care, which is a most sweet and rare desirable sorrow-the yearning for God. We all, from little toddler to father, go to bed with so much of heaven in our hearts, at least, as that we long for it unutterably, and believe it." And still again his description of the violin-one could quote indefinitely his imaginative and picturesque words descriptive of men or moods or trees or scenes, very fanciful at times, but always resplendent with truth and beauty. This is indeed a "luxuriant, unpruned, but promising " work, and we cannot but regret the necessity of his being compelled to return to the old life again, with its teaching, business, and law, its skirmishes of bread winning against soul expressing, its battles of disease against health. But in September, 1867, he was again in the schoolroom in charge of an academy with nearly a hundred pupils at Prattville, Ala., where he remained one year. In the meantime a new inspiration and vital force entered into his life, bringing that abiding faith and stimulating hope to the poet, and congenial companionship and true conjugal love to the man, which only a rarely gifted, perfect helpmeet can impart. He was married December 19 to Miss Mary Day, daughter of Charles Day, of Macon, Ga. Now could he sing: Twice-eyed, with thy gray vision set in mine, I ken far lands to wifeless men un known; I compass stars for one-sexed eyes too fine. For her part was to give not only everyday helpfulness and sustaining courage, but also suggestiveness and inspiration-all of which the poet recognizes in "My Springs:" In the heart of the hills of life I know Always when faith with stifling stress I gaze in my two springs and see A faith that smiles immortally. Always, when art, on perverse wing, Flies where I cannot hear him sing, gaze in my two springs and see I A charm that brings him back to me. O Love, O Wife, thine eyes are they, That feed my life's bright Lake of Oval and large and passion pure Yet calmly unafraid of death. Dear eyes, dear eyes! and rare complete- In January, 1868, came the first hemorrhage, and in May he returned to Macon low in health, but determined to study and practice law with his father as soon as he should sufficiently recuperate. He seemed to have a presentiment that such would be his fate, for in "Tiger Lilies" he says: "Of course John Sterling studied lawwhat young man in our part of the country did not?" And then he adds, "John Sterling, Jr., went forth and committed what may most properly be called a chronological error. He took a wife before he took any fees-surely a grand mistake in point of time, where the fees are essentially necessary to get bread for the wife! Nor was it long before this mistake made itself apparent. Two extra mouths, of little Philip and Felix Sterling, with that horrid propensity to be filled which mouths will exhibit spite of education and the spiritual in man, appeared in his household; outgo began to exceed income; clouds came to obscure the financial sky. Even to those of us who are born to labor, and know it, it is yet a pathetic sight to see a man like John Sterling going to his office every morning to sit there all day face to face with the hornyeyed phantom' of unceasing drudgery that has no visible end; to know that every hour this man will have some fine yearning beat back in his face by the Heenan fists in this big prize ring we call the world, wherein it would seem that toughness of nose-muscle and active dodging do most frequently come out with the purse and the glory." It is curious that this should have been published before his marriage, but he could not have more perfectly represented the situation in which he now found himself. His health too grew worse, though fitfully, and in the summer and spring of 1870 there was a marked decline, with settled cough. This took him to New York for treatment, and after two months he returned much improved as he thought, but in reality there was the same steady decline. |