was of rather slim but well-boned wiry figure, perhaps an inch or two from six feet in height; of blonde , without color, yet not pale or sickly; dark-blonde hair, enough, which he usually wore short. The general aspect of him indicated freedom, perfect spontaneity, with a certain careless natural grace. In his apparel, you could notice, he dim colors, easy shapes; cleanly always, yet even in this not fastidious or : he sat or stood, oftenest, in loose sloping ; walked with long strides, body carelessly , head flung eagerly forward, right hand perhaps grasping a , and rather by the middle to swing it, than by the end to use it otherwise. An attitude of frank, cheerful impetuosity, of hopeful speed and ; which indeed his physiognomy, on all sides of it, offered as the chief expression. Alacrity, , , dwelt in the eyes too, which were of brownish gray, full of bright life, rapid and frank rather than deep or strong. A smile, half of kindly , half of real mirth, often sat on his face. The head was long; high over the vertex; in the brow, of fair breadth, but not high for such a man.  
In the voice, which was of good sort, rapid and strikingly distinct, powerful too, and except in some of the higher notes , there was a clear-ringing tone,—which I often thought was wonderfully physiognomic. A certain , beautiful, but not the deepest or the softest, which I could call a splendor as of metal,—fiery of heart, swift decisive insight and , then a turn for brilliant , also for , rashness, &c. &c.,—in short, a flash as of clear-glancing sharp-cutting steel, lay in the whole nature of the man, in his heart and in his intellect, marking alike the and the limits of them both. His laugh, which on light occasions was ready and frequent, had in it no great depth of gayety, or sense for the ludicrous in men or things; you might call it rather a good smile become than a deep real laugh: with his whole man I never saw him laugh. A clear sense of the humorous he had, as of most other things; but in himself little or no true humor;—nor did he attempt that side of things. To call him in sympathy would seem strange, him whose radiances and went thrilling over all the world, and kept him in brotherly contact with all: but I may say his sympathies dwelt rather with the high and than with the low or ludicrous; and were, in any field, rather light, wide and lively, than deep, or great.
 
There is no Portrait of him which tolerably resembles. The miniature Medallion, of which Mr. Hare has given an , offers us, with no great truth in physical details, one, and not the best, superficial expression of his face, as if that with had been what the face contained; and even that Mr. Hare's has disfigured into the nearly or the irrecognizable. Two Pencil-, which no artist could approve of, hasty sketches done in some social hour, one by his friend Spedding, one by Banim the Novelist, whom he slightly knew and had been kind to, tell a much truer story so far as they go: of these his Brother has engravings; but these also I must suppress as for strangers.
 
Nor in the way of Spiritual does there, after so much writing and excerpting, anything of importance remain for me to say. John Sterling and his Life in this world were—such as has been already said. In purity of character, in the so-called moralities, in all manner of of conduct, so as tea-tables and other human tribunals rule them, he might be defined as perfect, according to the world's pattern: in these outward respects the world's criticism of him must have been praise and that only. An honorable man, and good citizen; discharging, with unblamable correctness, all functions and duties laid on him by the customs (mores) of the society he lived in,—with correctness and something more. In all these particulars, a man moral, or of approved according to the rules.
 
in the far more essential tacit , which are not marked on stone tables, or so apt to be insisted on by human creatures over tea or elsewhere,—in clear and perfect to Truth wherever found, in childlike and soldier-like, and to the Highest, and what of good and evil that might send him,—he excelled among good men. The joys and the sorrows of his lot he took with true and . Like a true son, not like a rebel, he himself in this Universe. of distress—and surely his temper had enough of contradiction in this world—could not him into impatience at any time. By no chance did you ever hear from him a whisper of those mean repinings, miserable arraignings and questionings of the Eternal Power, such as weak souls even well disposed will sometimes give way to in the pressure of their despair; to the like of this he never yielded, or showed the least tendency to yield;—which surely was well on his part. For the Eternal Power, I still remark, will not answer the like of this, but silently and terribly accounts it impious, and damnable, and now as heretofore will visit it as such. Not a rebel but a son, I said; willing to suffer when Heaven said, Thou shalt;—and withal, what is perhaps rarer in such a combination, willing to rejoice also, and right cheerily taking the good that was sent, whensoever or in whatever form it came.
 
A pious soul we may justly call him; submissive to the will of the in all things: the highest and sole essential form which Religion can assume in man, and without which all forms of religion are a mockery and a in man. Doubtless, in so clear and filial a heart there must have dwelt the feeling of silent worship; which silent feeling, as we have seen, he was eager enough to express by all good ways of utterance; adopting such appointed forms and as the dignitaries of the World had upon and solemnly named recommendable; his heart in such Church, by such rituals and seemingly fit or half-fit methods, as his poor time and country had to offer him,—not rejecting the said methods till they stood convicted of palpable unfitness and then doing it right gently withal, rather letting them drop as pitiably dead for him, than angrily them out of doors as needing to be killed. By few Englishmen of his had the thing called Church of England been more loyally appealed to as a spiritual mother.
 
And yet, as I said before, it may be questioned whether , what we call devotion or worship, was the principle deepest in him. In spite of his Coleridge , and his once headlong operations following thereon, I used to judge that ............