Such, once for all, were the conditions appointed him. And it must be owned he had, with a most kindly5 temper, adjusted himself to these; nay6 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 volition7 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 vehement8 life which, under the moral, the intellectual and other aspects, incessantly9 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 "wore holes," and so found outlet11 for itself. He could take no rest, he had never learned that art; he was, as we often reproached him, fatally incapable12 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 disorder13, and of such continual necessity to move and change,—was also his antidote14, so far as antidote there might be; enabling him to love change, and to snatch, as few others could have done, from the waste chaotic15 years, all tumbled into ruin by incessant10 change, what hours and minutes of available turned up. He had an incredible facility of labor16. He flashed with most piercing glance into a subject; gathered it up into organic utterability, with truly wonderful despatch17, considering the success and truth attained18; and threw it on paper with a swift felicity, ingenuity19, brilliancy and general excellence20, of which, under such conditions of swiftness, I have never seen a parallel. Essentially21 an improviser22 genius; as his Father too was, and of admirable completeness he too, though under a very different form.
If Sterling has done little in Literature, we may ask, What other man than he, in such circumstances, could have done anything? In virtue23 of these rapid faculties24, which otherwise cost him so dear, he has built together, out of those wavering boiling quicksands of his few later years, a result which may justly surprise us. There is actually some result in those poor Two Volumes gathered from him, such as they are; he that reads there will not wholly lose his time, nor rise with a malison instead of a blessing25 on the writer. Here actually is a real seer-glance, of some compass, into the world of our day; blessed glance, once more, of an eye that is human; truer than one of a thousand, and beautifully capable of making others see with it. I have known considerable temporary reputations gained, considerable piles of temporary guineas, with loud reviewing and the like to match, on a far less basis than lies in those two volumes. Those also, I expect, will be held in memory by the world, one way or other, till the world has extracted all its benefit from them. Graceful26, ingenious and illuminative27 reading, of their sort, for all manner of inquiring souls. A little verdant28 flowery island of poetic29 intellect, of melodious30 human verity31; sunlit island founded on the rocks;—which the enormous circumambient continents of mown reed-grass and floating lumber32, with their mountain-ranges of ejected stable-litter however alpine33, cannot by any means or chance submerge: nay, I expect, they will not even quite hide it, this modest little island, from the well-discerning; but will float past it towards the place appointed for them, and leave said island standing34. Allah kereem, say the Arabs! And of the English also some still know that there is a, difference in the material of mountains!—
As it is this last little result, the amount of his poor and ever-interrupted literary labor, that henceforth forms the essential history of Sterling, we need not dwell at too much length on the foreign journeys, disanchorings, and nomadic35 vicissitudes36 of household, which occupy his few remaining years, and which are only the disastrous37 and accidental arena38 of this. He had now, excluding his early and more deliberate residence in the West Indies, made two flights abroad, once with his family, once without, in search of health. He had two more, in rapid succession, to make, and many more to meditate39; and in the whole from Bayswater to the end, his family made no fewer than five complete changes of abode40, for his sake. But these cannot be accepted as in any sense epochs in his life: the one last epoch41 of his life was that of his internal change towards Literature as his work in the world; and we need not linger much on these, which are the mere42 outer accidents of that, and had no distinguished43 influence in modifying that.
Friends still hoped the unrest of that brilliant too rapid soul would abate44 with years. Nay the doctors sometimes promised, on the physical side, a like result; prophesying45 that, at forty-five or some mature age, the stress of disease might quit the lungs, and direct itself to other quarters of the system. But no such result was appointed for us; neither forty-five itself, nor the ameliorations promised then, were ever to be reached. Four voyages abroad, three of them without his family, in flight from death; and at home, for a like reason, five complete shiftings of abode: in such wandering manner, and not otherwise, had Sterling to continue his pilgrimage till it ended.
