to something yet: this fact is
a memorable one in every history; and for me Sterling, often enough the
stiff gainsayer in our private communings, was the doer of this. The
thought burnt in me like a lamp, for several days; lighting up into
a kind of heroic splendor the sad volcanic wrecks, abysses, and
convulsions of said poor battle, and secretly I was very grateful to my
daring friend, and am still, and ought to be. What the public might be
thinking about him and his audacities, and me in consequence, or whether
it thought at all, I never learned, or much heeded to learn.

Sterling's gainsaying had given way on many points; but on others it
continued stiff as ever, as may be seen in that article; indeed he
fought Parthian-like in such cases, holding out his last position as
doggedly as the first: and to some of my notions he seemed to grow in
stubbornness of opposition, with the growing inevitability, and
never would surrender. Especially that doctrine of the "greatness and
fruitfulness of Silence," remained afflictive and incomprehensible:
"Silence?" he would say: "Yes, truly; if they give you leave to proclaim
silence by cannon-salvos! My Harpocrates-Stentor!" In like manner,
"Intellect and Virtue," how they are proportional, or are indeed one
gift in us, the same great summary of gifts; and again, "Might and
Right," the identity of these two, if a man will understand this
God's-Universe, and that only he who conforms to the law of it can
in the long-run have any "might:" all this, at the first blush, often
awakened Sterling's musketry upon me, and many volleys I have had
to stand,--the thing not being decidable by that kind of weapon or
strategy.

In such cases your one method was to leave our friend in peace. By
small-arms practice no mortal could dislodge him: but if you were in the
right, the silent hours would work continually for you; and Sterling,
more certainly than any man, would and must at length swear fealty to
the right, and passionately adopt it, burying all hostilities under
foot. A more candid soul, once let the stormful velocities of it expend
themselves, was nowhere to be met with. A son of light, if I have ever
seen one; recognizing the truth, if truth there were; hurling overboard
his vanities, petulances, big and small interests, in ready loyalty to
truth: very beautiful; at once a loyal child, as I said, and a gifted
man!--Here is a very pertinent passage from one of his Letters, which,
thou