edward sterling never shone in farming; indeed i believe he never took heartily to it, or tried it except in fits. his bute farm was, at best, a kind of apology for some far different ideal of a country establishment which could not be realized; practically a temporary landing-place from which he could make sallies and excursions in search of some more generous field of enterprise. stormy brief efforts at energetic husbandry, at agricultural improvement and rapid field-labor, alternated with sudden flights to dublin, to london, whithersoever any flush of bright outlook which he could denominate practical, or any gleam of hope which his impatient ennui could represent as such, allured him. this latter was often enough the case. in wet hay-times and harvest-times, the dripping outdoor world, and lounging indoor one, in the absence of the master, offered far from a satisfactory appearance! here was, in fact, a man much imprisoned; haunted, i doubt not, by demons enough; though ever brisk and brave withal,—iracund, but cheerfully vigorous, opulent in wise or unwise hope. a fiery energetic soul consciously and unconsciously storming for deliverance into better arenas; and this in a restless, rapid, impetuous, rather than in a strong, silent and deliberate way.
in rainy bute and the dilapidated kaimes castle, it was evident, there lay no goshen for such a man. the lease, originally but for some three years and a half, drawing now to a close, he resolved to quit bute; had heard, i know not where, of an eligible cottage without farm attached, in the pleasant little village of llanblethian close by cowbridge in glamorganshire; of this he took a lease, and thither with his family he moved in search of new fortunes. glamorganshire was at least a better climate than bute; no groups of idle or of busy reapers could here stand waiting on the guidance of a master, for there was no farm here;—and among its other and probably its chief though secret advantages, llanblethian was much more convenient both for dublin and london than kaimes castle had been.
the removal thither took place in the autumn of 1809. chief part of the journey (perhaps from greenock to swansea or bristol) was by sea: john, just turned of three years, could in after-times remember nothing of this voyage; anthony, some eighteen months older, has still a vivid recollection of the gray splashing tumult, and dim sorrow, uncertainty, regret and distress he underwent: to him a "dissolving-view" which not only left its effect on the plate (as all views and dissolving-views doubtless do on that kind of "plate"), but remained consciously present there. john, in the close of his twenty-first year, professes not to remember anything whatever of bute; his whole existence, in that earliest scene of it, had faded away from him: bute also, with its shaggy mountains, moaning woods, and summer and winter seas, had been wholly a dissolving-view for him, and had left no conscious impression, but only, like this voyage, an effect.
llanblethian hangs pleasantly, with its white cottages, and orchard and other trees, on the western slope of a green hill looking far and wide over green meadows and little or bigger hills, in the pleasant plain of glamorgan; a short mile to the south of cowbridge, to which smart little town it is properly a kind of suburb. plain of glamorgan, some ten miles wide and thirty or forty long, which they call the vale of glamorgan;—though properly it is not quite a vale, there being only one range of mountains to it, if even one: certainly the central mountains of wales do gradually rise, in a miscellaneous manner, on the north side of it; but on the south are no mountains, not even land, only the bristol channel, and far off, the hills of devonshire, for boundary,—the "english hills," as the natives call them, visible from every eminence in those parts. on such wide terms is it called vale of glamorgan. but called by whatever name, it is a most pleasant fruitful region: kind to the native, interesting to the visitor. a waving grassy region; cut with innumerable ragged lanes; dotted with sleepy unswept human hamlets, old ruinous castles with their ivy and their daws, gray sleepy churches with their ditto ditto: for ivy everywhere abounds; and generally a rank fragrant vegetation clothes all things; hanging, in rude many-colored festoons and fringed odoriferous tapestries, on your right and on your left, in every lane. a country kinder to the sluggard husbandman than any i have ever seen. for it lies all on limestone, needs no draining; the soil, everywhere of handsome depth and finest quality, will grow good crops for you with the most imperfect tilling. at a safe distance of a day's riding lie the tartarean copper-forges of swansea, the tartarean iron-forges of merthyr; their sooty battle far away, and not, at such safe distance, a defilement to the face of the earth and sky, but rather an encouragement to the earth at least; encouraging the husbandman to plough better, if he only would.
