Life of John Sterling. Томас Карлейль

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      To the man himself Nature had given, in high measure, the seeds of a noble endowment; and to unfold it had been forbidden him. A subtle lynx-eyed intellect, tremulous pious sensibility to all good and all beautiful; truly a ray of empyrean light;—but embedded in such weak laxity of character, in such indolences and esuriences as had made strange work with it. Once more, the tragic story of a high endowment with an insufficient will. An eye to discern the divineness of the Heaven's spendors and lightnings, the insatiable wish to revel in their godlike radiances and brilliances; but no heart to front the scathing terrors of them, which is the first condition of your conquering an abiding place there. The courage necessary for him, above all things, had been denied this man. His life, with such ray of the empyrean in it, was great and terrible to him; and he had not valiantly grappled with it, he had fled from it; sought refuge in vague daydreams, hollow compromises, in opium, in theosophic metaphysics. Harsh pain, danger, necessity, slavish harnessed toil, were of all things abhorrent to him. And so the empyrean element, lying smothered under the terrene, and yet inextinguishable there, made sad writhings. For pain, danger, difficulty, steady slaving toil, and other highly disagreeable behests of destiny, shall in nowise be shirked by any brightest mortal that will approve himself loyal to his mission in this world; nay precisely the higher he is, the deeper will be the disagreeableness, and the detestability to flesh and blood, of the tasks laid on him; and the heavier too, and more tragic, his penalties if he neglect them.

      For the old Eternal Powers do live forever; nor do their laws know any change, however we in our poor wigs and church-tippets may attempt to read their laws. To steal into Heaven,—by the modern method, of sticking ostrich-like your head into fallacies on Earth, equally as by the ancient and by all conceivable methods,—is forever forbidden. High-treason is the name of that attempt; and it continues to be punished as such. Strange enough: here once more was a kind of Heaven-scaling Ixion; and to him, as to the old one, the just gods were very stern! The ever-revolving, never-advancing Wheel (of a kind) was his, through life; and from his Cloud-Juno did not he too procreate strange Centaurs, spectral Puseyisms, monstrous illusory Hybrids, and ecclesiastical Chimeras,—which now roam the earth in a very lamentable manner!

      CHAPTER IX. SPANISH EXILES

      This magical ingredient thrown into the wild caldron of such a mind, which we have seen occupied hitherto with mere Ethnicism, Radicalism and revolutionary tumult, but hungering all along for something higher and better, was sure to be eagerly welcomed and imbibed, and could not fail to produce important fermentations there. Fermentations; important new directions, and withal important new perversions, in the spiritual life of this man, as it has since done in the lives of so many. Here then is the new celestial manna we were all in quest of? This thrice-refined pabulum of transcendental moonshine? Whoso eateth thereof,—yes, what, on the whole, will he probably grow to?

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      1

      John Sterling's Essays and Tales, with Life by Archdeacon Hare. Parker; London, 1848.

      2

      Commons Journals, iv. 15 (l0th January, 1644-5); and again v. 307 &c., 498 (18th September, 1647-15th March, 1647-8).

      3

      Literary Chronicle, New Series; London, Saturday, 21 June, 1828, Art. II.

      4

      "The Letters of Vetus from March 10th to May 10th, 1812" (second edition, London, 1812): Ditto, "Part III., with a Preface and Notes" (ibid.

1

John Sterling's Essays and Tales, with Life by Archdeacon Hare. Parker; London, 1848.

2

Commons Journals, iv. 15 (l0th January, 1644-5); and again v. 307 &c., 498 (18th September, 1647-15th March, 1647-8).

3

Literary Chronicle, New Series; London, Saturday, 21 June, 1828, Art. II.

4

"The Letters of Vetus from March 10th to May 10th, 1812" (second edition, London, 1812): Ditto, "Part III., with a Preface and Notes" (ibid. 1814).

5

Here, in a Note, is the tragic little Register, with what indications for us may lie in it:—

     (l.) Robert Sterling died, 4th June, 1815, at Queen Square, in his fourth year (John being now nine).

     (2.) Elizabeth died, 12th March, 1818, at Blackfriars Road, in her second year.

     (3.) Edward, 30th March, 1818 (same place, same month and year), in his ninth.

     (4.) Hester, 21st July, 1818 (three months later), at Blackheath, in her eleventh.

     (5.) Catherine Hester Elizabeth, 16th January, 1821, in Seymour Street.

6

History of the English Universities. (Translated from the German.)

7

Mrs. Anthony Sterling, very lately Miss Charlotte Baird.

8

Biography, by Hare, pp. xvi-xxvi.

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