Sterling was here about the time your Letters to him came: your
American reprint of his pieces was naturally gratifying him
much.* He seems getting yearly more restless; necessitated to
find an outlet for himself, unable as yet to do it well. I think
he will now write Review articles for a while; which craft is
really, perhaps, the one he is fittest for hitherto. I love
Sterling: a radiant creature; but very restless;--incapable
either of rest or of effectual motion: aurora borealis and sheet
lightning; which if it could but _concentrate_ itself, as I
[say] always--!--We had much talk; but, on the whole, even
his talk is not much better for me than silence at present.
_Me miserum!_

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* "The Poetical Works of John Sterling," Philadelphia, 1842.
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Directly about the time of Sterling's departure came Alcott, some
two weeks after I had heard of his arrival on these shores. He
has been twice here, at considerable length; the second time,
all night. He is a genial, innocent, simple-hearted man, of much
natural intelligence and goodness, with an air of rusticity,
veracity, and dignity withal, which in many ways appeals to one.
The good Alcott: with his long, lean face and figure, with his
gray worn temples and mild radiant eyes; all bent on saving the
world by a return to acorns and the golden age; he comes before
one like a kind of venerable Don Quixote, whom nobody can even
laugh at without loving!....