Sidney Lanier

LIBRARY

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UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA.

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SIDNEY LANIER

BY

EDWIN MIMS

ILLUSTRATED

BOSTON AND NEW YORK

HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY
press, Cambtib0e
1905

fttt

COPYRIGHT 1905 BY EDWIN MIMS
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

Published November,

SECOND IMPRESSION

PREFACE

THE present volume is a biography of Lanier
rather than a critical study of his work. So far
as possible, I have told the story in his own
words, or in the words of those who knew him
most intimately. If I have erred in placing un
due emphasis on the early part of his career, it
was intentional, for that is the part of his life
about which least is known. I have intention
ally emphasized his relation to the South, in order
to avoid a misconception that he was a detached
figure. The bibliographies prepared by Mr. Wills
for the " Southern History Association " and by
Mr. Callaway for his " Select Poems of Lanier "
make one unnecessary for this volume.

Of previously published material, I have been
greatly indebted to the Memorial by Mr. William
Hayes Ward, the fuller sketch by the late Pro
fessor W. M. Baskervill, and the volume of let
ters published by Messrs. Charles Scribner's
Sons. For new material, I am indebted, first
of all, to Mrs. Sidney Lanier, who has put me

:to

vi PREFACE

in possession, not of the most intimate corre
spondence of the poet, but of many letters writ
ten by him to his father and friends, as well as
unpublished fragments and essays.. She has done
all in her power to make this volume accurate
and trustworthy. Her sons, Mr. Charles Day
Lanier and Mr. Henry W. Lanier, have put
me under special obligations, the latter especially,
by reading the proof of a large part of the vol
ume. Mr. Clifford Lanier, the poet's brother,
put at my disposal a valuable series of letters,
and otherwise aided me. I am indebted to Dr.
Daniel Coit Oilman, Mrs. Edwin C. Cushman,
Judge Logan E. Bleckley, Mr. Dudley Buck,
Mr. Charles Scribner, Mrs. Isabel L. Dobbin,
Mr. George Cary Eggleston, Miss Effie Johnston,
Mr. Sidney Lanier Gibson, and Miss Sophie
Kirk, for placing in my hands unpublished
letters of Lanier. The following have written
reminiscences which have proved especially help
ful: Dr. James Woodrow, Professor Gilder-
sleeve, Chancellor Walter B. Hill, Professor
Waldo S. Pratt, Mrs. Arthur W. Machen, Mrs.
Sophie Bledsoe Herrick, Mr. F. H. Gottlieb, and
Mr. Charles Heber Clarke. I desire to thank
Messrs. Charles Scribner's Sons .and Mrs. Lanier

PREFACE vii

for permission to quote from the letters and
collected writings of Lanier; Messrs. Double-
day, Page & Co. for permission to quote from
Lanier's " Shakspere and his Forerunners," and
the editor of " Lippincott's Magazine," for the
quotations from the letters to Mr. Milton H.
Northrup. For various reasons I am under obli
gations to Miss Susan Hayes Ward, Mrs. W. M.
Baskervill, Mr. and Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull,
Mr. George S. Wills, Mr. J. P. Breedlove of
the Trinity College Library, Mr. T. J. Kiernan
of the Harvard CoUege Library, Mr. Philip
K. Uhler of the Peabody Institute, Mr. J. H.
Southgate, Mr. F. A. Ogburn, Mr. Milton H.
Northrup, Mr. J. A Bivins, Dr. C. Alphonso
Smith, and to my colleagues, Dr. W. P. Few and
Dr. W. H. Glasson.
TRINITY COLLEGE, DURHAM, N. C.,
August 12, 1905.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE

