rapid movement and
vicissitude on such occasions seemed to give him new excitement.

Once, I still remember,--it was some years before, probably in May, on
his return from Madeira,--he undertook a day's riding with me; once and
never again. We coursed extensively, over the Hampstead and Highgate
regions, and the country beyond, sauntering or galloping through many
leafy lanes and pleasant places, in ever-flowing, ever-changing talk;
and returned down Regent Street at nightfall: one of the cheerfulest
days I ever had;--not to be repeated, said the Fates. Sterling was
charming on such occasions: at once a child and a gifted man. A serious
fund of thought he always had, a serious drift you never missed in him:
nor indeed had he much depth of real laughter or sense of the ludicrous,
as I have elsewhere said; but what he had was genuine, free and
continual: his sparkling sallies bubbled up as from aerated natural
fountains; a mild dash of gayety was native to the man, and had moulded
his physiognomy in a very graceful way. We got once into a cab, about
Charing Cross; I know not now whence or well whitherward, nor that our
haste was at all special; however, the cabman, sensible that his pace
was slowish, took to whipping, with a steady, passionless, businesslike
assiduity which, though the horse seemed lazy rather than weak, became
afflictive; and I urged remonstrance with the savage fellow: "Let him
alone," answered Sterling; "he is kindling the enthusiasm of his horse,
you perceive; that is the first thing, then we shall do very well!"--as
accordingly we did.

At Clifton, though his thoughts began to turn more on poetic forms
of composition, he was diligent in prose elaborations too,--doing
Criticism, for one thing, as we incidentally observed. He wrote there,
and sent forth in this autumn of 1839, his most important contribution
to John Mill's Review, the article on _Carlyle_, which stands also in
Mr. Hare's collection. [22] What its effect on the public was I knew
not, and know not; but remember well, and may here be permitted to
acknowledge, the deep silent joy, not of a weak or ignoble nature, which
it gave to myself in my then mood and situation; as it well might. The
first generous human recognition, expressed with heroic emphasis, and
clear conviction visible amid its fiery exaggeration, that one's poor
battle in this world is not quite a mad and futile, that it is perhaps a
worthy and manful one, which will come