Displaced person

“ Under the strain of this continually impending doom and by the sleeplessness to which I now condemned myself, ay, even beyond what I had thought possible to man, I became, in my own person, a creature eaten up and emptied by fever, languidly weak both in body and mind, and solely occupied by one thought: the horror of my other self. ”

“ Thou the Lord of my heart, the Charmer of my heart, the Beloved One of my heart, what words can describe the pang of separation from Thee? How the heart longs and yearns, is tortured with the desire for Thee! The whole world is a dreary desert, if Thy face is concealed from me; my life is a heavy infliction, if it is not inspired and cheered by Thy grace and Thy voice. In these many ways I bemoan my separation, I weep over my desertion. As we have sung, so we sigh; for a single drop of Thy mercy do we pray and do we yearn. ”

“ Do you know what it is to acknowledge no tie of blood that binds one life to another and makes for a common interest in joy or sorrow? To ask yourself: Do I belong here? To wonder, perhaps, why, in fact, you are here? To feel your isolation in a crowded thoroughfare, your remoteness in the midst of an alien family life? To feel, in truth, a stranger on this earth? ”

“ The displacement, the removal, which helps us to escape ourselves, gives him the sensation of his identity. Again a proof of youth and force! He will grow older; I hope he may, since he desires it; and already I can easily understand that if I should penetrate into the West, every turn of the wheels would carry me from an older to a newer world. ”

“ Then I made up my mind to flee to the end of the world, where no one ever goes. But is there a place anywhere, to which no one has ever yet been? I took nothing belonging to the dying animals, not even the halters; I left everything. And when the leader fell I did not even take the figured band from his head, which had come down to me from my ancestors.'
'A-ah!' responded the listeners. ”

“ You can imagine what it would be when that last loophole of escape, upon which we all rely—perhaps unconsciously—was closed, when you knew you never could return; when you came to be shut out from hope, a prey to remorse, a tired victim compelled to pursue excitement, and always to pursue it, descending all the time, and finding it escape you more and more till at last even that hateful resource was lost to you, and you found yourself at the end of the road to perdition, a worn out woman, face to face with despair! ”

“ So the face of the exile lightens up at the throbbing of his heart, when, in some foreign land, he suddenly and unexpectedly hears the sound of his own language. So his eyes light up, and his heart beats faster, and even amidst the very longing of his soul after home, the desire after that home is appeased by these its most hallowed associations. ”

“ Had I been quite retired from the world, and known nothing of the matter I should have become more calm; but my heart still clung to attachments, by means of which my enemies had great advantages over me; and the feeble rays which penetrated my asylum conveyed to me nothing more than a knowledge of the blackness of the mysteries which were concealed from my eyes. ”

“ We will put it that you, by all the laws of humanity, had a right to escape from the hideous doom to which you had been consigned. You have escaped, and by the strangest chance you have found a friend at the very outset. ”

“ Each trembled for himself, or for those dear to him; every countenance was stamped with an expression of feverish astonishment and dread. People walked with rapid steps, as if they would escape from the fate which threatened them; besides, they were in haste to return to their homes, for often they left life, health, happiness, and, two hours later, they found agony, death, and despair. ”

“ And here, on the threshold of his new life, I find, to my deep regret, that I must leave him. The life becomes too complicated; the interests too numerous; the hopes too lofty and large, to find room in what will generally be considered as a work of fiction. ”

“ Can I bear to be separated from the only comfort I have left in the world, or can I be the cause of your leaving your father's house, and subjecting you to, perhaps, more afflictions than you already endure? ”

“ Dragged out of an eternity of silent isolation And doomed to partiality, partial being, Ache, and want of being, Want, Self-exposure, hard humiliation, need to add himself on to her. Born to walk alone, Forerunner, Now suddenly distracted into this mazy sidetrack, This awkward, harrowing pursuit, This grim necessity from within. Does she know As she moves eternally slowly away? ”

“ Comparatively speaking, she had never known affliction till now: she had abandoned her dearest friends and connexions—had relinquished the gaieties, the luxuries, and almost the necessaries of life;—fled with her family into exile, an exile the most dreary and comfortless; experiencing the evils of reality, and those of apprehension, united: all these she had patiently endured, supported by the affection of him for whose sake she suffered. ”

“ If she was not changed, I ought to be able to find her somewhere within this great Babylon of ours. Wisdom told me to set the police upon her track, but pride bade me try every other means first. So with the feverish energy of one leading a forlorn hope, I began to pace the streets if haply I might see her face shine upon me from the crowd of passers by; a foolish fancy, unproductive of result! I not only failed to see her, but anyone like her.
"In the midst of the despair occasioned by this failure a thought flashed across me or rather a remembrance. ”

“ As autumn approached, with faint notice on his part, his anger and resentment retreated, leaving in their wake a gentle stir of regret and remorse. Imperceptibly, he grew physically weary; a strange sensation of loneliness and isolation enveloped him. A species of timidity came upon him; he felt an unhappy remoteness from people, and began to edge away from life. ”

“ One notable result of this sudden relaxation of unity, this sudden predominance of the subgroups, appeared in the phenomena of displacement. Displacement is a common matter among paranoiacs, where one object is substituted for another with the same meaning and the same feeling-tone of resentment or of pleasure. ”

“ As white as death she stood facing him, wondering how she should extricate herself from her terrible strait, how escape from the web of fate her own reckless hands had spun, for escape she must, or bear his stinging contempt to her life’s end. ”

“ The scene of separation was heartrending to all but the doomed man, who was calm, and even smiled once or twice, in order to cheer, if he could, the poor creatures whom he had rendered cheerless for ever. ”