INTRODUCTION 1

I. ANCESTRY AND BOYHOOD ... 9

II. COLLEGE DAYS ...... 26

III. A CONFEDERATE SOLDIER . . . 42

IV. SEEKING A VOCATION .... 63
V. LAWYER AND TRAVELER . ... 99

VI. A MUSICIAN IN BALTIMORE . . . 129
VII. THE BEGINNING OF A LITERARY CAREER 152
VIII. STUDENT AND TEACHER OF ENGLISH

LITERATURE 198

IX. LECTURER AT JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY 231
X. THE NEW SOUTH . . . . .264

XL CHARACTERISTICS AND IDEAS . . 300
XII. THE LAST YEAR . . . . .320

XIII. THE ACHIEVEMENT IN CRITICISM AND IN

POETRY . . . . . . 340

INDEX 377

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

SIDNEY LANIEB IN 1870. (Photogravure.) Frontispiece^
SIDNEY LANIEB AT THE AGE OF FIFTEEN, IN 1857 . . 26
SIDNEY LANIEB IN 1866, FROM A ;' CARTE DE VISITE"

PHOTOGRAPH IN POSSESSION OF MB. MlLTON H.

NOBTHBUP, OF SYBACUSE, N. Y 54

MARY DAY LANIEB IN 1873 98

FACSIMILE OF ONE OF LANIER'S EARLIEST EXISTING

MUSICAL SCORES, WRITTEN AT THE AGE OF 19 . . . 134
FACSIMILE OF LETTER TO CHARLOTTE CUSHMAN. . . 190
BRONZE BUST OF SIDNEY LANIER BY EPHBAIM KEYSEB 262

SIDNEY LANIER

INTRODUCTION

THE author of the introduction to the first com
plete edition of Sidney Lanier's poems — pub
lished three years after the poet's death — pre
dicted with confidence that Lanier would " take
his final rank with the first princes of American
song." Anticipating the appearance of this vol
ume, one of the best of recent lyric poets, who
had been Lanier's fellow prisoner during the
Civil War, prophesied that " his name to the ends
of the earth would go." Indeed, there was a
sense of surprise to those who had read only the
1877 edition of Lanier's poems, when his poems
were collected in an adequate and worthy edition.
Since that time the space devoted to him in his
tories of American literature has increased from
ten or twelve lines to as many pages — an indi
cation at once of popular interest and of an in
creasing number of scholars and critics who have
recognized the value of his work. His growing
fame found a notable expression when his picture

2 SIDNEY LANIER

appeared in the frontispiece of the standard
American Anthology, along with those of Poe,
Walt Whitman, and the five recognized New
England poets.

It cannot be said, however, that Lanier's rank
as a poet — even in American, to say nothing of
English literature — is yet fixed. He is a very
uneven writer, and his defects are glaring. Some
of the best American critics — men who have a
right to speak with authority — shake their heads
in disapproval at what they call the Lanier cult.
Abroad he has had no vogue, as have Emerson
and Poe and Walt Whitman. The enthusiastic
praise of the " Spectator" has been more than bal
anced by the indifference of some English critics
and the sarcasm of others. Mme. Blanc's article
in the " Kevue des Deux Mondes," setting forth
the charm of his personality and the excellence
of his poetry, met with little response in France.
In view of this divergence of opinion among
critics, it may be doubted if the time has yet come
for anything approaching a final valuation of
Lanier's work. In the later pages of this book
an attempt will be made to give a reasonably
balanced and critical study of his actual achieve
ment in poetry and criticism.

Certainly those who have at heart the interest
of American poetry cannot but wage a feud with
death for taking away one who had just begun

