dream into fact, that is of poetry into prose, and showed its unrhymed

side withal. A loose, careless-looking, thin figure, in careless dim
costume, sat, in a lounging posture, carelessly and copiously talking.

I was struck with the kindly but restless swift-glancing eyes, which
looked as if the spirits were all out coursing like a pack of merry

eager beagles, beating every bush. The brow, rather sloping in form,
was not of imposingcharacter, though again the head was longish,

which is always the best sign of intellect; the physiognomy in general
indicated animation rather than strength.

We talked rapidly of various unmemorable things: I remember coming on
the Negroes, and noticing that Sterling's notion on the Slavery

Question had not advanced into the stage of mine. In reference to the
question whether an "engagement for life," on just terms, between

parties who are fixed in the character of master and servant, as the
Whites and the Negroes are, is not really better than one from day to

day,--he said with a kindly jeer, "I would have the Negroes themselves
consulted as to that!"--and would not in the least believe that the

Negroes were by no means final or perfect judges of it.--His address,
I perceived, was abrupt, unceremonious; probably not at all

disinclined to logic, and capable of dashing in upon you like a charge
of Cossacks, on occasion: but it was also eminently ingenious,

social, guileless. We did all very well together: and Sterling and I
walked westward in company, choosing whatever lanes or quietest

streets there were, as far as Knightsbridge where our roads parted;
talking on moralities, theological philosophies; arguing copiously,

but _except_ in opinion not disagreeing
In his notions on such subjects, the expected Coleridge cast of

thought was very visible; and he seemed to express it even with
exaggeration, and in a fearless dogmatic manner. Identity of

sentiment, difference of opinion: these are the known elements of a
pleasant dialogue. We parted with the mutual wish to meet

again;--which accordingly, at his Father's house and at mine, we soon
repeatedly did; and already, in the few days before his return to

Herstmonceux, had laid the foundations of a frank intercourse,
pointing towards pleasant intimacies both with himself and with his

circle, which in the future were abundantly fulfilled. His Mother,
essentially and even professedly "Scotch," took to my Wife gradually

with a most kind maternal relation; his Father, a gallant showy
stirring gentleman, the Magus of the _Times_, had talk and argument

ever ready, was an interesting figure, and more and more took interest
in us. We had unconsciously made an acquisition, which grew richer

and wholesomer with every new year; and ranks now, seen in the pale
moonlight of memory, and must ever rank, among the precious

possessions of life.
Sterling's bright ingenuity, and also his audacity, velocity and

alacrity, struck me more and more. It was, I think, on the occasion
of a party given one of these evenings at his Father's, where I

remember John Mill, John Crawford, Mrs. Crawford, and a number of
young and elderly figures of distinction,--that a group having formed

on the younger side of the room, and transcendentalisms and theologies
forming the topic, a number of deep things were said in abrupt

conversational style, Sterling in the thick of it. For example, one
sceptical figure praised the Church of England, in Hume's phrase, "as

a Church tending to keep down fanaticism," and recommendable for its
very indifferency; whereupon a transcendental figure urges him: "You

are afraid of the horse's kicking: but will you sacrifice all
qualities to being safe from that? Then get a dead horse. None

comparable to that for not kicking in your stable!" Upon which, a
laugh; with new laughs on other the like occasions;--and at last, in

the fire of some discussion, Sterling, who was unusuallyeloquent and
animated, broke out with this wild phrase, "I could plunge into the

bottom of Hell, if I were sure of finding the Devil there and getting
him strangled!" Which produced the loudest laugh of all; and had to

be repeated, on Mrs. Crawford's inquiry, to the house at large; and,
creating among the elders a kind of silent shudder,--though we urged

that the feat would really be a good investment of human
industry,--checked or stopt these theologic thunders for the evening.

