After some consultation11 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 it was, 1 in a manner surely far superior to the common, in every good quality of editing; and visibly everywhere bearing testimony12 to the friendliness13, the piety14, perspicacity15 and other gifts and virtues16 of that eminent17 and amiable18 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 heresies19, and especially in writing a Life very full of such, to dwell with preponderating20 emphasis on that part of his subject; by no means extenuating21 the fact, nor yet passing lightly over it (which a layman22 could have done) as needing no extenuation23; but carefully searching into it, with the view of excusing and explaining it; dwelling24 on it, presenting all the documents of it, and as it were spreading it over the whole field of his delineation25; 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 Heresy26-hunters, getting very lively in those years, were prompt to seize the cue; and have prosecuted28 and perhaps still prosecute27 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 thither29 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 auroral30 hues31 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 screeching32 and gibbering what they call their judgment7 on him!
"The sin of Hare's Book," says one of my Correspondents in those years, "is easily defined, and not very condemnable33, 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 hereditary35 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 imbroglio36, as if that had been its one function in life: who in this miserable37 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, audacities38, activities, and general radiant vivacity39 of heart and intelligence, which made the presence of him an illumination and inspiration wherever 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 controversies40, or miserable Semitic, Anti-Semitic street-riots,—in scepticisms, agonized41 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; emphatically untrue as an image of John Sterling: perhaps to few men that lived along with him could such an interpretation42 of their existence be more inapplicable."
Whatever truth there might be in these rather passionate43 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 interim44. 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 narrative45 itself, apart from his commentary, many features of Sterling's true character would become decipherable to such as sought them. Censure46, blame of this Work of Mr. Hare's was naturally far from my thoughts. A work which distinguishes itself by human piety and candid47 intelligence; which, in all details, is careful, lucid48, 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 Supreme49 Silences, who alone can judge of it or him; and not to trouble the reviewers, and greater or lesser50 public, with attempting to judge it! The idea of "fame," as they call it, posthumous51 or other, does not inspire one with much ecstasy52 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 supremely53 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 inflicted54 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 tumult55 having risen around his name, enough to impress some pretended likeness56 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 remains57 to me very memorable58 while I continue in it. Gradually, if facts simple enough in themselves can be narrated59 as they came to pass, it will be seen what kind of man this was; to what extent condemnable for imaginary heresy and other crimes, to what extent laudable and lovable for noble manful orthodoxy and other virtues;—and whether the lesson his life had to teach us is not much the reverse of what the Religious Newspapers hitherto educe60 from it.
Certainly it was not as a "sceptic" that you could define him, whatever his definition might be. Belief, not doubt, attended him at all points of his progress; rather a tendency to too hasty and headlong belief. Of all men he was the least prone61 to what you could call scepticism: diseased self-listenings, self-questionings, impotently painful dubitations, all this fatal nosology of spiritual maladies, so rife62 in our day, was eminently63 foreign to him. Quite on the other side lay Sterling's faults, such as they were. In fact, you could observe, in spite of his sleepless64 intellectual vivacity, he was not properly a thinker at all; his faculties65 were of the active, not of the passive or contemplative sort. A brilliant improvisatore; rapid in thought, in word and in act; everywhere the promptest and least hesitating of men. I likened him often, in my banterings, to sheet-lightning; and reproachfully prayed that he would concentrate himself into a bolt, and rive the mountain-barriers for us, instead of merely playing on them and irradiating them.
