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!"

THE PLEASURES OF OPIUM

It is so long since I first took opium that if it had been a trifling
incident in my life I might have forgotten its date; but cardinal events
are not to be forgotten, and from circumstances connected with it I
remember that it must be referred to the autumn of 1804. During that
season I was in London, having come thither for the first time since my
entrance at college. And my introduction to opium arose in the following
way. From an early age I had been accustomed to wash my head in cold
water at least once a day: being suddenly seized with toothache, I
attributed it to some relaxation caused by an accidental intermission of
that practice, jumped out of bed, plunged my head into a basin of cold
water, and with hair thus wetted went to sleep. The next morning, as I
need hardly say, I awoke with excruciating rheumatic pains of the head
and face, from which I had hardly any respite for about twenty days. On
the twenty-first day I think it was, and on a Sunday, that I went out
into the streets, rather to run away, if possible, from my torments, than
with any distinct purpose. By accident I met a college acquaintance, who
recommended opium. Opium! dread agent of unimaginable pleasure and pain!
I had heard of it as I had of manna or of ambrosia, but no