After a residence of perhaps fifteen months Sterling quitted St.
Vincent,and never returned.He reappeared at his Father's house,to the joy of English friends,in August,1832;well improved in health,and eager for English news;but,beyond vague schemes and possibilities,considerably uncertain what was next to be done.
After no long stay in this scene,--finding Downing Street dead as stone to the Slave-Education and to all other schemes,--he went across,with his wife and child,to Germany;purposing to make not so much a tour as some loose ramble,or desultory residence in that country,in the Rhineland first of all.Here was to be hoped the picturesque in scenery,which he much affected;here the new and true in speculation,which he inwardly longed for and wanted greatly more;at all events,here as readily as elsewhere might a temporary household be struck up,under interesting circumstances.--I conclude he went across in the Spring of 1833;perhaps directly after _Arthur Coningsby_had got through the press.This Novel,which,as we have said,was begun two or three years ago,probably on his cessation from the _Athenaeum_,and was mainly finished,I think,before the removal to St.Vincent,had by this time fallen as good as obsolete to his own mind;and its destination now,whether to the press or to the fire,was in some sort a matter at once of difficulty and of insignificance to him.At length deciding for the milder alternative,he had thrown in some completing touches here and there,--especially,as Iconjecture,a proportion of Coleridgean moonshine at the end;and so sent it forth.
It was in the sunny days,perhaps in May or June of this year,that _Arthur Coningsby_reached my own hand,far off amid the heathy wildernesses;sent by John Mill:and I can still recollect the pleasant little episode it made in my solitude there.The general impression it left on me,which has never since been renewed by a second reading in whole or in part,was the certain prefigurement to myself,more or less distinct,of an opulent,genial and sunny mind,but misdirected,disappointed,experienced in misery;--nay crude and hasty;mistaking for a solid outcome from its woes what was only to me a gilded vacuity.The hero an ardent youth,representing Sterling himself,plunges into life such as we now have it in these anarchic times,with the radical,utilitarian,or mutinous heathen theory,which is the readiest for inquiring souls;finds,by various courses of adventure,utter shipwreck in this;lies broken,very wretched:that is the tragic nodus,or apogee of his life-course.In this mood of mind,he clutches desperately towards some new method (recognizable as Coleridge's)of laying hand again on the old Church,which has hitherto been extraneous and as if non-extant to his way of thought;makes out,by some Coleridgean legedermain,that there actually is still a Church for him;that this extant Church,which he long took for an extinct shadow,is not such,but a substance;upon which he can anchor himself amid the storms of fate;--and he does so,even taking orders in it,I think.Such could by no means seem to me the true or tenable solution.Here clearly,struggling amid the tumults,was a lovable young fellow-soul;who had by no means yet got to land;but of whom much might be hoped,if he ever did.Some of the delineations are highly pictorial,flooded with a deep ruddy effulgence;betokening much wealth,in the crude or the ripe state.The hope of perhaps,one day,knowing Sterling,was welcome and interesting to me._Arthur Coningsby_,struggling imperfectly in a sphere high above circulating-library novels,gained no notice whatever in that quarter;gained,I suppose in a few scattered heads,some such recognition as the above;and there rested.Sterling never mentioned the name of it in my hearing,or would hear it mentioned.
In those very days while _Arthur Coningsby_was getting read amid the Scottish moors,"in June,1833,"Sterling,at Bonn in the Rhine-country,fell in with his old tutor and friend,the Reverend Julius Hare;one with whom he always delighted to communicate,especially on such topics as then altogether occupied him.A man of cheerful serious character,of much approved accomplishment,of perfect courtesy;surely of much piety,in all senses of that word.
Mr.Hare had quitted his scholastic labors and distinctions,some time ago;the call or opportunity for taking orders having come;and as Rector of Herstmonceux in Sussex,a place patrimonially and otherwise endeared to him,was about entering,under the best omens,on a new course of life.He was now on his return from Rome,and a visit of some length to Italy.Such a meeting could not but be welcome and important to Sterling in such a mood.They had much earnest conversation,freely communing on the highest matters;especially of Sterling's purpose to undertake the clerical profession,in which course his reverend friend could not but bid him good speed.
It appears,Sterling already intimated his intention to become a clergyman:He would study theology,biblicalities,perfect himself in the knowledge seemly or essential for his new course;--read diligently "for a year or two in some good German University,"then seek to obtain orders:that was his plan.To which Mr.Hare gave his hearty _Euge_;adding that if his own curacy happened then to be vacant,he should be well pleased to have Sterling in that office.So they parted.
