no more. Meantime, I am again in London, and again I pace the terraces
of Oxford Street by night; and oftentimes, when I am oppressed by
anxieties that demand all my philosophy and the comfort of thy presence
to support, and yet remember that I am separated from thee by three
hundred miles and the length of three dreary months, I look up the
streets that run northwards from Oxford Street, upon moonlight nights,
and recollect my youthful ejaculation of anguish; and remembering that
thou art sitting alone in that same valley, and mistress of that very
house to which my heart turned in its blindness nineteen years ago, I
think that, though blind indeed, and scattered to the winds of late,
the promptings of my heart may yet have had reference to a remoter
time, and may be justified if read in another meaning; and if I could
allow myself to descend again to the impotent wishes of childhood, I
should again say to myself, as I look to the North, “Oh, that I had the
wings of a dove—” and with how just a confidence in thy good and
gracious nature might I add the other half of my early ejaculation—“And
_that_ way I would fly for comfort!”