formidable toils inherent in such a pursuit: with Medicine he had

never been in any contiguity, that he should dream of it as a course
for him. Clearly enough the professions were unsuitable; they to him,

he to them. Professions, built so largely on speciosity instead of
performance; clogged, in this bad epoch, and defaced under such

suspicions of fatal imposture, were hateful not lovable to the young
radical soul, scornful of gross profit, and intent on ideals and human

noblenesses. Again, the professions, were they never so perfect and
veracious, will require slow steady pulling, to which this individual

young radical, with his swift, far-darting brilliancies, and nomadic
desultory ways, is of all men the most averse and unfitted. No

profession could, in any case, have well gained the early love of
Sterling. And perhaps withal the most tragic element of his life is

even this, That there now was none to which he could fitly, by those
wiser than himself, have been bound and constrained, that he might

learn to love it. So swift, light-limbed and fiery an Arab courser
ought, for all manner of reasons, to have been trained to saddle and

harness. Roaming at full gallop over the heaths,--especially when
your heath was London, and English and European life, in the

nineteenth century,--he suffered much, and did comparatively little.
I have known few creatures whom it was more wasteful to send forth

with the bridle thrown up, and to set to steeple-hunting instead of
running on highways! But it is the lot of many such, in this

dislocated time,--Heaven mend it! In a better time there will be
other "professions" than those three extremely cramp, confused and

indeed almost obsolete ones: professions, if possible, that are true,
and do _not_ require you at the threshold to constitute yourself an

impostor. Human association,--which will mean discipline, vigorous
wise subordination and co-ordination,--is so unspeakably important.

Professions, "regimented human pursuits," how many of honorable and
manful might be possible for men; and which should _not_, in their

results to society, need to stumble along, in such an unwieldy futile
manner, with legs swollen into such enormous elephantiasis and no go

at all in them! Men will one day think of the force they squander in
every generation, and the fatal damage they encounter, by this

neglect.
The career likeliest for Sterling, in his and the world's

circumstances, would have been what is called public life: some
secretarial, diplomatic or other official training, to issue if

possible in Parliament as the true field for him. And here, beyond
question, had the gross material conditions been allowed, his

spiritual capabilities were first-rate. In any arena where eloquence
and argument was the point, this man was calculated to have borne the

bell from all competitors. In lucid ingenious talk and logic, in all
manner of brilliantutterance and tongue-fence, I have hardly known

his fellow. So ready lay his store of knowledge round him, so perfect
was his ready utterance of the same,--in coruscating wit, in jocund

drollery, in compact articulated clearness or high poignant emphasis,
as the case required,--he was a match for any man in argument before a

crowd of men. One of the most supple-wristed, dexterous, graceful and
successful fencers in that kind. A man, as Mr. Hare has said, "able

to argue with four or five at once;" could do the parrying all round,
in a succession swift as light, and plant his hits wherever a chance

offered. In Parliament, such a soul put into a body of the due
toughness might have carried it far. If ours is to be called, as I

hear some call it, the Talking Era, Sterling of all men had the talent
to excel in it.

Probably it was with some vague view towards chances in this direction
that Sterling's first engagement was entered upon; a brief connection

as Secretary to some Club or Association into which certain public
men, of the reforming sort, Mr. Crawford (the Oriental Diplomatist and

Writer), Mr. Kirkman Finlay (then Member for Glasgow), and other
political notabilities had now formed themselves,--with what specific

objects I do not know, nor with what result if any. I have heard
vaguely, it was "to open the trade to India." Of course they intended

to stir up the public mind into co-operation, whatever their goal or
object was: Mr. Crawford, an intimate in the Sterling household,

recognized the fine literary gift of John; and might think it a lucky
hit that he had caught such a Secretary for three hundred pounds a

year. That was the salary agreed upon; and for some months actually
worked for and paid; Sterling becoming for the time an intimate and

almost an inmate in Mr. Crawford's circle, doubtless not without
results to himself beyond the secretarial work and pounds sterling:

so much is certain. But neither the Secretaryship nor the Association
itself had any continuance; nor can I now learn accurately more of it

than what is here stated;--in which vague state it must vanish from
Sterling's history again, as it in great measure did from his life.

