eady ringing:
and last, proudest, and most profound feeling of all--was I not to
venture near the shrine on which I had placed my idol; to offer her
the solemn and distant homage of the heart; perhaps to hear of her
from day to day; perhaps to see her noble beauty; perhaps even to
_hear_ that voice, of which the simplest accents sank to my
soul.--But I must not attempt to describe sensations which are in
their nature indescribable; which dispose the spirit of man to
silence; and which, in their true intensity, suffer but one faculty
to exist, absorbing all the rest in deep sleep and delicious reverie.

I drove with the haste of a courier to London; and after having
deposited my despatches with one of the under-secretaries of the
Foreign office, I flew to Mordecai's den in the city. London appeared
to me more crowded than ever; the streets longer, and buildings
dingier; and the whole, seen after the smokeless and light-coloured
towns of the Continent, looked an enormous manufactory, where men
wore themselves out in perpetual blackness and bustle, to make their
bread, and die. But my heart beat quickly as I reached the door of
that dingiest of all its dwellings, where the lord of hundreds of
thousands of pounds burrowed himself on the eyes of mankind.

I knocked, but was long unanswered; at last a meagre clerk, evidently
of the "fallen people," and who seemed dug up from the depths of the
dungeon, gave me the intelligence that "his master and family had
left England." The answer was like an icebolt through my frame. This
was the moment to which I had looked forward with, I shall not say
what emotions. I could scarcely define them; but they had a share of
every strong, every faithful, and every touching remembrance of my
nature. My disappointment was a pang. My head grey dizzy, I reeled;
and asked leave to enter the gloomy door, and rest for a moment. But
this the guardian of the den was too cautious to allow, and I should
have probably fainted in the street, but for the appearance of an
ancient Rebecca, the wife of the clerk, who, feeling the compassion
which belongs to the sex in all instances, and exerting the authority
which is so generally claimed by the better-halves of men, pushed her
husband back, and led the way into the old cobwebbed parlour where I
had so often been. A glass of water, the sole hospitality of the
house, revived me; and after some enquiries alike fruitless with the
past, I was about to take my l