It is all very strange, but not one hundredth part so sad
as it seems to the standers-by.
Your Wife knows my mind towards her, and will believe it without
asseverations.--Yours to the last, JOHN STERLING.
That letter may speak for itself. In its dignity, its nobleness,
its fearlessness, it is one of the finest human documents I know.
But let it be remembered that it is not the letter of a mournful
and heart-broken man, turning his back on life in an ecstasy of
despair; but the letter of one who had taken a boundless delight in
life, had known upon equal terms most of the finest intellects of
the day, and had been frankly recognised by them as a chosen
spirit. All Sterling's designs for life and work had been slowly
and surely thwarted by the pressure of hopeless illness; yet he had
never complained or fretted or brooded, or indulged in any bitter
recriminations against his destiny. That seems to me a very heroic
attitude; while the letter itself, in its perfect frankness and
courage, without a touch of solemnity or affectation, or any trace
of craven shrinking from his doom, makes it in its noble simplicity
one of the finest "last words" that I have ever read, and finer, I
verily believe, than any flight of poetical imagination.
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