and the following year or two, give record
of abundant changeful plannings and laborings, on the part of Sterling;
still chiefly in the theological department. Translation from Tholuck,
from Schleiermacher; treatise on this thing, then on that, are on the
anvil: it is a life of abstruse vague speculations, singularly cheerful
and hopeful withal, about Will, Morals, Jonathan Edwards, Jewhood,
Manhood, and of Books to be written on these topics. Part of which
adventurous vague plans, as the Translation from Tholuck, he actually
performed; other greater part, merging always into wider undertakings,
remained plan merely. I remember he talked often about Tholuck,
Schleiermacher, and others of that stamp; and looked disappointed,
though full of good nature, at my obstinate indifference to them and
their affairs.

His knowledge of German Literature, very slight at this time,
limited itself altogether to writers on Church matters,--Evidences,
Counter-Evidences, Theologies and Rumors of Theologies; by the Tholucks,
Schleiermachers, Neanders, and I know not whom. Of the true sovereign
souls of that Literature, the Goethes, Richters, Schillers, Lessings,
he had as good as no knowledge; and of Goethe in particular an obstinate
misconception, with proper abhorrence appended,--which did not abate for
several years, nor quite abolish itself till a very late period. Till,
in a word, he got Goethe's works fairly read and studied for himself!
This was often enough the course with Sterling in such cases. He had a
most swift glance of recognition for the worthy and for the unworthy;
and was prone, in his ardent decisive way, to put much faith in it.
"Such a one is a worthless idol; not excellent, only sham-excellent:"
here, on this negative side especially, you often had to admire how
right he was;--often, but not quite always. And he would maintain, with
endless ingenuity, confidence and persistence, his fallacious spectrum
to be a real image. However, it was sure to come all right in the end.
Whatever real excellence he might misknow, you had but to let it stand
before him, soliciting new examination from him: none surer than he to
recognize it at last, and to pay it all his dues, with the arrears
and interest on them. Goethe, who figures as some absurd high-stalking
hollow play-actor, or empty ornamental clock-case of an "Artist"
so-called, in the Tale of the _Onyx Ring_, was in the throne of
Sterling's intellectual world before all wa