the peasantry seem indolent and stagnant, but peaceable and well-provided; much given to methodism when they have any character;—for the rest, an innocent good-humored people, who all drink home-brewed beer, and have brown loaves of the most excellent home-baked bread. the native peasant village is not generally beautiful, though it might be, were it swept and trimmed; it gives one rather the idea of sluttish stagnancy,—an interesting peep into the welsh paradise of sleepy hollow. stones, old kettles, naves of wheels, all kinds of broken litter, with live pigs and etceteras, lie about the street: for, as a rule, no rubbish is removed, but waits patiently the action of mere natural chemistry and accident; if even a house is burnt or falls, you will find it there after half a century, only cloaked by the ever-ready ivy. sluggish man seems never to have struck a pick into it; his new hut is built close by on ground not encumbered, and the old stones are still left lying.
this is the ordinary welsh village; but there are exceptions, where people of more cultivated tastes have been led to settle, and llanblethian is one of the more signal of these. a decidedly cheerful group of human homes, the greater part of them indeed belonging to persons of refined habits; trimness, shady shelter, whitewash, neither conveniency nor decoration has been neglected here. its effect from the distance on the eastward is very pretty: you see it like a little sleeping cataract of white houses, with trees overshadowing and fringing it; and there the cataract hangs, and does not rush away from you.
john sterling spent his next five years in this locality. he did not again see it for a quarter of a century; but retained, all his life, a lively remembrance of it; and, just in the end of his twenty-first year, among his earliest printed pieces, we find an elaborate and diffuse description of it and its relations to him,—part of which piece, in spite of its otherwise insignificant quality, may find place here:—
"the fields on which i first looked, and the sands which were marked by my earliest footsteps, are completely lost to my memory; and of those ancient walls among which i began to breathe, i retain no recollection more clear than the outlines of a cloud in a moonless sky. but of l——, the village where i afterwards lived, i persuade myself that every line and hue is more deeply and accurately fixed than those of any spot i have since beheld, even though borne in upon the heart by the association of the strongest feelings.
"my home was built upon the slope of a hill, with a little orchard stretching down before it, and a garden rising behind. at a considerable distance beyond and beneath the orchard, a rivulet flowed through meadows and turned a mill; while, above the garden, the summit of the hill was crowned by a few gray rocks, from which a yew-tree grew, solitary and bare. extending at each side of the orchard, toward the brook, two scattered patches of cottages lay nestled among their gardens; and beyond this streamlet and the little mill and bridge, another slight eminence arose, divided into green fields, tufted and bordered with copsewood, and crested by a ruined castle, contemporary, as was said, with the conquest. i know not whether these things in truth made up a prospect of much beauty. since i was eight years old, i have never seen them; but i well know that no landscape i have since beheld, no picture of claude or salvator, gave me half the impression of living, heartfelt, perfect beauty which fills my mind when i think of that green valley, that sparkling rivulet, that broken fortress of dark antiquity, and that hill with its aged yew and breezy summit, from which i have so often looked over the broad stretch of verdure beneath it, and the country-town, and church-tower, silent and white beyond.
"in that little town there was, and i believe is, a school where the elements of human knowledge were communicated to me, for some hours of every day, during a considerable time. the path to it lay across the rivulet and past the mill; from which point we could either journey through the fields below the old castle, and the wood which surrounded it, or along a road at the other side of the ruin, close to the gateway of which it passed. the former track led through two or three beautiful fields, the sylvan domain of the keep on one hand, and the brook on the other; while an oak or two, like giant warders advanced from the wood, broke the sunshine of the green with a soft and graceful shadow. how often, on my way to school, have i stopped beneath the tree to collect the fallen acorns; how often run down to the stream to pluck a branch of the hawthorn which hung over the water! the road which passed the castle joined, beyond these fields, the path which traversed them. it took, i well remember, a certain solemn and mysterious interest from the ruin. the shadow of the archway, the discolorizations of time on all the walls, the dimness of the little thicket which encircled it, the traditions of its immeasurable age, made st. quentin's castle a wonderful and awful fabric in the imagination of a child; and long after i last saw its mouldering roughness, i never read of fortresses, or heights, or spectres, or banditti, without connecting them with the one ruin of my childhood.
