Sterling's dubieties as to continuing at Bordeaux were quickly decided.The cholera in France,the cholera in Nice,the--In fact his moorings were now loose;and having been fairly at sea,he never could anchor himself here again.Very shortly after this Letter,he left Belsito again (for good,as it proved);and returned to England with his household,there to consider what should next be done.
On my return from Scotland,that year,perhaps late in September,Iremember finding him lodged straitly but cheerfully,and in happy humor,in a little cottage on Blackheath;whither his Father one day persuaded me to drive out with him for dinner.Our welcome,I can still recollect,was conspicuously cordial;the place of dinner a kind of upper room,half garret and full of books,which seemed to be John's place of study.From a shelf,I remember also,the good soul took down a book modestly enough bound in three volumes,lettered on the back Carlyle's _French Revolution_,which had been published lately;this he with friendly banter bade me look at as a first symptom,small but significant,that the book was not to die all at once."One copy of it at least might hope to last the date of sheep-leather,"I admitted,--and in my then mood the little fact was welcome.Our dinner,frank and happy on the part of Sterling,was peppered with abundant jolly satire from his Father:before tea,Itook myself away;towards Woolwich,I remember,where probably there was another call to make,and passage homeward by steamer:Sterling strode along with me a good bit of road in the bright sunny evening,full of lively friendly talk,and altogether kind and amiable;and beautifully sympathetic with the loads he thought he saw on _me_,forgetful of his own.We shook hands on the road near the foot of Shooter's Hill:--at which point dim oblivious clouds rush down;and of small or great I remember nothing more in my history or his for some time.
Besides running much about among friends,and holding counsels for the management of the coming winter,Sterling was now considerably occupied with Literature again;and indeed may be said to have already definitely taken it up as the one practical pursuit left for him.
Some correspondence with _Blackwood's Magazine_was opening itself,under promising omens:now,and more and more henceforth,he began to look on Literature as his real employment,after all;and was prosecuting it with his accustomed loyalty and ardor.And he continued ever afterwards,in spite of such fitful circumstances and uncertain outward fluctuations as his were sure of being,to prosecute it steadily with all the strength he had.
One evening about this time,he came down to us,to Chelsea,most likely by appointment and with stipulation for privacy;and read,for our opinion,his Poem of the _Sexton's Daughter_,which we now first heard of.The judgment in this house was friendly,but not the most encouraging.We found the piece monotonous,cast in the mould of Wordsworth,deficient in real human fervor or depth of melody,dallying on the borders of the infantile and "goody-good;"--in fact,involved still in the shadows of the surplice,and inculcating (on hearsay mainly)a weak morality,which he would one day find not to be moral at all,but in good part maudlin-hypocritical and immoral.As indeed was to be said still of most of his performances,especially the poetical;a sickly _shadow_of the parish-church still hanging over them,which he could by no means recognize for sickly.
_Imprimatur_nevertheless was the concluding word,--with these grave abatements,and rhadamanthine admonitions.To all which Sterling listened seriously and in the mildest humor.His reading,it might have been added,had much hurt the effect of the piece:a dreary pulpit or even conventicle manner;that flattest moaning hoo-hoo of predetermined pathos,with a kind of rocking canter introduced by way of intonation,each stanza the exact fellow Of the other,and the dull swing of the rocking-horse duly in each;--no reading could be more unfavorable to Sterling's poetry than his own.Such a mode of reading,and indeed generally in a man of such vivacity the total absence of all gifts for play-acting or artistic mimicry in any kind,was a noticeable point.
After much consultation,it was settled at last that Sterling should go to Madeira for the winter.One gray dull autumn afternoon,towards the middle of October,I remember walking with him to the eastern Dock region,to see his ship,and how the final preparations in his own little cabin were proceeding there.A dingy little ship,the deck crowded with packages,and bustling sailors within eight-and-forty hours of lifting anchor;a dingy chill smoky day,as I have said withal,and a chaotic element and outlook,enough to make a friend's heart sad.I admired the cheerful careless humor and brisk activity of Sterling,who took the matter all on the sunny side,as he was wont in such cases.We came home together in manifold talk:he accepted with the due smile my last contribution to his sea-equipment,a sixpenny box of German lucifers purchased on the sudden in St.James's Street,fit to be offered with laughter or with tears or with both;he was to leave for Portsmouth almost immediately,and there go on board.
Our next news was of his safe arrival in the temperate Isle.Mrs.
Sterling and the children were left at Knightsbridge;to pass this winter with his Father and Mother.
At Madeira Sterling did well:improved in health;was busy with much Literature;and fell in with society which he could reckon pleasant.