welcome, I can still recollect,
was conspicuously cordial; the place of dinner a kind of upper room,
half garret and full of books, which seemed to be John's place of study.
From a shelf, I remember also, the good soul took down a book modestly
enough bound in three volumes, lettered on the back Carlyle's _French
Revolution_, which had been published lately; this he with friendly
banter bade me look at as a first symptom, small but significant, that
the book was not to die all at once. "One copy of it at least might hope
to last the date of sheep-leather," I admitted,--and in my then mood
the little fact was welcome. Our dinner, frank and happy on the part
of Sterling, was peppered with abundant jolly satire from his Father:
before tea, I took myself away; towards Woolwich, I remember, where
probably there was another call to make, and passage homeward by
steamer: Sterling strode along with me a good bit of road in the bright
sunny evening, full of lively friendly talk, and altogether kind and
amiable; and beautifully sympathetic with the loads he thought he saw on
_me_, forgetful of his own. We shook hands on the road near the foot of
Shooter's Hill:--at which point dim oblivious clouds rush down; and of
small or great I remember nothing more in my history or his for some
time.

Besides running much about among friends, and holding counsels for the
management of the coming winter, Sterling was now considerably occupied
with Literature again; and indeed may be said to have already
definitely taken it up as the one practical pursuit left for him. Some
correspondence with _Blackwood's Magazine_ was opening itself, under
promising omens: now, and more and more henceforth, he began to look
on Literature as his real employment, after all; and was prosecuting it
with his accustomed loyalty and ardor. And he continued ever afterwards,
in spite of such fitful circumstances and uncertain outward fluctuations
as his were sure of being, to prosecute it steadily with all the
strength he had.

One evening about this time, he came down to us, to Chelsea, most likely
by appointment and with stipulation for privacy; and read, for our
opinion, his Poem of the _Sexton's Daughter_, which we now first
heard of. The judgment in this house was friendly, but not the most
encouraging. We found the piece monotonous, cast in the mould of
Wordsworth, deficient in real human fervor or depth of melody, dallying
on the borders of the infantile and