"it was close to this spot that one of the few adventures occurred which marked, in my mind, my boyish days with importance. when loitering beyond the castle, on the way to school, with a brother somewhat older than myself, who was uniformly my champion and protector, we espied a round sloe high up in the hedge-row. we determined to obtain it; and i do not remember whether both of us, or only my brother, climbed the tree. however, when the prize was all but reached,—and no alchemist ever looked more eagerly for the moment of projection which was to give him immortality and omnipotence,—a gruff voice startled us with an oath, and an order to desist; and i well recollect looking back, for long after, with terror to the vision of an old and ill-tempered farmer, armed with a bill-hook, and vowing our decapitation; nor did i subsequently remember without triumph the eloquence whereby alone, in my firm belief, my brother and myself had been rescued from instant death.
"at the entrance of the little town stood an old gateway, with a pointed arch and decaying battlements. it gave admittance to the street which contained the church, and which terminated in another street, the principal one in the town of c——. in this was situated the school to which i daily wended. i cannot now recall to mind the face of its good conductor, nor of any of his scholars; but i have before me a strong general image of the interior of his establishment. i remember the reverence with which i was wont to carry to his seat a well-thumbed duodecimo, the history of greece by oliver goldsmith. i remember the mental agonies i endured in attempting to master the art and mystery of penmanship; a craft in which, alas, i remained too short a time under mr. r—— to become as great a proficient as he made his other scholars, and which my awkwardness has prevented me from attaining in any considerable perfection under my various subsequent pedagogues. but that which has left behind it a brilliant trait of light was the exhibition of what are called 'christmas pieces;' things unknown in aristocratic seminaries, but constantly used at the comparatively humble academy which supplied the best knowledge of reading, writing, and arithmetic to be attained in that remote neighborhood.
"the long desks covered from end to end with those painted masterpieces, the life of robinson crusoe, the hunting of chevy-chase, the history of jack the giant-killer, and all the little eager faces and trembling hands bent over these, and filling them up with some choice quotation, sacred or profane;—no, the galleries of art, the theatrical exhibitions, the reviews and processions,—which are only not childish because they are practiced and admired by men instead of children,—all the pomps and vanities of great cities, have shown me no revelation of glory such as did that crowded school-room the week before the christmas holidays. but these were the splendors of life. the truest and the strongest feelings do not connect themselves with any scenes of gorgeous and gaudy magnificence; they are bound up in the remembrances of home.
"the narrow orchard, with its grove of old apple-trees against one of which i used to lean, and while i brandished a beanstalk, roar out with fitzjames,—
'come one, come all; this rock shall fly
from its firm base as soon as i!'—
while i was ready to squall at the sight of a cur, and run valorously away from a casually approaching cow; the field close beside it, where i rolled about in summer among the hay; the brook in which, despite of maid and mother, i waded by the hour; the garden where i sowed flower-seeds, and then turned up the ground again and planted potatoes, and then rooted out the potatoes to insert acorns and apple-pips, and at last, as may be supposed, reaped neither roses, nor potatoes, nor oak-trees, nor apples; the grass-plots on which i played among those with whom i never can play nor work again: all these are places and employments,—and, alas, playmates,—such as, if it were worth while to weep at all, it would be worth weeping that i enjoy no longer.
"i remember the house where i first grew familiar with peacocks; and the mill-stream into which i once fell; and the religious awe wherewith i heard, in the warm twilight, the psalm-singing around the house of the methodist miller; and the door-post against which i discharged my brazen artillery; i remember the window by which i sat while my mother taught me french; and the patch of garden which i dug for— but her name is best left blank; it was indeed writ in water. these recollections are to me like the wealth of a departed friend, a mournful treasure. but the public has heard enough of them; to it they are worthless: they are a coin which only circulates at its true value between the different periods of an individual's existence, and good for nothing but to keep up a commerce between boyhood and manhood. i have for years looked forward to the possibility of visiting l——; but i am told that it is a changed village; and not only has man been at work, but the old yew on the hill has fallen, and scarcely a low stump remains of the tree which i delighted in childhood to think might have furnished bows for the norman archers." 3
in cowbridge is some kind of free school, or grammar-school, of a certain distinction; and this to captain sterling was probably a motive for settling in the neighborhood of it with his children. of this however, as it turned out, there was no use made: the sterling family, during its continuance in those parts, did not need more than a primary school. the worthy master who presided over these christmas galas, and had the honor to teach john sterling his reading and writing, was an elderly mr. reece of cowbridge, who still (in 1851) survives, or lately did; and is still remembered by his old pupils as a worthy, ingenious and kindly man, "who wore drab breeches and white stockings." beyond the reece sphere of tuition john sterling did not go in this locality.
