tter of talk; spoke
freely out of him, freely listening to what others spoke, with a kind of
"hail fellow well met" feeling; and carelessly measured a men much less
by his reputed account in the bank of wit, or in any other bank, than by
what the man had to show for himself in the shape of real spiritual cash
on the occasion. But withal there was ever a fine element of natural
courtesy in Sterling; his deliberate demeanor to acknowledged superiors
was fine and graceful; his apologies and the like, when in a fit of
repentance he felt commanded to apologize, were full of naivete, and
very pretty and ingenuous.

His circle of friends was wide enough; chiefly men of his own standing,
old College friends many of them; some of whom have now become
universally known. Among whom the most important to him was Frederic
Maurice, who had not long before removed to the Chaplaincy of Guy's
Hospital here, and was still, as he had long been, his intimate and
counsellor. Their views and articulate opinions, I suppose, were now
fast beginning to diverge; and these went on diverging far enough: but
in their kindly union, in their perfect trustful familiarity, precious
to both parties, there never was the least break, but a steady, equable
and duly increasing current to the end. One of Sterling's commonest
expeditions, in this time, was a sally to the other side of London
Bridge: "Going to Guy's to-day." Maurice, in a year or two, became
Sterling's brother-in-law; wedded Mrs. Sterling's younger sister,--a
gentle excellent female soul; by whom the relation was, in many ways,
strengthened and beautified for Sterling and all friends of the parties.
With the Literary notabilities I think he had no acquaintance; his
thoughts indeed still tended rather towards a certain class of the
Clerical; but neither had he much to do with these; for he was at
no time the least of a tuft-hunter, but rather had a marked natural
indifference to _tufts_.

The Rev. Mr. Dunn, a venerable and amiable Irish gentleman,
"distinguished," we were told, "by having refused a bishopric:" and
who was now living, in an opulent enough retirement, amid his books
and philosophies and friends, in London,--is memorable to me among this
clerical class: one of the mildest, beautifulest old men I have ever
seen,--"like Fenelon," Sterling said: his very face, with its kind true
smile, with its look of suffering cheerfulness and pious wisdom, was a
sort of benediction. It is of him