INTRODUCTION 3

his career. The words of the great English
threnodies over the premature death of men of
genius come involuntarily to one who realizes
what the death of Lanier meant. It is true that
he lived fourteen years longer than Keats and
ten years longer than Shelley, and that he was
as old as Poe when he died ; but it must be re
membered that, so far as his artistic work was
concerned, the period from 1861 to 1873 was
largely one of arrested development. He is one
of the inheritors of unfulfilled renown, not sim
ply because he died young, but because what
he had done and what he had planned to do
gave promise of a much better and more endur
ing work. Such men as he and Keats must be
judged, to be sure, by their actual achievement ;
but there will always attach to their names the
glory of the unfulfilled life, a fame out of all
proportion to the work accomplished. Poe had
completed his work: limited in its range, it is
all but perfect. Lanier, with his reverence for
science, his appreciation of scholarship, his fine
feeling for music, and withal his love of nature
and of man, had laid broad the foundation for a
great poet's career. The man who, at so early ^
an age and in the face of such great obstacles,
wrote the " Marshes of Glynn" and the " Science
of English Verse," and who in addition thereto
gave evidence of constant growth and of self-

4 SIDNEY LANIER

criticism, would undoubtedly have achieved much
worthier things in the future.

Of one thing there can be no doubt, that his
personality is one of the rarest and finest we have
yet had in America, and that his life was one of
the most heroic recorded in the annals of men.
The time has passed for emphasizing unduly the
pathos of Lanier's life. He was not a sorrowful
man, nor was his life a sad one. His untimely
and all but tragic death following a life of suffer
ing and poverty, the appeals made by admirers
in behalf of the poet's family, a few letters writ
ten to friends explaining his seeming negligence,
and a fragment or two found in his papers after
death, have been sometimes treated without their
proper perspective. A complete reading of his
letters — published and unpublished — and of his
writings, combined with the reminiscences of his
friends in Baltimore, Macon, and elsewhere, will
convince any one of the essential vigor and buoy
ancy of his nature. He would have resented the
expression " poor Lanier," with as much empha
sis as did Lamb the condescending epithet used
by Coleridge. He was ever a fighter, and he won
many triumphs. He had the power of meeting
all oppositions and managing them, emerging
into " a large blue heaven of moral width and
delight."

He was a sufferer from disease, but even in

INTRODUCTION 5

the midst of its grip upon him he maintained his
composure, cheerfulness, and unfailing good hu
mor. He had remarkable powers of recupera
tion. Writing to his father from San Antonio
in 1872, he said : " I feel to-day as if I had been
a dry leathery carcass of a man into whom some
one had pumped strong currents of fresh blood,
of abounding life, and of vigorous strength. I
cannot remember when I have felt so crisp, so
springy, and so gloriously unconscious of lungs."
During these intervals of good health he was
mentalty alert, — a prodigious worker, feeling
" an immortal and unconquerable toughness of
fibre " in the strings of his heart. There was
something more than the cheerfulness that attends
the disease to which he was subject. There was
an ardor, an exuberance that comes only from
" a lordly, large compass of soul." As to his pov
erty, it must be said that few poets were ever so
girt about with sympathetic relatives and friends,
and few men ever knew how to meet poverty so
bravely. He fretted at times over the irrespon-
siveness of the public to his work, but not so
much as did his friends, to whom he was con
stantly speaking or writing words of encourage
ment and hope. Criticism taught him " to lift
his heart absolutely above all expectation save
that which finds its fulfillment in the large con
sciousness of faithful devotion to the highest

6 SIDNEY LANIER

ideals in art." " This enables me>" he said, " to
work in tranquillity." He knew that he was
fighting the battle which every artist of his type
had had to fight since time began. In his in
tellectual life he passed through a period of storm
and stress, when he felt " the twist and cross of
life," but he emerged into a state where belief
overmasters doubt and he knew that he knew.
He was cheerful in the presence of death, which
he held off for eight years by sheer force of will ;
at last, when he had wrested from time enough
to show what manner of man he was, hs drank
down the stirrup-cup " right smilingly."