in fact the sterling household was still fluctuating; the problem of a task for edward sterling's powers, and of anchorage for his affairs in any sense, was restlessly struggling to solve itself, but was still a good way from being solved. anthony, in revisiting these scenes with john in 1839, mentions going to the spot "where we used to stand with our father, looking out for the arrival of the london mail:" a little chink through which is disclosed to us a big restless section of a human life. the hill of welsh llanblethian, then, is like the mythic caucasus in its degree (as indeed all hills and habitations where men sojourn are); and here too, on a small scale, is a prometheus chained! edward sterling, i can well understand, was a man to tug at the chains that held him idle in those the prime of his years; and to ask restlessly, yet not in anger and remorse, so much as in hope, locomotive speculation, and ever-new adventure and attempt, is there no task nearer my own natural size, then? so he looks out from the hill-side "for the arrival of the london mail;" thence hurries into cowbridge to the post-office; and has a wide web, of threads and gossamers, upon his loom, and many shuttles flying, in this world.
by the marquis of bute's appointment he had, very shortly after his arrival in that region, become adjutant of the glamorganshire militia, "local militia," i suppose; and was, in this way, turning his military capabilities to some use. the office involved pretty frequent absences, in cardiff and elsewhere. this doubtless was a welcome outlet, though a small one. he had also begun to try writing, especially on public subjects; a much more copious outlet,—which indeed, gradually widening itself, became the final solution for him. of the year 1811 we have a pamphlet of his, entitled military reform; this is the second edition, "dedicated to the duke of kent;" the first appears to have come out the year before, and had thus attained a certain notice, which of course was encouraging. he now furthermore opened a correspondence with the times newspaper; wrote to it, in 1812, a series of letters under the signature vetus: voluntary letters i suppose, without payment or pre-engagement, one successful letter calling out another; till vetus and his doctrines came to be a distinguishable entity, and the business amounted to something. out of my own earliest newspaper reading, i can remember the name vetus, as a kind of editorial hacklog on which able-editors were wont to chop straw now and then. nay the letters were collected and reprinted; both this first series, of 1812, and then a second of next year: two very thin, very dim-colored cheap octavos; stray copies of which still exist, and may one day become distillable into a drop of history (should such be wanted of our poor "scavenger age" in time coming), though the reading of them has long ceased in this generation.4 the first series, we perceive, had even gone to a second edition. the tone, wherever one timidly glances into this extinct cockpit, is trenchant and emphatic: the name of vetus, strenuously fighting there, had become considerable in the talking political world; and, no doubt, was especially of mark, as that of a writer who might otherwise be important, with the proprietors of the times. the connection continued: widened and deepened itself,—in a slow tentative manner; passing naturally from voluntary into remunerated: and indeed proving more and more to be the true ultimate arena, and battle-field and seed-field, for the exuberant impetuosities and faculties of this man.
what the letters of vetus treated of i do not know; doubtless they ran upon napoleon, catholic emancipation, true methods of national defence, of effective foreign anti-gallicism, and of domestic ditto; which formed the staple of editorial speculation at that time. i have heard in general that captain sterling, then and afterwards, advocated "the marquis of wellesley's policy;" but that also, what it was, i have forgotten, and the world has been willing to forget. enough, the heads of the times establishment, perhaps already the marquis of wellesley and other important persons, had their eye on this writer; and it began to be surmised by him that here at last was the career he had been seeking.
