clever man; Conservative Member for North Staffordshire.
"During the first two months I was here, I rode a great deal about the

Island, having a horse regularly; and was much in agreeable company,
seeing a great deal of beautiful scenery. Since then, the weather has

been much more unsettled, though not cold; and I have gone about less,
as I cannot risk the being wet. But I have spent my time pleasantly,

reading and writing. I have written a good many things for
_Blackwood_; one of which, the _Armor and the Skeleton_, I see is

printed in the February Number. I have just sent them a long Tale,
called the _Onyx Ring_, which cost me a good deal of trouble; and the

extravagance of which, I think, would amuse you; but its length may
prevent its appearance in _Blackwood_. If so, I think I should make a

volume of it. I have also written some poems, and shall probably
publish the _Sexton's Daughter_ when I return.

"My health goes on most favorably. I have had no attack of the chest
this spring; which has not happened to me since the spring before we

went to Bonn; and I am told, if I take care, I may roll along for
years. But I have little hope of being allowed to spend the four

first months of any year in England; and the question will be, Whether
to go at once to Italy, by way of Germany and Switzerland, with my

family, or to settle with them in England, perhaps at Hastings, and go
abroad myself when it may be necessary. I cannot decide till I

return; but I think the latter the most probable.
"To my dear Charles I do not like to use the ordinary forms of ending

a letter, for they are very inadequate to express my sense of your
long and most unvarying kindness; but be assured no one living could

say with more sincerity that he is ever affectionately yours,
"JOHN STERLING."

Other Letters give occasionally views of the shadier side of things:
dark broken weather, in the sky and in the mind; ugly clouds covering

one's poor fitful transitory prospect, for a time, as they might well
do in Sterling's case. Meanwhile we perceive his literary business is

fast developing itself; amid all his confusions, he is never idle
long. Some of his best Pieces--the Onyx _Ring_, for one, as we

perceive--were written here this winter. Out of the turbid whirlpool
of the days he strives assiduously to snatch what he can.

Sterling's communications with _Blackwood's Magazine_ had now issued
in some open sanction of him by Professor Wilson, the distinguished

presiding spirit of that Periodical; a fact naturally of high
importance to him under the literary point of view. For Wilson, with

his clear flashing eye and great genial heart, had at once recognized
Sterling; and lavished stormily, in his wild generous way, torrents of

praise on him in the editorial comments: which undoubtedly was one of
the gratefulest literary baptisms, by fire or by water, that could

befall a soul like Sterling's. He bore it very gently, being indeed
past the age to have his head turned by anybody's praises: nor do I

think the exaggeration that was in these eulogies did him any ill
whatever; while surely their generousencouragement did him much good,

in his solitary struggle towards new activity under such impediments
as his. _Laudari a laudato_; to be called noble by one whom you and

the world recognize as noble: this great satisfaction, never perhaps
in such a degree before or after had now been vouchsafed to Sterling;

and was, as I compute, an important fact for him. He proceeded on his
pilgrimage with new energy, and felt more and more as if authentically

consecrated to the same.
The _Onyx Ring_, a curious Tale, with wild improbable basis, but with

a noble glow of coloring and with other high merits in it, a Tale
still worth reading, in which, among the imaginary characters, various

friends of Sterling's are shadowed forth, not always in the truest
manner, came out in _Blackwood_ in the winter of this year. Surely a

very high talent for painting, both of scenery and persons, is visible
in this Fiction; the promise of a Novel such as we have few. But

there wants maturing, wants purifying of clear from unclear;--properly
there want patience and steady depth. The basis, as we said, is wild

and loose; and in the details, lucent often with fine color, and dipt
in beautiful sunshine, there are several things mis_seen_, untrue,

which is the worst species of mispainting. Witness, as Sterling
himself would have by and by admitted, the "empty clockcase" (so we

called it) which he has labelled Goethe,--which puts all other
untruths in the Piece to silence.

One of the great alleviations of his exile at Madeira he has already
celebrated to us: the pleasant circle of society he fell into there.