Looked at from every possible standpoint, it
may be seen that none of these obstacles could
subdue his hopeful and buoyant spirit. " He
was the most cheerful man I ever knew," said
Richard Malcolm Johnston. Ex-President Gil-
man expressed the feeling of those who knew the
poet intimately when he said, " I have heard a
lady say that if he took his place in a crowded
horse-car, an exhilarating atmosphere seemed to
be introduced by his breezy ways. . . . He al
ways preserved his sweetness of disposition, his
cheerfulness, his courtesy, his industry, his hope,
his ambition. . . . Like a true knight errant,
never disheartened by difficulty, never despondent
in the face of dangers, always brave, full of re
sources, confident of ultimate triumph." The stu-

INTRODUCTION 7

dent at Johns Hopkins University who knew him
best said : " No strain of physical wear or suffer
ing, no pressure of worldly fret, no amount of
dealing with what are called ' the hard facts of ex
perience,' could stiffen or dampen or deaden the
inborn exuberance of his nature, which escaped
incessantly into a realm of beauty, of wonder, of
joy, and of hope." Certainly the great bulk of
his published lectures and his poems bear out
this impression. His brother, Mr. Clifford La-
nier, says that he would not publish somo of his
early poems because they were not hale and
hearty, " breathing of sanity, hope, betterment,
aspiration." " Those are the best poets," said
Lanier himself, " who keep down these cloudy
sorrow songs and wait until some light comes to
gild them with comfort." And this he did.

Lanier, whose career has been here briefly
suggested, makes his appeal to various types
of men and women. Enjoying the use of the
Peabody Library and living in the atmosphere
of a newly created university, he gave evidence
of the modern scholar's zest for original re
search ; and in addition thereto displayed a spir
itual attitude to literature that is rare. The
professional musician sees in him one of the ad- '
vance guard of native-born Americans who have
achieved success in some one field of musical
endeavor, while a constantly increasing public,

8 SIDNEY LANIER

intent upon musical culture, finds in his letters
and essays an expression of the deeper meaning
of music and penetrative interpretations of the
modern orchestra. Lanier influenced to some
extent the minor poets of his era : who knows
but that in some era of creative art — which let
us hope is not far off — his subtle investigations
and experiments in the domain where music and
verse converge may prove the starting point of
some greater poet's work ? To the South, with
which he was identified by birth and tempera
ment, and in whose tremendous upheaval he bore
a heroic part, the cosmopolitanism and modern-
ness of his mind should be a constant protest
against those things that have hindered her in
the past and an incentive in that brilliant fu
ture to which she now so steadfastly and surely
moves. To all men everywhere who care for
whatsoever things are excellent and lovely and
of good report his life is a priceless heritage.

CHAPTER I

ANCESTRY AND BOYHOOD

SIDNEY LANIEE was born in Macon, Ga., Feb
ruary 3, 1842. His parents, Robert Sampson
Lanier and Mary J. Anderson, were at that
time living in a small cottage on High street,
the father a struggling young lawyer, and the
mother a woman of much thrift and piety.
There were on both sides traditions of gentility
which went back to the older States of Virginia
and North Carolina, and in the case of the La-
niers to southern France and England. Lanier
became very much interested in the study of his
genealogy. He was convinced by evidence gath
ered from the many widely scattered branches
of the family that a single family of Laniers
originally lived in France, and that the fact of
the name alone might with perfect security be
taken as a proof of kinship. On account of their
nomadic habits, due to their continual move
ment from place to place during two hundred
years, he found it difficult to make out a com
plete family history. He was not, nor have his
relatives and later investigators been, able to

10 SIDNEY LANIER

find material for the study of the Laniers in
their original home. At one time he expressed a
wish that President Hayes would appoint him
consul to southern France. Certainly he was at
home there in imagination and spirit from the
time when as a boy he felt the fascination of
Froissart's " Chronicles."

