LIFE OF JOHN STERLING.

By Thomas Carlyle.
PART I.

CHAPTER I.
INTRODUCTORY.

Near seven years ago, a short while before his death in 1844, John
Sterling committed the care of his literary Character and printed

Writings to two friends, Archdeacon Hare and myself. His estimate of
the bequest was far from overweening; to few men could the small

sum-total of his activities in this world seem more inconsiderable
than, in those last solemn days, it did to him. He had burnt much;

found much worthy" target="_blank" title="a.不值得的；不足道的">unworthy; looking steadfastly into the silent continents of
Death and Eternity, a brave man's judgments about his own sorry work

in the field of Time are not apt to be too lenient. But, in fine,
here was some portion of his work which the world had already got hold

of, and which he could not burn. This too, since it was not to be
abolished and annihilated, but must still for some time live and act,

he wished to be wisely settled, as the rest had been. And so it was
left in charge to us, the survivors, to do for it what we judged

fittest, if indeed doing nothing did not seem the fittest to us. This
message, communicated after his decease, was naturally a sacred one to

Mr. Hare and me.
After some consultation on it, and survey of the difficulties and

delicate considerations involved in it, Archdeacon Hare and I agreed
that the whole task, of selecting what Writings were to be reprinted,

and of drawing up a Biography to introduce them, should be left to him
alone; and done without interference of mine:--as accordingly" target="_blank" title="ad.因此；从而；依照">accordingly it

was,[1] in a manner surely far superior to the common, in every good quality
of editing; and visibly everywhere bearingtestimony to the

friendliness, the piety, perspicacity and other gifts and virtues of
that eminent and amiable man.

In one respect, however, if in one only, the arrangement had been
unfortunate. Archdeacon Hare, both by natural tendency and by his

position as a Churchman, had been led, in editing a Work not free from
ecclesiastical heresies, and especially in writing a Life very full of

such, to dwell with preponderating emphasis on that part of his
subject; by no means extenuating the fact, nor yet passing lightly

over it (which a layman could have done) as needing no extenuation;
but carefully searching into it, with the view of excusing and

explaining it; dwelling on it, presenting all the documents of it, and
as it were spreading it over the whole field of his delineation; as if

religious heterodoxy had been the grand fact of Sterling's life, which
even to the Archdeacon's mind it could by no means seem to be. _Hinc

illae lachrymae_. For the Religious Newspapers, and Periodical
Heresy-hunters, getting very lively in those years, were prompt to

seize the cue; and have prosecuted and perhaps still prosecute it, in
their sad way, to all lengths and breadths. John Sterling's character

and writings, which had little business to be spoken of in any
Church-court, have hereby been carried thither as if for an exclusive

trial; and the mournfulest set of pleadings, out of which nothing but
a misjudgment _can_ be formed, prevail there ever since. The noble

Sterling, a radiant child of the empyrean, clad in bright auroral hues
in the memory of all that knew him,--what is he doing here in

inquisitorial _sanbenito_, with nothing but ghastly spectralities
prowling round him, and inarticulately screeching and gibbering what

they call their judgment on him!
"The sin of Hare's Book," says one of my Correspondents in those

years, "is easily defined, and not very condemnable, but it is
nevertheless ruinous to his task as Biographer. He takes up Sterling

as a clergyman merely. Sterling, I find, was a curate for exactly
eight months; during eight months and no more had he any special

relation to the Church. But he was a man, and had relation to the
Universe, for eight-and-thirty years: and it is in this latter

character, to which all the others were but features and transitory
hues, that we wish to know him. His battle with hereditary Church

formulas was severe; but it was by no means his one battle with things
inherited, nor indeed his chief battle; neither, according to my

observation of what it was, is it successfully delineated or summed up
in this Book. The truth is, nobody that had known Sterling would

recognize a feature of him here; you would never dream that this Book
treated of _him_ at all. A pale sickly shadow in torn surplice is

