tness,
and never yet saw a shadow"?--I should say, not religious reverence,
rather artistic admiration was the essential character of him: a fact
connected with all other facts in the physiognomy of his life and self,
and giving a tragic enough character to much of the history he had among
us.

Poor Sterling, he was by nature appointed for a Poet, then,--a Poet
after his sort, or recognizer and delineator of the Beautiful; and not
for a Priest at all? Striving towards the sunny heights, out of such
a level and through such an element as ours in these days is, he had
strange aberrations appointed him, and painful wanderings amid
the miserable gaslights, bog-fires, dancing meteors and putrid
phosphorescences which form the guidance of a young human soul at
present! Not till after trying all manner of sublimely illuminated
places, and finding that the basis of them was putridity, artificial gas
and quaking bog, did he, when his strength was all done, discover his
true sacred hill, and passionately climb thither while life was fast
ebbing!--A tragic history, as all histories are; yet a gallant, brave
and noble one, as not many are. It is what, to a radiant son of the
Muses, and bright messenger of the harmonious Wisdoms, this poor
world--if he himself have not strength enough, and _inertia_ enough, and
amid his harmonious eloquences silence enough--has provided at present.
Many a high-striving, too hasty soul, seeking guidance towards eternal
excellence from the official Black-artists, and successful Professors
of political, ecclesiastical, philosophical, commercial, general and
particular Legerdemain, will recognize his own history in this image of
a fellow-pilgrim's.

Over-haste was Sterling's continual fault; over-haste, and want of the
due strength,--alas, mere want of the due _inertia_ chiefly; which is
so common a gift for most part; and proves so inexorably needful withal!
But he was good and generous and true; joyful where there was
joy, patient and silent where endurance was required of him; shook
innumerable sorrows, and thick-crowding forms of pain, gallantly away
from him; fared frankly forward, and with scrupulous care to tread on no
one's toes. True, above all, one may call him; a man of perfect veracity
in thought, word and deed. Integrity towards all men,--nay integrity
had ripened with him into chivalrous generosity; there was no guile or
baseness anywhere found in him. Transparent as crystal; he could no