accordingly, in 1814, when victorious peace unexpectedly arrived; and the gates of the continent after five-and-twenty years of fierce closure were suddenly thrown open; and the hearts of all english and european men awoke staggering as if from a nightmare suddenly removed, and ran hither and thither,—edward sterling also determined on a new adventure, that of crossing to paris, and trying what might lie in store for him. for curiosity, in its idler sense, there was evidently pabulum enough. but he had hopes moreover of learning much that might perhaps avail him afterwards;—hopes withal, i have understood, of getting to be foreign correspondent of the times newspaper, and so adding to his income in the mean while. he left llanblethian in may; dates from dieppe the 27th of that month. he lived in occasional contact with parisian notabilities (all of them except madame de stael forgotten now), all summer, diligently surveying his ground;—returned for his family, who were still in wales but ready to move, in the beginning of august; took them immediately across with him; a house in the neighborhood of paris, in the pleasant village of passy at once town and country, being now ready; and so, under foreign skies, again set up his household there.
here was a strange new "school" for our friend john now in his eighth year! out of which the little anthony and he drank doubtless at all pores, vigorously as they had done in no school before. a change total and immediate. somniferous green llanblethian has suddenly been blotted out; presto, here are wakeful passy and the noises of paved paris instead. innocent ingenious mr. reece in drab breeches and white stockings, he with his mild christmas galas and peaceable rules of dilworth and butterworth, has given place to such a saturnalia of panoramic, symbolic and other teachers and monitors, addressing all the five senses at once. who john's express tutors were, at passy, i never heard; nor indeed, especially in his case, was it much worth inquiring. to him and to all of us, the expressly appointed schoolmasters and schoolings we get are as nothing, compared with the unappointed incidental and continual ones, whose school-hours are all the days and nights of our existence, and whose lessons, noticed or unnoticed, stream in upon us with every breath we draw. anthony says they attended a french school, though only for about three months; and he well remembers the last scene of it, "the boys shouting vive l'empereur when napoleon came back."
of john sterling's express schooling, perhaps the most important feature, and by no means a favorable one to him, was the excessive fluctuation that prevailed in it. change of scene, change of teacher, both express and implied, was incessant with him; and gave his young life a nomadic character,—which surely, of all the adventitious tendencies that could have been impressed upon him, so volatile, swift and airy a being as him, was the one he needed least. his gentle pious-hearted mother, ever watching over him in all outward changes, and assiduously keeping human pieties and good affections alive in him, was probably the best counteracting element in his lot. and on the whole, have we not all to run our chance in that respect; and take, the most victoriously we can, such schooling as pleases to be attainable in our year and place? not very victoriously, the most of us! a wise well-calculated breeding of a young genial soul in this world, or alas of any young soul in it, lies fatally over the horizon in these epochs!—this french scene of things, a grand school of its sort, and also a perpetual banquet for the young soul, naturally captivated john sterling; he said afterwards, "new things and experiences here were poured upon his mind and sense, not in streams, but in a niagara cataract." this too, however, was but a scene; lasted only some six or seven months; and in the spring of the next year terminated as abruptly as any of the rest could do.
for in the spring of the next year, napoleon abruptly emerged from elba; and set all the populations of the world in motion, in a strange manner;—set the sterling household afloat, in particular; the big european tide rushing into all smallest creeks, at passy and elsewhere. in brief, on the 20th of march, 1815, the family had to shift, almost to fly, towards home and the sea-coast; and for a day or two were under apprehension of being detained and not reaching home. mrs. sterling, with her children and effects, all in one big carriage with two horses, made the journey to dieppe; in perfect safety, though in continual tremor: here they were joined by captain sterling, who had stayed behind at paris to see the actual advent of napoleon, and to report what the aspect of affairs was, "downcast looks of citizens, with fierce saturnalian acclaim of soldiery:" after which they proceeded together to london without farther apprehension;—there to witness, in due time, the tar-barrels of waterloo, and other phenomena that followed.
captain sterling never quitted london as a residence any more; and indeed was never absent from it, except on autumnal or other excursions of a few weeks, till the end of his life. nevertheless his course there was as yet by no means clear; nor had his relations with the heads of the times, or with other high heads, assumed a form which could be called definite, but were hanging as a cloudy maze of possibilities, firm substance not yet divided from shadow. it continued so for some years. the sterling household shifted twice or thrice to new streets or localities,—russell square or queen square, blackfriars road, and longest at the grove, blackheath,—before the vapors of wellesley promotions and such like slowly sank as useless precipitate, and the firm rock, which was definite employment, ending in lucrative co-proprietorship and more and more important connection with the times newspaper, slowly disclosed itself.