Once more I must say, his cheerfulness throughout was wonderful. A certain grimmer shade, coming gradually over him, might perhaps be noticed in the concluding years; not impatience46 properly, yet the consciousness how much he needed patience; something more caustic47 in his tone of wit, more trenchant48 and indignant occasionally in his tone of speech: but at no moment was his activity bewildered or abated49, nor did his composure ever give way. No; both his activity and his composure he bore with him, through all weathers, to the final close; and on the whole, right manfully he walked his wild stern way towards the goal, and like a Roman wrapt his mantle50 round him when he fell.—Let us glance, with brevity, at what he saw and suffered in his remaining pilgrimings and chargings; and count up what fractions of spiritual fruit he realized to us from them.
Calvert and he returned from Madeira in the spring of 1838. Mrs. Sterling and the family had lived in Knightsbridge with his Father's people through the winter: they now changed to Blackheath, or ultimately Hastings, and he with them, coming up to London pretty often; uncertain what was to be done for next winter. Literature went on briskly here: Blackwood had from him, besides the Onyx Ring which soon came out with due honor, assiduous almost monthly contributions in prose and verse. The series called Hymns51 of a Hermit52 was now going on; eloquent53 melodies, tainted54 to me with something of the same disease as the Sexton's Daughter, though perhaps in a less degree, considering that the strain was in a so much higher pitch. Still better, in clear eloquent prose, the series of detached thoughts, entitled Crystals from a Cavern55; of which the set of fragments, generally a little larger in compass, called Thoughts and Images, and again those called Sayings and Essayings, 17 are properly continuations. Add to which, his friend John Mill had now charge of a Review, The London and Westminster its name; wherein Sterling's assistance, ardently56 desired, wasIn 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 continual fluctuation, 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 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 "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 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 incredible facility 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, under such conditions of swiftness, I have never seen a parallel. Essentially an improviser genius; as his Father too was, and of admirable completeness he too, though under a very different form.
If Sterling has done little in Literature, we may ask, What other man than he, in such circumstances, could have done anything? In virtue of these rapid faculties, which otherwise cost him so dear, he has built together, out of those wavering boiling quicksands of his few later years, a result which may justly surprise us. There is actually some result in those poor Two Volumes gathered from him, such as they are; he that reads there will not wholly lose his time, nor rise with a malison instead of a blessing on the writer. Here actually is a real seer-glance, of some compass, into the world of our day; blessed glance, once more, of an eye that is human; truer than one of a thousand, and beautifully capable of making others see with it. I have known considerable temporary reputations gained, considerable piles of temporary guineas, with loud reviewing and the like to match, on a far less basis than lies in those two volumes. Those also, I expect, will be held in memory by the world, one way or other, till the world has extracted all its benefit from them. Graceful, ingenious and illuminative reading, of their sort, for all manner of inquiring souls. A little verdant flowery island of poetic intellect, of melodious human verity; sunlit island founded on the rocks;—which the enormous circumambient continents of mown reed-grass and floating lumber, with their mountain-ranges of ejected stable-litter however alpine, cannot by any means or chance submerge: nay, I expect, they will not even quite hide it, this modest little island, from the well-discerning; but will float past it towards the place appointed for them, and leave said island standing. Allah kereem, say the Arabs! And of the English also some still know that there is a, difference in the material of mountains!—
As it is this last little result, the amount of his poor and ever-interrupted literary labor, that henceforth forms the essential history of Sterling, we need not dwell at too much length on the foreign journeys, disanchorings, and nomadic vicissitudes of household, which occupy his few remaining years, and which are only the disastrous and accidental arena of this. He had now, excluding his early and more deliberate residence in the West Indies, made two flights abroad, once with his family, once without, in search of health. He had two more, in rapid succession, to make, and many more to meditate; and in the whole from Bayswater to the end, his family made no fewer than five complete changes of abode, for his sake. But these cannot be accepted as in any sense epochs in his life: the one last epoch of his life was that of his internal change towards Literature as his work in the world; and we need not linger much on these, which are the mere outer accidents of that, and had no distinguished influence in modifying that.