True, he had his "religion" to seek, and painfully shape together for himself, out of the abysses of conflicting disbelief and sham-belief and bedlam66 delusion67, now filling the world, as all men of reflection have; and in this respect too,—more especially as his lot in the battle appointed for us all was, if you can understand it, victory and not defeat,—he is an expressive68 emblem69 of his time, and an instruction and possession to his contemporaries. For, I say, it is by no means as a vanquished70 doubter that he figures in the memory of those who knew him; but rather as a victorious71 believer, and under great difficulties a victorious doer. An example to us all, not of lamed72 misery73, helpless spiritual bewilderment and sprawling74 despair, or any kind of drownage in the foul75 welter of our so-called religious or other controversies and confusions; but of a swift and valiant76 vanquisher77 of all these; a noble asserter of himself, as worker and speaker, in spite of all these. Continually, so far as he went, he was a teacher, by act and word, of hope, clearness, activity, veracity78, and human courage and nobleness: the preacher of a good gospel to all men, not of a bad to any man. The man, whether in priest's cassock or other costume of men, who is the enemy or hater of John Sterling, may assure himself that he does not yet know him,—that miserable differences of mere34 costume and dialect still divide him, whatsoever79 is worthy3, catholic and perennial80 in him, from a brother soul who, more than most in his day, was his brother and not his adversary81 in regard to all that.
Nor shall the irremediable drawback that Sterling was not current in the Newspapers, that he achieved neither what the world calls greatness nor what intrinsically is such, altogether discourage me. What his natural size, and natural and accidental limits were, will gradually appear, if my sketching82 be successful. And I have remarked that a true delineation of the smallest man, and his scene of pilgrimage through life, is capable of interesting the greatest man; that all men are to an unspeakable degree brothers, each man's life a strange emblem of every man's; and that Human Portraits, faithfully drawn83, are of all pictures the welcomest on human walls. Monitions and moralities enough may lie in this small Work, if honestly written and honestly read;—and, in particular, if any image of John Sterling and his Pilgrimage through our poor Nineteenth Century be one day wanted by the world, and they can find some shadow of a true image here, my swift scribbling84 (which shall be very swift and immediate) may prove useful by and by.
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sterling
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| adj.英币的(纯粹的，货真价实的)；n.英国货币(英镑) | |
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bequest
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| n.遗赠；遗产，遗物 | |
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worthy
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| adj.(of)值得的，配得上的；有价值的 | |
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steadfastly
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| adv.踏实地，不变地；岿然；坚定不渝 | |
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eternity
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| n.不朽，来世；永恒，无穷 | |
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judgments
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| 判断( judgment的名词复数 )； 鉴定； 评价； 审判 | |
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judgment
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| n.审判；判断力，识别力，看法，意见 | |
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lenient
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| adj.宽大的，仁慈的 | |
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annihilated
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| v.（彻底）消灭( annihilate的过去式和过去分词 )；使无效；废止；彻底击溃 | |
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survivors
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| 幸存者，残存者，生还者( survivor的名词复数 ) | |
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consultation
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| n.咨询；商量；商议；会议 | |
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testimony
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| n.证词；见证，证明 | |
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friendliness
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| n.友谊，亲切，亲密 | |
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piety
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| n.虔诚，虔敬 | |
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perspicacity
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| n. 敏锐, 聪明, 洞察力 | |
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virtues
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| 美德( virtue的名词复数 )； 德行； 优点； 长处 | |
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eminent
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| adj.显赫的，杰出的，有名的，优良的 | |
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amiable
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| adj.和蔼可亲的，友善的，亲切的 | |
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heresies
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| n.异端邪说，异教( heresy的名词复数 ) | |
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preponderating
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| v.超过，胜过( preponderate的现在分词 ) | |
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extenuating
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| adj.使减轻的，情有可原的v.（用偏袒的辩解或借口）减轻( extenuate的现在分词 )；低估，藐视 | |
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layman
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| n.俗人，门外汉，凡人 | |
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extenuation
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| n.减轻罪孽的借口；酌情减轻；细 | |
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dwelling
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| n.住宅，住所，寓所 | |
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delineation
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| n.记述；描写 | |
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heresy
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| n.异端邪说；异教 | |
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prosecute
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| vt.告发；进行；vi.告发，起诉，作检察官 | |
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prosecuted
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| a.被起诉的 | |
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thither
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| adv.向那里；adj.在那边的，对岸的 | |
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auroral
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| adj.曙光的；玫瑰色的 | |
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hues
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| 色彩( hue的名词复数 )； 色调； 信仰； 观点 | |
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screeching
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| v.发出尖叫声( screech的现在分词 )；发出粗而刺耳的声音；高叫 | |
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condemnable
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| adj.该罚的，该受责备的 | |
