gifted man: but if called to define him, I should say, Artist not
Saint was the real bent of his being. He had endless admiration, but

intrinsically rather a deficiency of reverence in comparison. Fear,
with its corollaries, on the religious side, he appeared to have none,

nor ever to have had any.
In short, it was a strange enough symptom to me of the bewildered

condition of the world, to behold a man of this temper, and of this
veracity and nobleness, self-consecrated here, by free volition and

deliberateselection, to be a Christian Priest; and zealously
struggling to fancy himself such in very truth. Undoubtedly a

singular present fact;--from which, as from their point of
intersection, great perplexities and aberrations in the past, and

considerable confusions in the future might be seen ominously
radiating. Happily our friend, as I said, needed little hope. To-day

with its activities was always bright and rich to him. His
unmanageable, dislocated, devastated world, spiritual or economical,

lay all illuminated in living sunshine, making it almost beautiful to
his eyes, and gave him no hypochondria. A richer soul, in the way of

natural outfit for felicity, for joyful activity in this world, so far
as his strength would go, was nowhere to be met with.

The Letters which Mr. Hare has printed, Letters addressed, I imagine,
mostly to himself, in this and the following year or two, give record

of abundant changeful plannings and laborings, on the part of
Sterling; still chiefly in the theological department. Translation

from Tholuck, from Schleiermacher; treatise on this thing, then on
that, are on the anvil: it is a life of abstruse vague speculations,

singularly cheerful and hopefulwithal, about Will, Morals, Jonathan
Edwards, Jewhood, Manhood, and of Books to be written on these topics.

Part of which adventurous vague plans, as the Translation from
Tholuck, he actually performed; other greater part, merging always

into wider undertakings, remained plan merely. I remember he talked
often about Tholuck, Schleiermacher, and others of that stamp; and

looked disappointed, though full of good nature, at my obstinate
indifference to them and their affairs.

His knowledge of German Literature, very slight at this time, limited
itself altogether to writers on Church matters,--Evidences,

Counter-Evidences, Theologies and Rumors of Theologies; by the
Tholucks, Schleiermachers, Neanders, and I know not whom. Of the true

sovereign souls of that Literature, the Goethes, Richters, Schillers,
Lessings, he had as good as no knowledge; and of Goethe in particular

an obstinate misconception, with proper abhorrence appended,--which
did not abate for several years, nor quite abolish itself till a very

late period. Till, in a word, he got Goethe's works fairly read and
studied for himself! This was often enough the course with Sterling

in such cases. He had a most swift glance of recognition for the
worthy and for the unworthy; and was prone, in his ardent decisive

way, to put much faith in it. "Such a one is a worthless idol; not
excellent, only sham-excellent:" here, on this negative side

especially, you often had to admire how right he was;--often, but not
quite always. And he would maintain, with endless ingenuity,

confidence and persistence, his fallacious spectrum to be a real
image. However, it was sure to come all right in the end. Whatever

real excellence he might misknow, you had but to let it stand before
him, soliciting new examination from him: none surer than he to

recognize it at last, and to pay it all his dues, with the arrears and
interest on them. Goethe, who figures as some absurd high-stalking

hollow play-actor, or empty ornamental clock-case of an "Artist"
so-called, in the Tale of the _Onyx Ring_, was in the throne of

Sterling's intellectual" target="_blank" title="n.知识分子">intellectual world before all was done; and the theory of
"Goethe's want of feeling," want of &c. &c. appeared to him also

abundantly contemptible and forgettable.
Sterling's days, during this time as always, were full of occupation,

cheerfully interesting to himself and others; though, the wrecks of
theology so encumbering him, little fruit on the positive side could

come of these labors. On the negative side they were productive; and
there also, so much of encumbrance requiring removal, before fruit

could grow, there was plenty of labor needed. He looked happy as well
as busy; roamed extensively among his friends, and loved to have them

about him,--chiefly old Cambridge comrades now settling into
occupations in the world;--and was felt by all friends, by myself as

by few, to be a welcomeillumination in the dim whirl of things. A
man of altogether social and human ways; his address everywhere

pleasant and enlivening. A certain smile of thin but genuine
laughter, we might say, hung gracefully over all he said and

did;--expressing gracefully, according to the model of this epoch, the
stoical pococurantism which is required of the cultivated Englishman.

