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 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 welcome illumination in the dim whirl of things.Aman 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 lively intellect 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!