One of the keenest pleasures he had in later
life was to discover in the Peabody Library at
Baltimore a full record of the Lanier family in
England. In investigating the state of art in
Elizabeth's time he came across in Walpole's
" Anecdotes of Painting " references to Jerome
and Nicholas Lanier, whose careers he followed
with his accustomed zeal and industry through
the first-hand sources which the library afforded.
There is no more characteristic letter of La-
nier's than that written in 1879 to Mr. J. F. D.
Lanier, giving the result of this investigation.
He there tells the story of ten Laniers who en
joyed the personal favor of four consecutive
English monarchs. Jerome Lanier, he believed,
had on account of religious persecution fled
from France to England during the last quarter
of the sixteenth century and " availed himself
of his accomplishments in music to secure a
place in Queen Elizabeth's household." His son
Nicholas Lanier — "musician, painter, engraver"
— was patronized successively by James I,

ANCESTRY AND BOYHOOD 11

Charles I, and Charles II, wrote music for the
masks of Ben Jonson and Campion and for the
lyrics of Herrick, and was the first marshal of a
society of musicians organized by Charles I in
1626. He also wrote a cantata called " Hero
and Leander." He was the friend of Van Dyck,
who painted a portrait of Lanier which attracted
the attention of Charles I and eventually led to
that painter's accession to the court. He was
sent by King Charles to Italy to make purchases
for the royal gallery. He and other members of
his family lived at Greenwich and were known
as amateur artists as well as musicians. After
the Restoration five Laniers — Nicholas, Je
rome, Clement, Andrewe, and John — were char
ter members of an organization of musicians
established by the king " to exert their author
ity for the improvement of the science and the
interest of its professors." It was a great plea
sure to Sidney Lanier to find in the diary of
Pepys many passages telling of his associations
with these music-loving Laniers. " Here the
best company for musique I ever was in my
life," says the quaint old annalist, " and I wish
I could live and die in it. ... I spent the
night in an exstasy almost ; and having invited
them to my house a day or two hence, we
broke up."

The study of these distant relatives enjoying

12 SIDNEY LANIER

the favor of successive English kings must have
suggested the contrast of his own life ; but he
was pleased with the fancy that their musical
genius had come to him through heredity, for it
confirmed his opinion that " if a man made him
self an expert in any particular branch of human
activity there would result the strong tendency
that a peculiar aptitude towards the same branch
would be found among some of his descendants."
Another Lanier in whom he was interested
was Sir John Lanier, the story of whose bravery
at the battle of the Boyne, in 1690, he first read
in Macaulay's " History of England." Lanier's
hope and belief- that the family would some
day be able to fill the intervals satisfactorily
connecting Sir John Lanier with the musicians
of the court have not been realized, nor has
any satisfactory study been made of the coming
of the Laniers to America. The best evidence
of the connection between the two families is
found in a deed recorded in Prince County, Va.,
May 14, 1728, from Nicholas Lanier to Holmes
Boisseau — the name Nicholas being significant.
It is certain that Thomas Lanier, along with
a large number of other Huguenots, settled in
Virginia in the early years of the eighteenth cen
tury at Manakin-town, some twenty miles from
Kichmond. Some of these Huguenots, notably
the Moncures, the Maurys, the Latanes, and the

ANCESTRY AND BOYHOOD 13

Flournoys, became connected with historic fam
ilies of Virginia. There was a tradition in the
Lanier family as well as in the Washington fam
ily, that Thomas Lanier married an aunt of
George Washington, but this has been proved
to be untrue.1 The Laniers were related by mar
riage to the Washingtons of Surry County. They
established themselves in the middle of the eigh
teenth century in Brunswick and Lunenburg
counties of Virginia, as prosperous planters;
they did not, however, rank either in dignity or
in wealth with the older gentry of Virginia. In a
letter written in 1877 Lanier gives in full the
various branches of the Lanier family as they
separated from this point and went into all parts
of the United States. One branch joined the
pioneers who went up through Tennessee into
Kentucky and thence to Indiana. The most fa
mous of these was Mr. J. F. D. Lanier, who played
a prominent part in the development of the rail
road system of the West, and at the time of the
Civil War had become one of the leading bank
ers in New York city. He was a financial ad
viser of President Lincoln, and represented the
government abroad in some important trans
actions. He was of genuine help to Sidney Lanier

1 William and Mary Quarterly, iii, 71-74, 1895 (article by
Horace Edwin Hayden) ; iii, 137-139, October, 1894 (by
Moncure D. Conway, with editorial comment) ; iv, 35-36, July,
1895 (by the editor, Lyon G. Tyler).