Great luck, thinks Sterling in this voyage; as indeed there was: but
he himself, moreover, was readier than most men to fall into pleasant

circles everywhere, being singularly prompt to make the most of any
circle. Some of his Madeira acquaintanceships were really good; and

one of them, if not more, ripened into comradeship and friendship for
him. He says, as we saw, "The chances are, Calvert and I will come

home together."
Among the English in pursuit of health, or in flight from fatal

disease, that winter, was this Dr. Calvert; an excellent ingenious
cheery Cumberland gentleman, about Sterling's age, and in a deeper

stage of ailment, this not being his first visit to Madeira: he,
warmly joining himself to Sterling, as we have seen, was warmly

received by him; so that there soon grew a close and free intimacy
between them; which for the next three years, till poor Calvert ended

his course, was a leading element in the history of both.
Companionship in incurablemalady, a touching bond of union, was by no

means purely or chiefly a companionship in misery in their case. The
sunniest inextinguishable cheerfulness shone, through all manner of

clouds, in both. Calvert had been travelling physician in some family
of rank, who had rewarded him with a pension, shielding his own

ill-health from one sad evil. Being hopelessly gone in pulmonary
disorder, he now moved about among friendly climates and places,

seeking what alleviation there might be; often spending his summers in
the house of a sister in the environs of London; an insatiable rider

on his little brown pony; always, wherever you might meet him, one of
the cheeriest of men. He had plenty of speculation too, clear glances

of all kinds into religious, social, moral concerns; and pleasantly
incited Sterling's outpourings on such subjects. He could report of

fashionable persons and manners, in a fine human Cumberland manner;
loved art, a great collector of drawings; he had endless help and

ingenuity; and was in short every way a very human, lovable, good and
nimble man,--the laughing blue eyes of him, the clear cheery soul of

him, still redolent of the fresh Northern breezes and transparent
Mountain streams. With this Calvert, Sterling formed a natural

intimacy; and they were to each other a great possession, mutually
enlivening many a dark day during the next three years. They did come

home together this spring; and subsequently made several of these
health-journeys in partnership.

CHAPTER VI.
LITERATURE: THE STERLING CLUB.

In spite of these wanderings, Sterling's course in life, so far as his
poor life could have any course or aim beyond that of screening itself

from swift death, was getting more and more clear to him; and he
pursued it diligently, in the only way permitted him, by hasty

snatches, in the intervals of continualfluctuation, change of place
and other interruption.

Such, once for all, were the conditions appointed him. And it must be
owned he had, with a most kindly temper, adjusted himself to these;

nay you would have said, he loved them; it was almost as if he would
have chosen them as the suitablest. Such an adaptation was there in

him of volition to necessity:--for indeed they both, if well seen
into, proceeded from one source. Sterling's bodily disease was the

expression, under physical conditions, of the too vehement life which,
under the moral, the intellectual and other aspects, incessantly" target="_blank" title="ad.不断地，不停地">incessantly

struggled within him. Too vehement;--which would have required a
frame of oak and iron to contain it: in a thin though most wiry body

of flesh and bone, it incessantly" target="_blank" title="ad.不断地，不停地">incessantly "wore holes," and so found outlet
for itself. He could take no rest, he had never learned that art; he

was, as we often reproached him, fatally capable" target="_blank" title="a.无能力的；不能的">incapable of sitting still.
Rapidity, as of pulsing auroras, as of dancing lightnings: rapidity

in all forms characterized him. This, which was his bane, in many
senses, being the real origin of his disorder, and of such continual

necessity to move and change,--was also his antidote, so far as
antidote there might be; enabling him to love change, and to snatch,

as few others could have done, from the waste chaotic years, all
tumbled into ruin by incessant change, what hours and minutes of

available turned up. He had an incrediblefacility of labor. He
flashed with most piercing glance into a subject; gathered it up into

organic utterability, with truly wonderful despatch, considering the
success and truth attained; and threw it on paper with a swift

felicity, ingenuity, brilliancy and general excellence, of which,