From himself in after-years I never heard mention of it; nor were his
pursuits connected afterwards with those of Mr. Crawford, though the

mutual good-will continued unbroken.
In fact, however splendid and indubitable Sterling's qualifications

for a parliamentary life, there was that in him withal which flatly
put a negative on any such project. He had not the slow

steady-pulling diligence which is indispensable in that, as in all
important pursuits and strenuous human competitions whatsoever. In

every sense, his momentum depended on velocity of stroke, rather than
on weight of metal; "beautifulest sheet-lightning," as I often said,

"not to be condensed into thunder-bolts." Add to this,--what indeed
is perhaps but the same phenomenon in another form,--his bodily frame

was thin, excitable, already manifesting pulmonary symptoms; a body
which the tear and wear of Parliament would infallibly in few months

have wrecked and ended. By this path there was clearly no mounting.
The far-darting, restlessly coruscating soul, equips beyond all others

to shine in the Talking Era, and lead National Palavers with their
_spolia opima_ captive, is imprisoned in a fragile hectic body which

quite forbids the adventure. "_Es ist dafur gesorgt_," says Goethe,
"Provision has been made that the trees do not grow into the

sky;"--means are always there to stop them short of the sky.
CHAPTER VI.

LITERATURE: THE ATHENAEUM.
Of all forms of public life, in the Talking Era, it was clear that

only one completely suited Sterling,--the anarchic, nomadic, entirely
aerial and unconditional one, called Literature. To this all his

tendencies, and fine gifts positive and negative, were evidently
pointing; and here, after such brief attempting or thoughts to attempt

at other posts, he already in this same year arrives. As many do, and
ever more must do, in these our years and times. This is the chaotic

haven of so many frustrate activities; where all manner of good gifts
go up in far-seen smoke or conflagration; and whole fleets, that might

have been war-fleets to conquer kingdoms, are _consumed_ (too truly,
often), amid "fame" enough, and the admiring shouts of the vulgar,

which is always fond to see fire going on. The true Canaan and Mount
Zion of a Talking Era must ever be Literature: the extraneous,

miscellaneous, self-elected, indescribable _Parliamentum_, or Talking
Apparatus, which talks by books and printed papers.

A literary Newspaper called _The Athenaeum_, the same which still
subsists, had been founded in those years by Mr. Buckingham; James

Silk Buckingham, who has since continued notable under various
figures. Mr. Buckingham's _Athenaeum_ had not as yet got into a

flourishing condition; and he was willing to sell the copyright of it
for a consideration. Perhaps Sterling and old Cambridge friends of

his had been already writing for it. At all events, Sterling, who had
already privately begun writing a Novel, and was clearly looking

towards Literature, perceived that his gifted Cambridge friend,
Frederic Maurice, was now also at large in a somewhat similar

situation; and that here was an opening for both of them, and for
other gifted friends. The copyright was purchased for I know not what

sum, nor with whose money, but guess it may have been Sterling's, and
no great sum;--and so, under free auspices, themselves their own

captains, Maurice and he spread sail for this new voyage of adventure
into all the world. It was about the end of 1828 that readers of

periodicalliterature, and quidnuncs in those departments, began to
report the appearance, in a Paper called the _Athenaeum, of_ writings

showing a superior brilliancy, and height of aim; one or perhaps two
slight specimens of which came into my own hands, in my remote corner,

about that time, and were duly recognized by me, while the authors
were still far off and hidden behind deep veils.

Some of Sterling's best Papers from the _Athenaeum_ have been
published by Archdeacon Hare: first-fruits by a young man of

twenty-two; crude, imperfect, yet singularly beautiful and attractive;
which will still testify what high literary promise lay in him. The

ruddiest glow of young enthusiasm, of noble incipient spiritual
manhood reigns over them; once more a divine Universe unveiling itself