"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,though the name continues blank,Iwill insert:--
_To his Father_.
"_October 15th_,1839.--As to my 'over-estimate of ----,'your expressions rather puzzle me.I suppose there may be,at the outside,a hundred persons in England whose opinions on such a matter are worth as much as mine.If by 'the public'you and my Mother mean the other ninety-nine,I submit.I have no doubt that,on any matter not relating peculiarly to myself,the judgment of the ninety-nine most philosophical heads in the country,if unanimous,would be right,and mine,if opposed to them,wrong.But then I am at a loss to make out,How the decision of the very few really competent persons has been ascertained to be thus in contradiction to me?And on the other hand,I conceive myself,from my opportunities,knowledge and attention to the subject,to be alone quite entitled to outvote tens of thousands of gentlemen,however much my superiors as men of business,men of the world,or men of merely dry or merely frivolous literature.