presented to us here; weltering bewildered amid heaps of what you call
'Hebrew Old-clothes;' wrestling, with impotent impetuosity, to free

itself from the baleful imbroglio, as if that had been its one
function in life: who in this miserable figure would recognize the

brilliant, beautiful and cheerful John Sterling, with his ever-flowing
wealth of ideas, fancies, imaginations; with his frank affections,

inexhaustible hopes, audacities, activities, and general radiant
vivacity of heart and intelligence, which made the presence of him an

illumination and inspirationwherever he went? It is too bad. Let a
man be honestly forgotten when his life ends; but let him not be

misremembered in this way. To be hung up as an ecclesiastical
scarecrow, as a target for heterodox and orthodox to practice archery

upon, is no fate that can be due to the memory of Sterling. It was
not as a ghastly phantasm, choked in Thirty-nine-article

controversies, or miserable Semitic, Anti-Semitic street-riots,--in
scepticisms, agonized self-seekings, that this man appeared in life;

nor as such, if the world still wishes to look at him should you
suffer the world's memory of him now to be. Once for all, it is

unjust; emphaticallyuntrue as an image of John Sterling: perhaps to
few men that lived along with him could such an interpretation of

their existence be more inapplicable."
Whatever truth there might be in these rather passionate

representations, and to myself there wanted not a painful feeling of
their truth, it by no means appeared what help or remedy any friend of

Sterling's, and especially one so related to the matter as myself,
could attempt in the interim. Perhaps endure in patience till the

dust laid itself again, as all dust does if you leave it well alone?
Much obscuration would thus of its own accord fall away; and, in Mr.

Hare's narrative itself, apart from his commentary, many features of
Sterling's true character would become decipherable to such as sought

them. Censure, blame of this Work of Mr. Hare's was naturally far
from my thoughts. A work which distinguishes itself by human piety

and candid intelligence; which, in all details, is careful, lucid,
exact; and which offers, as we say, to the observant reader that will

interpret facts, many traits of Sterling besides his heterodoxy.
Censure of it, from me especially, is not the thing due; from me a far

other thing is due!--
On the whole, my private thought was: First, How happy it

comparatively is, for a man of any earnestness of life, to have no
Biography written of him; but to return silently, with his small,

sorely foiled bit of work, to the Supreme Silences, who alone can
judge of it or him; and not to trouble the reviewers, and greater or

lesser public, with attempting to judge it! The idea of "fame," as
they call it, posthumous or other, does not inspire one with much

ecstasy in these points of view.--Secondly, That Sterling's
performance and real or seeming importance in this world was actually

not of a kind to demand an express Biography, even according to the
world's usages. His character was not supremely original; neither was

his fate in the world wonderful. What he did was inconsiderable
enough; and as to what it lay in him to have done, this was but a

problem, now beyond possibility of settlement. Why had a Biography
been inflicted on this man; why had not No-biography, and the

privilege of all the weary, been his lot?--Thirdly, That such lot,
however, could now no longer be my good Sterling's; a tumult having

risen around his name, enough to impress some pretended likeness of
him (about as like as the Guy-Fauxes are, on Gunpowder-Day) upon the

minds of many men: so that he could not be forgotten, and could only
be misremembered, as matters now stood.

Whereupon, as practical conclusion to the whole, arose by degrees this
final thought, That, at some calmer season, when the theological dust

had well fallen, and both the matter itself, and my feelings on it,
were in a suitabler condition, I ought to give my testimony about this

friend whom I had known so well, and record clearly what my knowledge
of him was. This has ever since seemed a kind of duty I had to do in

the world before leaving it.
And so, having on my hands some leisure at this time, and being bound

to it by evident considerations, one of which ought to be especially
sacred to me, I decide to fling down on paper some outline of what my

recollections and reflections contain in reference to this most
friendly, bright and beautiful human soul; who walked with me for a

season in this world, and remains to me very memorable while I