14 SIDNEY LANIER

at critical times in the latter's life. His son,
Mr. Charles Lanier, now a banker of New York,
was a close friend of the poet, and after his
death presented busts of him to Johns Hopkins
University and the public library of Macon.

The branch of the Lanier family with which
Sidney was connected, moved from Virginia
into Rockingham County, N. C. Sampson La
nier was a well-to-do farmer — a country gen
tleman, " fond of good horses and fox hounds."
Several of his sons went to the newer States of
Georgia and Alabama. Of these was Sterling
Lanier, the grandfather of the poet, who lived
for a while in Athens, Ga., and was afterwards
a hotel-keeper in Macon and Montgomery. By
the time of the Civil War he had amassed a con
siderable fortune. In a letter written in 1844
from Macon we learn that he was an ardent
Methodist. His daughters were being educated
in the Wesleyan Female College in that city, his
son Sidney had sailed recently from Charleston
to France, and expected to travel through Sicily,
Italy, and other parts of Europe on account of
his health. He was giving his younger sons the
best education then attainable in Georgia.

His son Robert Sampson Lanier had four
years before returned from Randolph-Macon
College, Virginia, and was at the time the letter
was written beginning the practice of law. He

ANCESTRY AND BOYHOOD 15

never became a lawyer of the first rank, but he
was universally esteemed for his " fine presence,"
his " social gentleness," and his " persistent habit
of methodical industry." " During all of his long
and active professional life," says the late Wash
ington Dessau, " he never allowed anything to
interfere with his devotion to his calling as a
lawyer. No desire for office attracted him ; no
other business of profit or honor ever diminished
for a moment his devotion for his professional
duties. In the year 1850 he was admitted to the
bar by the Supreme Court of Georgia, and from
that period down to the time of his death the
name of his firm appears in nearly every volume
of the reports, indicating the wide extent of his
business. ... As a lawyer, while not aspiring
to be a brilliant advocate, he was a most pro
found and able reasoner, thoroughly versed and
grounded in the knowledge of the common law,
well prepared with a knowledge of current deci
sions and in the learning that grows out of them.
... In his social intercourse he was a gentleman
of the purest and most refined type. ... At
his own home, at the homes of others, in casual
meetings, in travel, everywhere, he always ex
hibited toward those who met him an unbroken
front of courtesy, gentleness, and refinement." 1

1 Report of the llth Annual Meeting of the Georgia Bar As
sociation, Atlanta, 1894.

16 SIDNEY LANIER

He was just such a lawyer as Lanier would
have become had he remained in that profes
sion ; indeed, son and father were very much
alike. The father was a man of " considerable
literary acquirements and exquisite taste." He
was fond of Shakspere, Addison, and Sir Wal
ter Scott, having the literary taste of the gen
tlemen of the old South. The letters written
to his son show decided cultivation. They show
also that he was in thorough sympathy with his
son's intellectual life. The letter written by
Lanier to his father from Baltimore in 1873
may lead one to think otherwise. Mr. Lanier
was opposed, as were most of the men of his
section, to a young man's entering upon a mu
sical or poetic career, but more than two hun
dred letters written by son to father and many
from father to son prove that their relations
during the entire career of the poet were unusu
ally close and sympathetic. In the earlier years,
Lanier sent his poems to his father, and valued
highly his criticism, and in later years he re
ceived from him financial aid and counsel.