Friends still hoped the unrest of that brilliant too rapid soul would abate with years. Nay the doctors sometimes promised, on the physical side, a like result; prophesying that, at forty-five or some mature age, the stress of disease might quit the lungs, and direct itself to other quarters of the system. But no such result was appointed for us; neither forty-five itself, nor the ameliorations promised then, were ever to be reached. Four voyages abroad, three of them without his family, in flight from death; and at home, for a like reason, five complete shiftings of abode: in such wandering manner, and not otherwise, had Sterling to continue his pilgrimage till it ended.
freely afforded, with satisfaction to both parties, in this and the following years. An Essay on Montaigne, with the notes and reminiscences already spoken of, was Sterling's first contribution here; then one on Simonides: 18 both of the present season.
On these and other businesses, slight or important, he was often running up to London; and gave us almost the feeling of his being resident among us. In order to meet the most or a good many of his friends at once on such occasions, he now furthermore contrived57 the scheme of a little Club, where monthly over a frugal58 dinner some reunion might take place; that is, where friends of his, and withal such friends of theirs as suited,—and in fine, where a small select company definable as persons to whom it was pleasant to talk together,—might have a little opportunity of talking. The scheme was approved by the persons concerned: I have a copy of the Original Regulations, probably drawn59 up by Sterling, a very solid lucid60 piece of economics; and the List of the proposed Members, signed "James Spedding, Secretary," and dated "8th August, 1838." 19 The Club grew; was at first called the Anonymous61 Club; then, after some months of success, in compliment to the founder62 who had now left us again, the Sterling Club;—under which latter name, it once lately, for a time, owing to the Religious Newspapers, became rather famous in the world! In which strange circumstances the name was again altered, to suit weak brethren; and the Club still subsists63, in a sufficiently64 flourishing though happily once more a private condition. That is the origin and genesis of poor Sterling's Club; which, having honestly paid the shot for itself at Will's Coffee-house or elsewhere, rashly fancied its bits of affairs were quite settled; and once little thought of getting into Books of History with them!—
But now, Autumn approaching, Sterling had to quit Clubs, for matters of sadder consideration. A new removal, what we call "his third peregrinity," had to be decided65 on; and it was resolved that Rome should be the goal of it, the journey to be done in company with Calvert, whom also the Italian climate might be made to serve instead of Madeira. One of the liveliest recollections I have, connected with the Anonymous Club, is that of once escorting Sterling, after a certain meeting there, which I had seen only towards the end, and now remember nothing of,—except that, on breaking up, he proved to be encumbered66 with a carpet-bag, and could not at once find a cab for Knightsbridge. Some small bantering67 hereupon, during the instants of embargo68. But we carried his carpet-bag, slinging69 it on my stick, two or three of us alternately, through dusty vacant streets, under the gaslights and the stars, towards the surest cab-stand; still jesting, or pretending to jest, he and we, not in the mirthfulest manner; and had (I suppose) our own feelings about the poor Pilgrim, who was to go on the morrow, and had hurried to meet us in this way, as the last thing before leaving England.
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1
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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2
diligently
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| ad.industriously;carefully | |
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3
intervals
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| n.[军事]间隔( interval的名词复数 )；间隔时间；[数学]区间；（戏剧、电影或音乐会的）幕间休息 | |
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4
fluctuation
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| n.(物价的)波动，涨落；周期性变动；脉动 | |
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5
kindly
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| adj.和蔼的，温和的，爽快的；adv.温和地，亲切地 | |
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6
nay
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| adv.不；n.反对票，投反对票者 | |
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7
volition
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| n.意志；决意 | |
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vehement
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| adj.感情强烈的；热烈的；(人)有强烈感情的 | |
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9
incessantly
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| ad.不停地 | |
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10
incessant
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| adj.不停的，连续的 | |
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11
outlet
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| n.出口/路；销路；批发商店；通风口；发泄 | |
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12
incapable
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| adj.无能力的，不能做某事的 | |
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13
disorder
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| n.紊乱，混乱；骚动，骚乱；疾病，失调 | |
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14
antidote
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| n.解毒药，解毒剂 | |
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15
chaotic
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| adj.混沌的，一片混乱的，一团糟的 | |
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16
labor
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| n.劳动，努力，工作，劳工；分娩；vi.劳动，努力，苦干；vt.详细分析；麻烦 | |
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17
despatch
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| n./v.(dispatch)派遣；发送；n.急件；新闻报道 | |
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18
attained
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| （通常经过努力）实现( attain的过去式和过去分词 )； 达到； 获得； 达到（某年龄、水平、状况） | |
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19
ingenuity
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| n.别出心裁；善于发明创造 | |
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20
excellence
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| n.优秀，杰出，(pl.)优点，美德 | |
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21
essentially
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| adv.本质上，实质上，基本上 | |
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improviser
