Matters once readjusted at Hastings, it was thought 's health had so improved, and his activities towards Literature so developed themselves into , that a permanent English place of might now again be selected,—on the Southwest coast somewhere,—and the family once more have the of a home, and see its lares and penates and household furniture unlocked from the Pantechnicon repositories, where they had so long been lying.  
Clifton, by Bristol, with its soft Southern winds and high cheerful situation, recommended too by the presence of one or more valuable acquaintances there, was found to be the place; and in this summer of 1839, having found a tolerable , with the by and by of an agreeable house, he and his removed. This was the end of what I call his "third peregrinity;"—or reckoning the West Indies one, his fourth. This also is, since Bayswater, the fourth time his family has had to shift on his account. Bayswater; then to Bordeaux, to Blackheath and Knightsbridge (during the Madeira time), to Hastings (Roman time); and now to Clifton, not to stay there either: a sadly life to be prescribed to a man!
 
At Clifton his habitation was speedily enough set up; household conveniences, methods of work, daily on foot or horseback, and before long even a circle of friends, or of neighborhoods into , were established round him. In all this no man could be more expert or , in such cases. It was with singular facility, in a loving, hoping manner, that he threw himself open to the new interests and of the new place; snatched out of it of human or material would suit him; and in brief, in all senses had pitched his tent-habitation, and grew to look on it as a house. It was beautiful too, as well as pathetic. This man saw himself reduced to be a in tents, his house is but a stone tent; and he can so kindly accommodate himself to that arrangement;—healthy and diseased necessity, nature and habit, and all manner of things primary and secondary, original and incidental, now to make it easy for him. With the evils of , he participated to the full in whatever benefits lie in it for a man.
 
He had friends enough, old and new, at Clifton, whose made the place human for him. Perhaps among the most valued of the former sort may be mentioned Mrs. Edward Strachey, Widow of the late Indian Judge, who now resided here; a cultivated, , most and high-minded lady; whom he had known in old years, first probably as Charles Buller's Aunt, and whose was constant for him, and always precious to him. She was some ten or twelve years older than he; she survived him some years, but is now also gone from us. Of new friends acquired here, besides a and ingenious Dr. Symonds, physician as well as friend, the principal was Francis Newman, then and still an inquiring soul, of fine University and other , of sharp-cutting, restlessly advancing intellect, and the mildest enthusiasm; whose worth, since better known to all the world, Sterling highly estimated;—and indeed practically testified the same; having by will appointed him, some years hence, to his Son; which pious function Mr. Newman now successfully discharges.
 
Sterling was not long in certainty as to his abode at Clifton: , where could he long be so? Hardly six months were gone when his old enemy again overtook him; again him how his hopes of permanency were. Each winter, it turned out, he had to fly; and after the second of these, he quitted the place altogether. Here, meanwhile, in a Letter to myself, and in from others, are some glimpses of his and first summer there:—
 
                           To his Mother.
"Clifton, June 11th, 1839.—As yet I am personally very uncomfortable from the general confusion of this house, which deprives me of my room to sit and read and write in; all being more or less by boxes, and invaded by servile domesticities aproned, handled, , and of nondescript varieties. We have very fine warm weather, with occasional showers; and the verdure of the woods and fields is very beautiful. Bristol seems as busy as need be; and the shops and all kinds of practical conveniences are excellent; but those of Clifton have the usual , not to say fraudulence of commercial establishments in Watering-place............