d 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