Professions,"regimented human pursuits,"how many of honorable and manful might be possible for men;and which should _not_,in their results to society,need to stumble along,in such an unwieldy futile manner,with legs swollen into such enormous elephantiasis and no go at all in them!Men will one day think of the force they squander in every generation,and the fatal damage they encounter,by this neglect.
The career likeliest for Sterling,in his and the world's circumstances,would have been what is called public life:some secretarial,diplomatic or other official training,to issue if possible in Parliament as the true field for him.And here,beyond question,had the gross material conditions been allowed,his spiritual capabilities were first-rate.In any arena where eloquence and argument was the point,this man was calculated to have borne the bell from all competitors.In lucid ingenious talk and logic,in all manner of brilliant utterance and tongue-fence,I have hardly known his fellow.So ready lay his store of knowledge round him,so perfect was his ready utterance of the same,--in coruscating wit,in jocund drollery,in compact articulated clearness or high poignant emphasis,as the case required,--he was a match for any man in argument before a crowd of men.One of the most supple-wristed,dexterous,graceful and successful fencers in that kind.A man,as Mr.Hare has said,"able to argue with four or five at once;"could do the parrying all round,in a succession swift as light,and plant his hits wherever a chance offered.In Parliament,such a soul put into a body of the due toughness might have carried it far.If ours is to be called,as Ihear some call it,the Talking Era,Sterling of all men had the talent to excel in it.
Probably it was with some vague view towards chances in this direction that Sterling's first engagement was entered upon;a brief connection as Secretary to some Club or Association into which certain public men,of the reforming sort,Mr.Crawford (the Oriental Diplomatist and Writer),Mr.Kirkman Finlay (then Member for Glasgow),and other political notabilities had now formed themselves,--with what specific objects I do not know,nor with what result if any.I have heard vaguely,it was "to open the trade to India."Of course they intended to stir up the public mind into co-operation,whatever their goal or object was:Mr.Crawford,an intimate in the Sterling household,recognized the fine literary gift of John;and might think it a lucky hit that he had caught such a Secretary for three hundred pounds a year.That was the salary agreed upon;and for some months actually worked for and paid;Sterling becoming for the time an intimate and almost an inmate in Mr.Crawford's circle,doubtless not without results to himself beyond the secretarial work and pounds sterling:so much is certain.But neither the Secretaryship nor the Association itself had any continuance;nor can I now learn accurately more of it than what is here stated;--in which vague state it must vanish from Sterling's history again,as it in great measure did from his life.