these changes of place naturally brought changes in john sterling's schoolmasters: nor were domestic tragedies wanting, still more important to him. new brothers and sisters had been born; two little brothers more, three little sisters he had in all; some of whom came to their eleventh year beside him, some passed away in their second or fourth: but from his ninth to his sixteenth year they all died; and in 1821 only anthony and john were left. 5 how many tears, and passionate pangs, and soft infinite regrets; such as are appointed to all mortals! in one year, i find, indeed in one half-year, he lost three little playmates, two of them within one month. his own age was not yet quite twelve. for one of these three, for little edward, his next younger, who died now at the age of nine, mr. hare records that john copied out, in large school-hand, a history of valentine and orson, to beguile the poor child's sickness, which ended in death soon, leaving a sad cloud on john.
of his grammar and other schools, which, as i said, are hardly worth enumerating in comparison, the most important seems to have been a dr. burney's at greenwich; a large day-school and boarding-school, where anthony and john gave their attendance for a year or two (1818-19) from blackheath. "john frequently did themes for the boys," says anthony, "and for myself when i was aground." his progress in all school learning was certain to be rapid, if he even moderately took to it. a lean, tallish, loose-made boy of twelve; strange alacrity, rapidity and joyous eagerness looking out of his eyes, and of all his ways and movements. i have a picture of him at this stage; a little portrait, which carries its verification with it. in manhood too, the chief expression of his eyes and physiognomy was what i might call alacrity, cheerful rapidity. you could see, here looked forth a soul which was winged; which dwelt in hope and action, not in hesitation or fear. anthony says, he was "an affectionate and gallant kind of boy, adventurous and generous, daring to a singular degree." apt enough withal to be "petulant now and then;" on the whole, "very self-willed;" doubtless not a little discursive in his thoughts and ways, and "difficult to manage."
i rather think anthony, as the steadier, more substantial boy, was the mother's favorite; and that john, though the quicker and cleverer, perhaps cost her many anxieties. among the papers given me, is an old browned half-sheet in stiff school hand, unpunctuated, occasionally ill spelt,—john sterling's earliest remaining letter,—which gives record of a crowning escapade of his, the first and the last of its kind; and so may be inserted here. a very headlong adventure on the boy's part; so hasty and so futile, at once audacious and impracticable; emblematic of much that befell in the history of the man!
"to mrs. sterling, blackheath.
"21st september, 1818.
"dear mamma,—i am now at dover, where i arrived this morning about seven o'clock. when you thought i was going to church, i went down the kent road, and walked on till i came to gravesend, which is upwards of twenty miles from blackheath; at about seven o'clock in the evening, without having eat anything the whole time. i applied to an inkeeper (sic) there, pretending that i had served a haberdasher in london, who left of (sic) business, and turned me away. he believed me; and got me a passage in the coach here, for i said that i had an uncle here, and that my father and mother were dead;—when i wandered about the quays for some time, till i met captain keys, whom i asked to give me a passage to boulogne; which he promised to do, and took me home to breakfast with him: but mrs. keys questioned me a good deal; when i not being able to make my story good, i was obliged to confess to her that i had run away from you. captain keys says that he will keep me at his house till you answer my letter.
"j. sterling."
anthony remembers the business well; but can assign no origin to it,—some penalty, indignity or cross put suddenly on john, which the hasty john considered unbearable. his mother's inconsolable weeping, and then his own astonishment at such a culprit's being forgiven, are all that remain with anthony. the steady historical style of the young runaway of twelve, narrating merely, not in the least apologizing, is also noticeable.
this was some six months after his little brother edward's death; three months after that of hester, his little sister next in the family series to him: troubled days for the poor mother in that small household on blackheath, as there are for mothers in so many households in this world! i have heard that mrs. sterling passed much of her time alone, at this period. her husband's pursuits, with his wellesleys and the like, often carrying him into town and detaining him late there, she would sit among her sleeping children, such of them as death had still spared, perhaps thriftily plying her needle, full of mournful affectionate night-thoughts,—apprehensive too, in her tremulous heart, that the head of the house might have fallen among robbers in his way homeward.
