Sterling was of rather slim but well-boned wiry figure,perhaps an inch or two from six feet in height;of blonde complexion,without color,yet not pale or sickly;dark-blonde hair,copious enough,which he usually wore short.The general aspect of him indicated freedom,perfect spontaneity,with a certain careless natural grace.In his apparel,you could notice,he affected dim colors,easy shapes;cleanly always,yet even in this not fastidious or conspicuous:he sat or stood,oftenest,in loose sloping postures;walked with long strides,body carelessly bent,head flung eagerly forward,right hand perhaps grasping a cane,and rather by the middle to swing it,than by the end to use it otherwise.An attitude of frank,cheerful impetuosity,of hopeful speed and alacrity;which indeed his physiognomy,on all sides of it,offered as the chief expression.
Alacrity,velocity,joyous ardor,dwelt in the eyes too,which were of brownish gray,full of bright kindly life,rapid and frank rather than deep or strong.A smile,half of kindly impatience,half of real mirth,often sat on his face.The head was long;high over the vertex;in the brow,of fair breadth,but not high for such a man.
In the voice,which was of good tenor sort,rapid and strikingly distinct,powerful too,and except in some of the higher notes harmonious,there was a clear-ringing _metallic_tone,--which I often thought was wonderfully physiognomic.A certain splendor,beautiful,but not the deepest or the softest,which I could call a splendor as of burnished metal,--fiery valor of heart,swift decisive insight and utterance,then a turn for brilliant elegance,also for ostentation,rashness,&c.&c.,--in short,a flash as of clear-glancing sharp-cutting steel,lay in the whole nature of the man,in his heart and in his intellect,marking alike the excellence and the limits of them both.His laugh,which on light occasions was ready and frequent,had in it no great depth of gayety,or sense for the ludicrous in men or things;you might call it rather a good smile become vocal than a deep real laugh:with his whole man I never saw him laugh.A clear sense of the humorous he had,as of most other things;but in himself little or no true humor;--nor did he attempt that side of things.To call him deficient in sympathy would seem strange,him whose radiances and resonances went thrilling over all the world,and kept him in brotherly contact with all:but I may say his sympathies dwelt rather with the high and sublime than with the low or ludicrous;and were,in any field,rather light,wide and lively,than deep,abiding or great.
There is no Portrait of him which tolerably resembles.The miniature Medallion,of which Mr.Hare has given an Engraving,offers us,with no great truth in physical details,one,and not the best,superficial expression of his face,as if that with vacuity had been what the face contained;and even that Mr.Hare's engraver has disfigured into the nearly or the utterly irrecognizable.Two Pencil-sketches,which no artist could approve of,hasty sketches done in some social hour,one by his friend Spedding,one by Banim the Novelist,whom he slightly knew and had been kind to,tell a much truer story so far as they go:of these his Brother has engravings;but these also I must suppress as inadequate for strangers.
Nor in the way of Spiritual Portraiture does there,after so much writing and excerpting,anything of importance remain for me to say.
John Sterling and his Life in this world were--such as has been already said.In purity of character,in the so-called moralities,in all manner of proprieties of conduct,so as tea-tables and other human tribunals rule them,he might be defined as perfect,according to the world's pattern:in these outward tangible respects the world's criticism of him must have been praise and that only.An honorable man,and good citizen;discharging,with unblamable correctness,all functions and duties laid on him by the customs (_mores_)of the society he lived in,--with correctness and something more.In all these particulars,a man perfectly _moral_,or of approved virtue according to the rules.
Nay in the far more essential tacit virtues,which are not marked on stone tables,or so apt to be insisted on by human creatures over tea or elsewhere,--in clear and perfect fidelity to Truth wherever found,in childlike and soldier-like,pious and valiant loyalty to the Highest,and what of good and evil that might send him,--he excelled among good men.The joys and the sorrows of his lot he took with true simplicity and acquiescence.Like a true son,not like a miserable mutinous rebel,he comported himself in this Universe.Extremity of distress--and surely his fervid temper had enough of contradiction in this world--could not tempt him into impatience at any time.By no chance did you ever hear from him a whisper of those mean repinings,miserable arraignings and questionings of the Eternal Power,such as weak souls even well disposed will sometimes give way to in the pressure of their despair;to the like of this he never yielded,or showed the least tendency to yield;--which surely was well on his part.For the Eternal Power,I still remark,will not answer the like of this,but silently and terribly accounts it impious,blasphemous and damnable,and now as heretofore will visit it as such.Not a rebel but a son,I said;willing to suffer when Heaven said,Thou shalt;--and withal,what is perhaps rarer in such a combination,willing to rejoice also,and right cheerily taking the good that was sent,whensoever or in whatever form it came.
