Son; which
pious function Mr. Newman now successfully discharges.

Sterling was not long in certainty as to his abode at Clifton: alas,
where could he long be so? Hardly six months were gone when his old
enemy again overtook him; again admonished him how frail his hopes of
permanency were. Each winter, it turned out, he had to fly; and after
the second of these, he quitted the place altogether. Here, meanwhile,
in a Letter to myself, and in Excerpts from others, are some glimpses of
his advent and first summer there:--

_To his Mother_.

"_Clifton, June 11th_, 1839.--As yet I am personally very uncomfortable
from the general confusion of this house, which deprives me of my room
to sit and read and write in; all being more or less lumbered by boxes,
and invaded by servile domesticities aproned, handled, bristled, and of
nondescript varieties. We have very fine warm weather, with occasional
showers; and the verdure of the woods and fields is very beautiful.
Bristol seems as busy as need be; and the shops and all kinds of
practical conveniences are excellent; but those of Clifton have the
usual sentimental, not to say meretricious fraudulence of commercial
establishments in Watering-places.

"The bag which Hannah forgot reached us safely at Bath on Friday
morning; but I cannot quite unriddle the mystery of the change of
padlocks, for I left the right one in care of the Head Steam-engine at
Paddington, which seemed a very decent person with a good black coat on,
and a pen behind its ear. I have been meditating much on the story of
Palarea's 'box of papers;' which does not appear to be in my possession,
and I have a strong impression that I gave it to young Florez Calderon.
I will write to say so to Madam Torrijos speedily." Palarea, Dr.
Palarea, I understand, was "an old guerilla leader whom they called
_El Medico_." Of him and of the vanished shadows, now gone to Paris, to
Madrid, or out of the world, let us say nothing!

_To Mr. Carlyle_.

"_June 15th_, 1839.--We have a room now occupied by Robert Barton [a
brother-in-law]; to which Anthony may perhaps succeed; but which after
him, or in lieu of him, would expand itself to receive you. Is there no
hope of your coming? I would undertake to ride with you at all possible
paces, and in all existing directions.

"As yet my books are lying as ghost books, in a limbo on the banks of
a certain Bristolian Styx, humanl