"Nothing could be pleasanter and easier than the habits of life,with what to me was a very unusual degree of luxury,though probably nothing but what is common among people of large fortune.The library and pictures are nothing extraordinary.The general tone of good nature,good sense and quiet freedom,was what struck me most;and Ithink besides this there was a disposition to be cordially courteous towards me....
"I took Edward a ride of two hours yesterday on Calvert's pony,and he is improving fast in horsemanship.The school appears to answer very well.We shall have the Governess in a day or two,which will be a great satisfaction.Will you send my Mother this scribble with my love;and believe me,"Your affectionate son,"JOHN STERLING."One other little event dwells with me,out of those Falmouth times,exact date now forgotten;a pleasant little matter,in which Sterling,and principally the Misses Fox,bright cheery young creatures,were concerned;which,for the sake of its human interest,is worth mention.In a certain Cornish mine,said the Newspapers duly specifying it,two miners deep down in the shaft were engaged putting in a shot for blasting:they had completed their affair,and were about to give the signal for being hoisted up,--one at a time was all their coadjutor at the top could manage,and the second was to kindle the match,and then mount with all speed.Now it chanced while they were both still below,one of them thought the match too long;tried to break it shorter,took a couple of stones,a flat and a sharp,to cut it shorter;did cut it of the due length,but,horrible to relate,kindled it at the same time,and both were still below!Both shouted vehemently to the coadjutor at the windlass,both sprang at the basket;the windlass man could not move it with them both.Here was a moment for poor miner Jack and miner Will!Instant horrible death hangs over both,--when Will generously resigns himself:"Go aloft,Jack,"and sits down;"away;in one minute I shall be in Heaven!"Jack bounds aloft,the explosion instantly follows,bruises his face as he looks over;he is safe above ground:and poor Will?Descending eagerly they find Will too,as if by miracle,buried under rocks which had arched themselves over him,and little injured:he too is brought up safe,and all ends joyfully,say the Newspapers.
Such a piece of manful promptitude,and salutary human heroism,was worth investigating.It was investigated;found to be accurate to the letter,--with this addition and explanation,that Will,an honest,ignorant good man,entirely given up to Methodism,had been perfect in the "faith of assurance,"certain that _he_should get to Heaven if he died,certain that Jack would not,which had been the ground of his decision in that great moment;--for the rest,that he much wished to learn reading and writing,and find some way of life above ground instead of below.By aid of the Misses Fox and the rest of that family,a subscription (modest _Anti_-Hudson testimonial)was raised to this Methodist hero:he emerged into daylight with fifty pounds in his pocket;did strenuously try,for certain months,to learn reading and writing;found he could not learn those arts or either of them;took his money and bought cows with it,wedding at the same time some religious likely milkmaid;and is,last time I heard of him,a prosperous modest dairyman,thankful for the upper light and safety from the wrath to come.Sterling had some hand in this affair:but,as I said,it was the two young ladies of the family that mainly did it.
In the end of 1841,after many hesitations and revisals,_The Election_came out;a tiny Duodecimo without name attached;[24]again inquiring of the public what its suffrage was;again to little purpose.My vote had never been loud for this step,but neither was it quite adverse;and now,in reading the poor little Poem over again,after ten years'space,I find it,with a touching mixture of pleasure and repentance,considerably better than it then seemed to me.My encouragement,if not to print this poem,yet to proceed with Poetry,since there was such a resolution for it,might have been a little more decided!
This is a small Piece,but aims at containing great things;a _multum in parvo_after its sort;and is executed here and there with undeniable success.The style is free and flowing,the rhyme dances along with a certain joyful triumph;everything of due brevity withal.
That mixture of mockery on the surface,which finely relieves the real earnestness within,and flavors even what is not very earnest and might even be insipid otherwise,is not ill managed:an amalgam difficult to effect well in writing;nay,impossible in writing,--unless it stand already done and effected,as a general fact,in the writer's mind and character;which will betoken a certain ripeness there.
As I said,great things are intended in this little Piece;the motto itself foreshadowing them:--"_Fluellen_.Ancient Pistol,I do partly understand your meaning.
_Pistol_.Why,then,rejoice therefor."
A stupid commonplace English Borough has lost its Member suddenly,by apoplexy or otherwise;resolves,in the usual explosive temper of mind,to replace him by one of two others;whereupon strange stirring-up of rival-attorney and other human interests and catastrophes."Frank Vane"(Sterling himself),and "Peter Mogg,"the pattern English blockhead of elections:these are the candidates.
