FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   96   97   98   99   100   101   102   103   104   105   106   107   108   109   110   111   112   113   114   115   116   117   118   119   120  
121   122   123   124   125   126   127   128   129   130   131   132   133   134   135   136   137   138   139   140   141   142   143   144   145   >>   >|  
written, I find I have not nearly done justice to my own sense of the genius and moral energy of the book; but this is what you will best excuse.--Believe me most sincerely and faithfully yours, "JOHN STERLING." Here are sufficient points of "discrepancy with agreement," here is material for talk and argument enough; and an expanse of free discussion open, which requires rather to be speedily restricted for convenience' sake, than allowed to widen itself into the boundless, as it tends to do!-- In all Sterling's Letters to myself and others, a large collection of which now lies before me, duly copied and indexed, there is, to one that knew his speech as well, a perhaps unusual likeness between the speech and the Letters; and yet, for most part, with a great inferiority on the part of these. These, thrown off, one and all of them, without premeditation, and with most rapid-flowing pen, are naturally as like his speech as writing can well be; this is their grand merit to us: but on the other hand, the want of the living tones, swift looks and motions, and manifold dramatic accompaniments, tells heavily, more heavily than common. What can be done with champagne itself, much more with soda-water, when the gaseous spirit is fled! The reader, in any specimens he may see, must bear this in mind. Meanwhile these Letters do excel in honesty, in candor and transparency; their very carelessness secures their excellence in this respect. And in another much deeper and more essential respect I must likewise call them excellent,--in their childlike goodness, in the purity of heart, the noble affection and fidelity they everywhere manifest in the writer. This often touchingly strikes a familiar friend in reading them; and will awaken reminiscences (when you have the commentary in your own memory) which are sad and beautiful, and not without reproach to you on occasion. To all friends, and all good causes, this man is true; behind their back as before their face, the same man!--Such traits of the autobiographic sort, from these Letters, as can serve to paint him or his life, and promise not to weary the reader, I must endeavor to select, in the sequel. CHAPTER III. BAYSWATER Sterling continued to reside at Herstmonceux through the spring and summer; holding by the peaceable retired house he still had there, till the vague future might more definitely shape itself, a
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   96   97   98   99   100   101   102   103   104   105   106   107   108   109   110   111   112   113   114   115   116   117   118   119   120  
121   122   123   124   125   126   127   128   129   130   131   132   133   134   135   136   137   138   139   140   141   142   143   144   145   >>   >|  



Top keywords:
Letters
 

speech

 

Sterling

 

respect

 

heavily

 
reader
 
fidelity
 

familiar

 
affection
 

manifest


touchingly

 

writer

 
strikes
 

honesty

 
candor
 

transparency

 
Meanwhile
 
specimens
 

carelessness

 

childlike


excellent

 

goodness

 

purity

 

likewise

 

essential

 

excellence

 

secures

 

deeper

 

beautiful

 

CHAPTER


sequel

 
BAYSWATER
 

reside

 

continued

 

select

 
endeavor
 

promise

 
Herstmonceux
 

retired

 
future

peaceable
 

spring

 
summer
 
holding
 

reproach

 

occasion

 
memory
 

awaken

 
reading
 

reminiscences