Such laughter in him was not deep, but neither was it false (as
lamentably happens often); and the cheerfulness it went to symbolize

was hearty and beautiful,--visible in the silent unsymbolized state in
a still gracefuler fashion.

Of wit, so far as rapid livelyintellect produces wit, he had plenty,
and did not abuse his endowment that way, being always fundamentally

serious in the purport of his speech: of what we call humor, he had
some, though little; nay of real sense for the ludicrous, in any form,

he had not much for a man of his vivacity; and you remarked that his
laugh was limited in compass, and of a clear but not rich quality. To

the like effect shone something, a kind of childlike half-embarrassed
shimmer of expression, on his fine vivid countenance; curiously

mingling with its ardors and audacities. A beautiful childlike soul!
He was naturally a favorite in conversation, especially with all who

had any funds for conversing: frank and direct, yet polite and
delicate withal,--though at times too he could crackle with his

dexterous petulancies, making the air all like needles round you; and
there was no end to his logic when you excited it; no end, unless in

some form of silence on your part. Elderly men of reputation I have
sometimes known offended by him: for he took a frank way in the

matter of talk; spoke freely out of him, freely listening to what
others spoke, with a kind of "hail fellow well met" feeling; and

carelessly measured a men much less by his reputed account in the bank
of wit, or in any other bank, than by what the man had to show for

himself in the shape of real spiritual cash on the occasion. But
withal there was ever a fine element of natural courtesy in Sterling;

his deliberate demeanor to acknowledged superiors was fine and
graceful; his apologies and the like, when in a fit of repentance he

felt commanded to apologize, were full of naivete, and very pretty and
ingenuous.

His circle of friends was wide enough; chiefly men of his own
standing, old College friends many of them; some of whom have now

become universally known. Among whom the most important to him was
Frederic Maurice, who had not long before removed to the Chaplaincy of

Guy's Hospital here, and was still, as he had long been, his intimate
and counsellor. Their views and articulate opinions, I suppose, were

now fast beginning to diverge; and these went on diverging far enough:
but in their kindly union, in their perfect trustful familiarity,

precious to both parties, there never was the least break, but a
steady, equable and duly increasing current to the end. One of

Sterling's commonest expeditions, in this time, was a sally to the
other side of London Bridge: "Going to Guy's to-day." Maurice, in a

year or two, became Sterling's brother-in-law; wedded Mrs. Sterling's
younger sister,--a gentle excellent female soul; by whom the relation

was, in many ways, strengthened and beautified for Sterling and all
friends of the parties. With the Literary notabilities I think he had

no acquaintance; his thoughts indeed still tended rather towards a
certain class of the Clerical; but neither had he much to do with

these; for he was at no time the least of a tuft-hunter, but rather
had a marked natural indifference to _tufts_.

The Rev. Mr. Dunn, a venerable and amiable Irish gentleman,
"distinguished," we were told, "by having refused a bishopric:" and

who was now living, in an opulent enough retirement, amid his books
and philosophies and friends, in London,--is memorable to me among

this clerical class: one of the mildest, beautifulest old men I have
ever seen,--"like Fenelon," Sterling said: his very face, with its

kind true smile, with its look of sufferingcheerfulness and pious
wisdom, was a sort of benediction. It is of him that Sterling writes,

in the Extract which Mr. Hare, modestly reducing the name to an
initial "Mr. D.," has given us:[13] "Mr. Dunn, for instance; the

defect of whose Theology, compounded as it is of the doctrine of the
Greek Fathers, of the Mystics and of Ethical Philosophers,

consists,--if I may hint a fault in one whose holiness, meekness and
fervor would have made him the beloveddisciple of him whom Jesus

loved,--in an insufficientapprehension of the reality and depth of
Sin." A characteristic "defect" of this fine gentle soul. On Mr.

Dunn's death, which occurred two or three years later, Stirling gave,
in some veiled yet transparent form, in _Blackwood's Magazine_, an

affectionate and eloquent notice of him; which, stript of the veil,
was excerpted into the Newspapers also.[14]

Of Coleridge there was little said. Coleridge was now dead, not long
since; nor was his name henceforth much heard in Sterling's circle;