“ This question awakened in my bosom so many complicated and painful sensations, that, after remaining silent for a few minutes, I burst into a flood of tears.
'I have no home;' said I, in a voice choaked with sobs—'I am an alien in the world—and alone in the universe.'
His eyes glistened, his countenance expressed the most lively, and tender, commiseration, while, in a timid and respectful voice, he made me offers of service, and entreated me to permit him to be useful to me. ”

“ I have come home and found a trouble to welcome me, which goes near to break my heart. If I don’t take refuge in absence and hard work, I am a lost man. Will you give me a refuge?’ That’s what he said, Crayford, word for word. ”

“ When deep dispair with wish of life hath fought,
Branded with guilt, and crusht with treble woes,
A vagabond to Land of Nod he goes;
A City builds, that wals might him secure from foes.
Who thinks not oft upon the Father's ages. ”

“ He wondered if his red-cheeked little sister could live in one of those vast, impregnable buildings. He thought of stopping some of those serious-looking men and asking them if they knew her, but he could not muster up the courage. The distressing experience that comes to almost every one some time in life, of losing all identity in the universal humanity, was becoming his. ”

“ How many lie still, in their cold exile sleeping,
⁠Who sought in far lands your lost blackbird to find?
“And many are caught in the net of the stranger—
⁠Have all but forgotten the sound of your name,
For other loves call them to help and to save them!
⁠They fell to dishonour—we hold them in shame.
“Oh, why drive me forth from your hearth into exile
⁠And into far dangers? Your house is my own. ”

“ Moreover, to a degree that even she could not understand, his presence was a source of strength and courage, and her heart clung to him with desperate earnestness, believing him the sole barrier against immediate death, and (what she dreaded scarcely less) a lonely, wretched existence, should her life be spared. ”

“ Well, you've got to give it up for the rest of to-day or you and I will separate here and now. You act as though you had just escaped from a lunatic asylum, and when people see me they are apt to think there are two of us. ”

“ The Quest didn’t come into this category in any way, but we caught at any happening that promised the faintest interest, for only those who have experienced this sensation of being entirely clipped off from the outer world, that might easily shift its moorings and vanish into thin air in our absence, this brooding loneliness, can understand what possibilities such isolation can possess for enlarging the worst traits of humanity. ”

“ But, when the sorrow is above my strength, when I foresee some danger from which I cannot preserve my own, then my thoughts, travelling over the world, go in search of that woman like me accursed, that daughter of a queen, who, like me, the son of a laborer, wanders, and will wander on, till the day of her redemption. ”

“ In spite of the diversions created by the varied and anxious demands on their attention, the instinct of self-preservation and the desire to escape as speedily as possible from that dread place of death were present in every soul. ”

“ Yet there were sad faces in that crowd, too—faces hard, rough and guilt-stained—that grew sorrowful as better men’s might have grown, as some friend, son, husband or brother went by, straining their eyes to take a last look at the land they were leaving forever. ”

“ One common form of this detachment is the form you have in those cases of people who are found wandering unaware of their names, unaware of their places of residence, lost altogether from themselves. They have not only lost their sense of identity with themselves, but all the circumstances of their lives have faded out of their minds like an idle story in a book that has been read and put aside. ”

“ If I go alone you will be an exile from England for the rest of your life, your name will be removed from every club to which you belong, and you will have brought irreparable disgrace upon your family. ”

“ He might feel regret at the terrible expatriation forced upon him—the loss of wealth, friends, social status, and civilisation—more than all, the severance from one too wildly, wickedly loved—perhaps never to be seen again! ”

“ From my house of refuge I watched eagerly the course of events, until at last all mail facilities were cut off, and I was left to endure the horrors of suspense as well as the irritating consciousness that, although sojourning in the home of my childhood, I was an alien, an acknowledged "Rebel," and as such an object of suspicion and dislike to all save my immediate family. ”

“ I have set myself to forget your very name, and I do not suppose that the child can remember you. From the standpoint of justice and morality, you have simply ceased to exist; you’re outside the pale—a lost, abandoned woman. ”

“ I have often perplexed myself to divine the various motives that give impulse to this strange migration; but whatever they may be, whether an insane hope of a better condition of life, or a desire of shaking off the restraints of law and society, or mere restlessness, certain it is that multitudes bitterly repent the journey. ”

“ Every now and then, some one of our old friends is thus dropping through the trap-doors of the social stage, to be seen and heard of no more. In travelling, one is apt to come upon some old-remembered face, which he had been accustomed to in such different circumstances that he has a difficulty in recognising [pg 210] it. It may be in some village obscurity of our own country, some German watering-place, or some American wilderness. There it is, however, the once familiar face; and you cannot pass it unheeded. You soon discover that you have lighted upon an imperfect respectability in exile. ”

“ This frank confession of abandonment made a profound impression upon me. I thought to myself, "Master recluse, you are a pilferer and have filched a life. I am yet more solitary in my estate, and if I followed your example, should be guilty of a greater wrong." There are, indeed, hours when I feel embittered at the thought that for one innocent defect a whole life should be amerced of joy; the finality of loss appals: all is so irrevocable ”

“ That there are many, very many, around us, almost at our doors, who "go into captivity" and "are destroyed," because they have no such knowledge as that of which I have been speaking, is one of those sad truths to which we can none of us be strangers. ”

“ May I venture to hope, sir, that just at the moment of quitting our common retreat to return to the world, you will deign to receive favorably the request, however intrusive, of a poor old man, whose life will henceforth be passed in solitude, and who cannot therefore have any prospect of meeting you, in that vortex of society which he has abandoned forever. ”