XIV

JOHN STERLING





I believe that the most affecting, beautiful, and grave message ever
written from a death-bed is John Sterling's last letter to Carlyle.
It reflects, perhaps, something of Carlyle's own fine manner, but
then Sterling had long been Carlyle's friend and confidant.

Before I give it, let me add a brief account of Sterling. He was
some ten years Carlyle's junior, the son of the redoubtable Edward
Sterling, the leader-writer of the Times, a man who in his day
wielded a mighty influence. Carlyle describes the father's way of
life, how he spent the day in going about London, rolling into
clubs, volubly questioning and talking; then returned home in the
evening, and condensed it all into a leader, "and is found," said
Carlyle, "to have hit the essential purport of the world's
immeasurable babblement that day with an accuracy above all other
men."

The younger Sterling, Carlyle's friend, was at Cambridge for a
time, but never took his degree; he became a journalist, wrote a
novel, tales, plays, endless poems--all of thin and vapid quality.
His brief life, for he died at thirty-eight, was a much disquieted
one; he travelled about in search of health, for he was early