in, 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?

Sterling never spoke much to me of his intercourse with Coleridge; and
when we did compare notes about him, it was usually rather in the way
of controversial discussion than of narrative. So that, from my own
resources, I can give no details of the business, nor specify anything
in it, except the general fact of an ardent attendance at Highgate
continued for many months, which was impressively known to all
Sterling's friends; and am unable to assign even the limitary dates,
Sterli