He made frequent brief visits to London; in which I, among other

friends, frequently saw him, our acquaintance at each visit improving
in all ways. Like a swift dashingmeteor he came into our circle;

coruscated among us, for a day or two, with sudden pleasant
illumination; then again suddenly withdrew,--we hoped, not for long.

I suppose, he was full of uncertainties; but undoubtedly was
gravitating towards London. Yet, on the whole, on the surface of him,

you saw no uncertainties; far from that: it seemed always rather with
peremptory resolutions, and swift express businesses, that he was

charged. Sickly in body, the testimony said: but here always was a
mind that gave you the impression of peremptory alertness, cheery

swift decision,--of a _health_ which you might have called exuberant.
I remember dialogues with him, of that year; one pleasant dialogue

under the trees of the Park (where now, in 1851, is the thing called
"Crystal Palace"), with the June sunset flinging long shadows for us;

the last of the Quality just vanishing for dinner, and the great night
beginning to prophesy of itself. Our talk (like that of the foregoing

Letter) was of the faults of my style, of my way of thinking, of my
&c. &c.; all which admonitions and remonstrances, so friendly and

innocent, from this young junior-senior, I was willing to listen to,
though unable, as usual, to get almost any practical hold of them. As

usual, the garments do not fit you, you are lost in the garments, or
you cannot get into them at all; this is not your suit of clothes, it

must be another's:--alas, these are not your dimensions, these are
only the optical angles you subtend; on the whole, you will never get

measured in that way!--
Another time, of date probably very contiguous, I remember hearing

Sterling preach. It was in some new college-chapel in Somerset-house
(I suppose, what is now called King's College); a very quiet small

place, the audience student-looking youths, with a few elder people,
perhaps mostly friends of the preacher's. The discourse, delivered

with a grave sonorous composure, and far surpassing in talent the
usual run of sermons, had withal an air of human veracity as I still

recollect, and bespoke dignity and piety of mind: but gave me the
impression rather of artisticexcellence than of unction or

inspiration in that kind. Sterling returned with us to Chelsea that
day;--and in the afternoon we went on the Thames Putney-ward together,

we two with my Wife; under the sunny skies, on the quiet water, and
with copiouscheery talk, the remembrance of which is still present

enough to me.
This was properly my only specimen of Sterling's preaching. Another

time, late in the same autumn, I did indeed attend him one evening to
some Church in the City,--a big Church behind Cheapside, "built by

Wren" as he carefully informed me;--but there, in my wearied mood, the
chief subject of reflection was the almost total vacancy of the place,

and how an eloquent soul was preaching to mere lamps and prayer-books;
and of the sermon I retain no image. It came up in the way of banter,

if he ever urged the duty of "Church extension," which already he very
seldom did and at length never, what a specimen we once had of bright

lamps, gilt prayer-books, baize-lined pews, Wren-built architecture;
and how, in almost all directions, you might have fired a musket

through the church, and hit no Christian life. A terrible outlook
indeed for the Apostolic laborer in the brick-and-mortar line!--

In the Autumn of this same 1835, he removed permanently to London,
whither all summer he had been evidently" target="_blank" title="ad.明显地">evidently tending; took a house in

Bayswater, an airy suburb, half town, half country, near his Father's,
and within fair distance of his other friends and objects; and decided

to await there what the ultimate developments of his course might be.
His house was in Orme Square, close by the corner of that little place

(which has only _three_ sides of houses); its windows looking to the
east: the Number was, and I believe still is, No. 5. A sufficiently

commodious, by no means sumptuous, small mansion; where, with the
means sure to him, he could calculate on findingadequate shelter for

his family, his books and himself, and live in a decent manner, in no
terror of debt, for one thing. His income, I suppose, was not large;

but he lived generally a safe distance within it; and showed himself
always as a man bountiful in money matters, and taking no thought that

way.
His study-room in this house was perhaps mainly the drawing-room;

looking out safe, over the little dingy grassplot in front, and the
quiet little row of houses opposite, with the huge dust-whirl of

Oxford Street and London far enough ahead of you as background,--as
back-curtain, blotting out only _half_ your blue hemisphere with dust

and smoke. On the right, you had the continuous growl of the Uxbridge
Road and its wheels, coming as lullaby not interruption. Leftward and

rearward, after some thin belt of houses, lay mere country; bright
sweeping green expanses, crowned by pleasant Hampstead, pleasant

Harrow, with their rustic steeples rising against the sky. Here on
winter evenings, the bustle of removal being all well ended, and

family and books got planted in their new places, friends could find
Sterling, as they often did, who was delighted to be found by them,

and would give and take, vividly as few others, an hour's good talk at
any time.

