This magical ingredient thrown into the wild caldron of such a mind,which we have seen occupied hitherto with mere Ethnici**,Radicalism and revolutionary tumult,but hungering all along for something higher and better,was sure to be eagerly welcomed and imbibed,and could not fail to produce important fermentations there.Fermentations;important new directions,and withal important new perversions,in the spiritual life of this man,as it has since done in the lives of so many.Here then is the new celestial manna we were all in quest of?
This thrice-refined pabulum of transcendental moonshine?Whoso eateth thereof,--yes,what,on the whole,will _he_probably grow to?
Sterling never spoke much to me of his intercourse with Coleridge;and when we did compare notes about him,it was usually rather in the way of controversial discussion than of narrative.So that,from my own resources,I can give no details of the business,nor specify anything in it,except the general fact of an ardent attendance at Highgate continued for many months,which was impressively known to all Sterling's friends;and am unable to assign even the limitary dates,Sterling's own papers on the subject having all been destroyed by him.
Inferences point to the end of 1828as the beginning of this intercourse;perhaps in 1829it was at the highest point;and already in 1830,when the intercourse itself was about to terminate,we have proof of the influences it was producing,--in the Novel of _Arthur Coningsby_,then on hand,the first and only Book that Sterling ever wrote.His writings hitherto had been sketches,criticisms,brief essays;he was now trying it on a wider scale;but not yet with satisfactory results,and it proved to be his only trial in that form.
He had already,as was intimated,given up his brief proprietorship of the _Athenaeum_;the commercial indications,and state of sales and of costs,peremptorily ordering him to do so;the copyright went by sale or gift,I know not at what precise date,into other fitter hands;and with the copyright all connection on the part of Sterling.To _Athenaeum_Sketches had now (in 1829-30)succeeded _Arthur Coningsby_,a Novel in three volumes;indicating (when it came to light,a year or two afterwards)equally hasty and much more ambitious aims in Literature;--giving strong evidence,too,of internal spiritual revulsions going painfully forward,and in particular of the impression Coleridge was producing on him.Without and within,it was a wild tide of things this ardent light young soul was afloat upon,at present;and his outlooks into the future,whether for his spiritual or economic fortunes,were confused enough.