I still remember Sterling as in one of his most animated moods that
evening. He probably returned to Herstmonceux next day, where he

proposed yet to reside for some indefinite time.
Arrived at Herstmonceux, he had not forgotten us. One of his Letters

written there soon after was the following, which much entertained me,
in various ways. It turns on a poor Book of mine, called _Sartor

Resartus_; which was not then even a Book, but was still hanging
desolately under bibliopolic difficulties, now in its fourth or fifth

year, on the wrong side of the river, as a mere aggregate of Magazine
Articles; having at last been slit into that form, and lately

completed _so_, and put together into legibility. I suppose Sterling
had borrowed it of me. The adventuroushunter spirit which had

started such a bemired _Auerochs_, or Urus of the German woods, and
decided on chasing that as game, struck me not a little;--and the poor

Wood-Ox, so bemired in the forests, took it as a compliment rather:--
"_To Thomas Carlyle, Esq., Chelsea, London_.

"HERSTMONCEUX near BATTLE, 29th May, 1835.
"MY DEAR CARLYLE,--I have now read twice, with care, the wondrous

account of Teufelsdrockh and his Opinions; and I need not say that it
has given me much to think of. It falls in with the feelings and

tastes which were, for years, the ruling ones of my life; but which
you will not be angry with me when I say that I am infinitely and

hourly thankful for having escaped from. Not that I think of this
state of mind as one with which I have no longer any concern. The

sense of a oneness of life and power in all existence; and of a
boundless exuberance of beauty around us, to which most men are

well-nigh dead, is a possession which no one that has ever enjoyed it
would wish to lose. When to this we add the deep feeling of the

difference between the actual and the ideal in Nature, and still more
in Man; and bring in, to explain this, the principle of duty, as that

which connects us with a possible Higher State, and sets us in
progress towards it,--we have a cycle of thoughts which was the whole

spiritual empire of the wisest Pagans, and which might well supply
food for the wide speculations and richlycreative fancy of

Teufelsdrockh, or his prototype Jean Paul.
"How then comes it, we cannot but ask, that these ideas, displayed

assuredly with no want of eloquence, vivacity or earnestness" target="_blank" title="n.认真，急切；坚定">earnestness, have
found, unless I am much mistaken, so little acceptance among the best

and most energetic minds in this country? In a country where millions
read the Bible, and thousands Shakspeare; where Wordsworth circulates

through book-clubs and drawing-rooms; where there are innumerable
admirers of your favorite Burns; and where Coleridge, by sending from

his solitude the voice of earnestspiritualinstruction, came to be
beloved, studied and mourned for, by no small or careless school of

disciples?--To answer this question would, of course, require more
thought and knowledge than I can pretend to bring to it. But there

are some points on which I will venture to say a few words.
"In the first place, as to the form of composition,--which may be

called, I think, the Rhapsodico-Reflective. In this the _Sartor
Resartus_ resembles some of the master-works of human invention, which

have been acknowledged as such by many generations; and especially the
works of Rabelais, Montaigne, Sterne and Swift. There is nothing I

know of in Antiquity like it. That which comes nearest is perhaps the
Platonic Dialogue. But of this, although there is something of the

playful and fanciful on the surface, there is in reality neither in
the language (which is austerely determined to its end), nor in the

method and progression of the work, any of that headlong
self-asserting capriciousness, which, if not discernible in the plan

of Teufelsdrockh's Memoirs, is yet plainly to be seen in the structure
of the sentences, the lawless oddity, and strange heterogeneous

combination and allusion. The principle of this difference,
observable often elsewhere in modern literature (for the same thing is

to be found, more or less, in many of our most genial works of
imagination,--_Don Quixote_, for instance, and the writings of Jeremy

Taylor), seems to be that well-known one of the predominant
objectivity of the Pagan mind; while among us the subjective has risen

into superiority, and brought with it in each individual a multitude
of peculiar associations and relations. These, as not explicable from

any one _external_ principle assumed as a premise by the ancient
philosopher, were rejected from the sphere of his aesthetic creation:

but to us they all have a value and meaning; being connected by the
bond of our own personality and all alike existing in that infinity

which is its arena.
"But however this may be, and comparing the Teufelsdrockhean Epopee

only with those other modern works,--it is noticeable that Rabelais,
Montaigne and Sterne have trusted for the currency of their writings,

in a great degree, to the use of obscene and sensual stimulants.
Rabelais, besides, was full of contemporary and personal satire; and