I have only seen one reference—though there may have been
more—to the centenary of the death of John Sterling, which fell on September 18th. Sterling's writings are virtually unknown today, but he made a deep impression on the brilliant circle, primarily the Cambridge Apostles, in which he moved, and the fact that lives of him were written by Carlyle and Archdeacon Hare, and that John Stuart Mill at one time contemplated writing another, is sufficient testimony to the estimate put on him by his contemporaries. As a matter of fact, more of Sterling's "Table Talk " is given in the relatively little-known Journal of Caroline Fox, the Falmouth Quakeress, than in either Carlyle's biography or Hare's. What Caroline Fox's sentiments and Sterling's towards each other were has always been a matter of speculation. I understand that a book on Caroline Fox which is to appear in a few weeks throws some fresh light on this.
Previous page
