e complete
changes of abode, for his sake. But these cannot be accepted as in any
sense epochs in his life: the one last epoch of his life was that of his
internal change towards Literature as his work in the world; and we need
not linger much on these, which are the mere outer accidents of that,
and had no distinguished influence in modifying that.

Friends still hoped the unrest of that brilliant too rapid soul would
abate with years. Nay the doctors sometimes promised, on the physical
side, a like result; prophesying that, at forty-five or some mature age,
the stress of disease might quit the lungs, and direct itself to other
quarters of the system. But no such result was appointed for us; neither
forty-five itself, nor the ameliorations promised then, were ever to
be reached. Four voyages abroad, three of them without his family,
in flight from death; and at home, for a like reason, five complete
shiftings of abode: in such wandering manner, and not otherwise, had
Sterling to continue his pilgrimage till it ended.

Once more I must say, his cheerfulness throughout was wonderful. A
certain grimmer shade, coming gradually over him, might perhaps be
noticed in the concluding years; not impatience properly, yet the
consciousness how much he needed patience; something more caustic in his
tone of wit, more trenchant and indignant occasionally in his tone of
speech: but at no moment was his activity bewildered or abated, nor did
his composure ever give way. No; both his activity and his composure
he bore with him, through all weathers, to the final close; and on the
whole, right manfully he walked his wild stern way towards the goal, and
like a Roman wrapt his mantle round him when he fell.--Let us glance,
with brevity, at what he saw and suffered in his remaining pilgrimings
and chargings; and count up what fractions of spiritual fruit he
realized to us from them.

Calvert and he returned from Madeira in the spring of 1838. Mrs.
Sterling and the family had lived in Knightsbridge with his Father's
people through the winter: they now changed to Blackheath, or ultimately
Hastings, and he with them, coming up to London pretty often; uncertain
what was to be done for next winter. Literature went on briskly here:
_Blackwood_ had from him, besides the _Onyx Ring_ which soon came out
with due honor, assiduous almost monthly contributions in prose and
verse. The series called _Hymns of a Hermit_ was now going on; eloquent
mel