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| n.即席演奏者 | |
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23
virtue
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| n.德行，美德；贞操；优点；功效，效力 | |
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24
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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25
blessing
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| n.祈神赐福；祷告；祝福，祝愿 | |
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graceful
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| adj.优美的，优雅的；得体的 | |
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illuminative
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| adj.照明的，照亮的，启蒙的 | |
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verdant
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| adj.翠绿的，青翠的，生疏的，不老练的 | |
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poetic
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| adj.富有诗意的，有诗人气质的，善于抒情的 | |
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melodious
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| adj.旋律美妙的，调子优美的，音乐性的 | |
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verity
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| n.真实性 | |
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32
lumber
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| n.木材，木料；v.以破旧东西堆满；伐木；笨重移动 | |
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alpine
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| adj.高山的；n.高山植物 | |
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standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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nomadic
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| adj.流浪的；游牧的 | |
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36
vicissitudes
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| n.变迁，世事变化；变迁兴衰( vicissitude的名词复数 )；盛衰兴废 | |
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disastrous
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| adj.灾难性的，造成灾害的；极坏的，很糟的 | |
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arena
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| n.竞技场，运动场所；竞争场所，舞台 | |
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39
meditate
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| v.想，考虑，（尤指宗教上的）沉思，冥想 | |
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40
abode
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| n.住处，住所 | |
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epoch
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| n.(新)时代；历元 | |
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42
mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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43
distinguished
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| adj.卓越的，杰出的，著名的 | |
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44
abate
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| vi.(风势，疼痛等)减弱，减轻，减退 | |
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45
prophesying
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| v.预告，预言( prophesy的现在分词 ) | |
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46
impatience
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| n.不耐烦，急躁 | |
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47
caustic
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| adj.刻薄的，腐蚀性的 | |
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48
trenchant
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| adj.尖刻的，清晰的 | |
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49
abated
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| 减少( abate的过去式和过去分词 )； 减去； 降价； 撤消（诉讼） | |
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50
mantle
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| n.斗篷，覆罩之物，罩子；v.罩住，覆盖，脸红 | |
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51
hymns
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| n.赞美诗，圣歌，颂歌( hymn的名词复数 ) | |
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52
hermit
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| n.隐士，修道者；隐居 | |
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53
eloquent
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| adj.雄辩的，口才流利的；明白显示出的 | |
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54
tainted
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| adj.腐坏的；污染的；沾污的；感染的v.使变质( taint的过去式和过去分词 )；使污染；败坏；被污染，腐坏，败坏 | |
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55
cavern
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| n.洞穴，大山洞 | |
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56
ardently
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| adv.热心地，热烈地 | |
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contrived
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| adj.不自然的，做作的；虚构的 | |
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58
frugal
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| adj.节俭的，节约的，少量的，微量的 | |
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59
drawn
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| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
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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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anonymous
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| adj.无名的；匿名的；无特色的 | |
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62
Founder
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| n.创始者，缔造者 | |
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subsists
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| v.（靠很少的钱或食物）维持生活，生存下去( subsist的第三人称单数 ) | |
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64
sufficiently
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| adv.足够地，充分地 | |
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decided
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| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
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encumbered
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| v.妨碍，阻碍，拖累( encumber的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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67
bantering
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| adj.嘲弄的v.开玩笑，说笑，逗乐( banter的现在分词 )；（善意地）取笑，逗弄 | |
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68
embargo
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| n.禁运（令）；vt.对...实行禁运，禁止（通商） | |
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slinging
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| 抛( sling的现在分词 )； 吊挂； 遣送； 押往 | |
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