He says that all Sterling's
work was spoilt by over-haste, and "a lack of due inertia." The
fact is that Sterling was a sort of improvisatore, and what was
beautiful and natural enough when poured out in talk, and with the
stimulus of congenial company, grew pale and indistinct when he
wrote it down; he had, in fact, no instinct for art or for design,
and he failed whenever he tried to mould ideas into form.
The shadow of illness darkened about him, and he spent long periods
in prostrate seclusion, tended by his wife and children, unable to
write or talk or receive his friends. Then a terrible calamity
befell him. His mother, to whom he was devotedly attached, died
after a long illness, Sterling not being allowed to go to her, or
to leave his own sick-room. He received the news one morning by
letter, that all was over, went in to tell his wife, who was ill;
while they were talking, his wife became faint, and died two hours
later. So that within a few hours he lost the two human beings whom
he most devotedly loved, and on whom he most depended for sympathy
and help.
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