His outlooks, it must be admitted, were sufficiently vague and
overshadowed; neither the past nor the future of a too joyful kind.

Public life, in any professional form, is quite forbidden; to work
with his fellows anywhere appears to be forbidden: nor can the

humblest solitary endeavor to work worthily as yet find an arena. How
unfold one's little bit of talent; and live, and not lie sleeping,

while it is called To-day? As Radical, as Reforming Politician in any
public or private form,--not only has this, in Sterling's case,

received tragical sentence and execution; but the opposite extreme,
the Church whither he had fled, likewise proves abortive: the Church

also is not the haven for him at all. What is to be done? Something
must be done, and soon,--under penalties. Whoever has received, on

him there is an inexorable behest to give. "_Fais ton fait_, Do thy
little stroke of work:" this is Nature's voice, and the sum of all

the commandments, to each man!
A shepherd of the people, some small Agamemnon after his sort, doing

what little sovereignty and guidance he can in his day and generation:
such every gifted soul longs, and should long, to be. But how, in any

measure, is the small kingdom necessary for Sterling to be attained?
Not through newspapers and parliaments, not by rubrics and

reading-desks: none of the sceptres offered in the world's
market-place, nor none of the crosiers there, it seems, can be the

shepherd's-crook for this man. A most cheerful, hoping man; and full
of swift faculty, though much lamed,--considerably bewildered too; and

tending rather towards the wastes and solitary places for a home; the
paved world not being friendly to him hitherto! The paved world, in

fact, both on its practical and spiritual side, slams to its doors
against him; indicates that he cannot enter, and even must not,--that

it will prove a choke-vault, deadly to soul and to body, if he enter.
Sceptre, crosier, sheep-crook is none there for him.

There remains one other implement, the resource of all Adam's
posterity that are otherwise foiled,--the Pen. It was evident from

this point that Sterling, however otherwisebeaten about, and set
fluctuating, would gravitate steadily with all his real weight towards

Literature. That he would gradually try with consciousness" target="_blank" title="n.意识；觉悟；知觉">consciousness to get
into Literature; and, on the whole, never quit Literature, which was

now all the world for him. Such is accordingly the sum of his history
henceforth: such small sum, so terribly obstructed and diminished by

circumstances, is all we have realized from him.
Sterling had by no means as yet consciously quitted the clerical

profession, far less the Church as a creed. We have seen, he
occasionally officiated still in these months, when a friend requested

or an opportunity invited. Nay it turned out afterwards, he had,
unknown even to his own family, during a good many weeks in the

coldest period of next spring, when it was really dangerous for his
health and did prove hurtful to it,--been constantly performing the

morning service in some Chapel in Bayswater for a young clerical
neighbor, a slight acquaintance of his, who was sickly at the time.

So far as I know, this of the Bayswater Chapel in the spring of 1836,
a feat severely rebuked by his Doctor withal, was his last actual

service as a churchman. But the conscious life ecclesiastical still
hung visibly about his inner unconscious and real life, for years to

come; and not till by slow degrees he had unwinded from him the
wrappages of it, could he become clear about himself, and so much as

try heartily what his now sole course was. Alas, and he had to live
all the rest of his days, as in continualflight for his very

existence; "ducking under like a poor unfledged partridge-bird," as
one described it, "before the mower; darting continually from nook to

nook, and there crouching, to escape the scythe of Death." For
Literature Proper there was but little left in such a life. Only the

smallest broken fractions of his last and heaviest-laden years can
poor Sterling be said to have completely lived. His purpose had risen

before him slowly in noble clearness; clear at last,--and even then
the inevitable hour was at hand.

In those first London months, as always afterwards while it remained
physically possible, I saw much of him; loved him, as was natural,

more and more; found in him, many ways, a beautiful acquisition to my