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mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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hereditary
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| adj.遗传的，遗传性的，可继承的，世袭的 | |
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imbroglio
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| n.纷乱，纠葛，纷扰，一团糟 | |
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miserable
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| adj.悲惨的，痛苦的；可怜的，糟糕的 | |
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audacities
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| n.大胆( audacity的名词复数 )；鲁莽；胆大妄为；鲁莽行为 | |
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vivacity
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| n.快活，活泼，精神充沛 | |
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controversies
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| 争论 | |
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agonized
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| v.使（极度）痛苦，折磨( agonize的过去式和过去分词 )；苦斗；苦苦思索；感到极度痛苦 | |
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interpretation
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| n.解释，说明，描述；艺术处理 | |
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passionate
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| adj.热情的，热烈的，激昂的，易动情的，易怒的，性情暴躁的 | |
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interim
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| adj.暂时的，临时的；n.间歇，过渡期间 | |
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narrative
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| n.叙述，故事；adj.叙事的，故事体的 | |
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censure
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| v./n.责备；非难；责难 | |
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candid
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| adj.公正的，正直的；坦率的 | |
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lucid
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| adj.明白易懂的，清晰的，头脑清楚的 | |
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supreme
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| adj.极度的，最重要的；至高的，最高的 | |
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lesser
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| adj.次要的，较小的；adv.较小地，较少地 | |
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posthumous
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| adj.遗腹的；父亡后出生的；死后的，身后的 | |
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ecstasy
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| n.狂喜，心醉神怡，入迷 | |
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supremely
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| adv.无上地，崇高地 | |
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inflicted
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| 把…强加给，使承受，遭受( inflict的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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tumult
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| n.喧哗；激动，混乱；吵闹 | |
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likeness
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| n.相像，相似（之处） | |
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remains
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| n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹 | |
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memorable
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| adj.值得回忆的，难忘的，特别的，显著的 | |
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narrated
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| v.故事( narrate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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educe
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| v.引出；演绎 | |
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prone
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| adj.(to)易于…的，很可能…的；俯卧的 | |
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rife
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| adj.(指坏事情)充斥的，流行的，普遍的 | |
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eminently
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| adv.突出地；显著地；不寻常地 | |
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sleepless
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| adj.不睡眠的，睡不著的，不休息的 | |
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faculties
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| n.能力( faculty的名词复数 )；全体教职员；技巧；院 | |
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bedlam
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| n.混乱，骚乱；疯人院 | |
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delusion
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| n.谬见，欺骗，幻觉，迷惑 | |
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expressive
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| adj.表现的，表达…的，富于表情的 | |
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emblem
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| n.象征，标志；徽章 | |
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vanquished
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| v.征服( vanquish的过去式和过去分词 )；战胜；克服；抑制 | |
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victorious
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| adj.胜利的，得胜的 | |
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lamed
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| 希伯莱语第十二个字母 | |
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misery
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| n.痛苦，苦恼，苦难；悲惨的境遇，贫苦 | |
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sprawling
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| adj.蔓生的，不规则地伸展的v.伸开四肢坐[躺]( sprawl的现在分词 )；蔓延；杂乱无序地拓展；四肢伸展坐着（或躺着） | |
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foul
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| adj.污秽的；邪恶的；v.弄脏；妨害；犯规；n.犯规 | |
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valiant
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| adj.勇敢的，英勇的；n.勇士，勇敢的人 | |
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vanquisher
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| 征服者，胜利者 | |
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veracity
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| n.诚实 | |
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whatsoever
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| adv.（用于否定句中以加强语气）任何；pron.无论什么 | |
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perennial
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| adj.终年的；长久的 | |
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adversary
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| adj.敌手，对手 | |
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sketching
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| n.草图 | |
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drawn
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| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
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scribbling
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| n.乱涂[写]胡[乱]写的文章[作品]v.潦草的书写( scribble的现在分词 )；乱画；草草地写；匆匆记下 | |
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