While Robert Sampson Lanier was at college
in Virginia he met Mary Jane Anderson, the
daughter of Hezekiah Anderson, a Virginia
planter who attained success in the political life
of that State. They were married in 1840, and
Sidney was their first-born. The poet thus in-

ANCESTRY AND BOYHOOD 17

herited on his mother's side Scotch-Irish blood,
an element in Southern life which has been often
underestimated. She proved to be a hard-work
ing woman, caring little for social life, but thor
oughly interested in the religious training of her
children. Her husband, although nominally a
Methodist, was not actively identified with the
church, but willingly acquiesced in the somewhat
rigid Presbyterian discipline that prevailed in
the home. The children — Sidney, Clifford, and
Gertrude — were taught the strictest tenets
of the Calvinistic creed. When Lanier after
wards, in Baltimore, lived a somewhat more
liberal life — both as to creed and conduct —
he wrote : "If the constituents and guardians
of my childhood — those good Presbyterians
who believed me a model for the Sunday-school
children of all times — could have witnessed my
acts and doings this day, 1 know not what groans
of sorrowful regret would arise in my behalf."

The seriousness of this life was broken, how
ever, on week days. Southern Puritanism dif
fered from the early New England Puritanism in
a certain affectionateness and sociability. The
mother could play well on the piano, and fre
quently sang with the children hymns and popu
lar melodies. Between the two brothers there
was from the first the most beautiful relation, as
throughout the rest of their lives : comrades in

18 SIDNEY LANIER

boyhood, comrades during the War, comrades in
their first literary work, and to the end. On
Saturdays they went to " the boys' hunting fields

— happy hunting grounds, redolent of hickory
nuts, scaly barks, and rose-blushing, luscious,
haw apples. . . . Into these woods, across yon
marsh, we plunged every permissible Saturday
for a day among doves, blackbirds, robins, plov
ers, snipes, or rabbits." l Sometimes they en
joyed fishing in the near-by brook or the larger
river. The two brothers were devoted to their
sister Gertrude, to whom Sidney referred in later
years as his " vestal sister, who had, more per
fectly than all the men or women of the earth,
nay, more perfectly than any star or any dream,"
represented to him " the simple majesty and the
serene purity of the Winged Folk up Yonder."

The beauty of this simple home life cannot well
be overestimated in its influence on Lanier's
later life. He had nothing of the Bohemian in
his nature. He was throughout his life fully alive
to all human ties, fulfilling every relationship,
whether of son, brother, father, husband, or friend.
His other relatives — uncles, aunts, and cousins,

— filled a large place in his early life, especially
his mother's brother, Judge Clifford Anderson,
who was the law partner of Lanier's father and
afterwards Attorney-General of Georgia ; and

1 Clifford Lanier, The Chautauquan, July, 1895.

ANCESTRY AND BOYHOOD 19

his father's sister, Mrs. Watt, who from much
travel and by association with leading men and
women of the South brought into Lanier's life
the atmosphere of a larger social world than that
in which he was born.

Nor did Lanier live apart from the life in
Macon. Although in later years he felt strongly
the contrast between himself and his environment,
he always spoke of his native place with the
greatest affection, and it was among Macon
people that he found some of his best friends in
his adopted city. Its natural beauty appealed to
him from the beginning — the river Ocmulgee,
the large forests of oak-trees stretching in every
direction, the hills above the city, for which he
often yearned, from the plains of Texas, or the
flats of Florida, or the crowded streets of Bal
timore. The climate was agreeable. Describing
this section, Lanier said : " Surely, along that
ample stretch of generous soil, where the Appa
lachian ruggednesses calm themselves into pleas
ant hills before dying quite away in the seaboard
levels, a man can find such temperances of heaven
arid earth — enough of struggle with nature to
draw out manhood, with enough of bounty to
sanction the struggle — that a more exquisite
co-adaptation of all blessed circumstances for
man's life need not be sought." 1

1 Music and Poetry, p. 134.

20 SIDNEY LANIER

Macon was the capital of Middle Georgia, the
centre of trade for sixty miles around. There was
among the citizens an aggressive public spirit,
which made it the rival in commercial life of the
older cities, Savannah and Augusta ; before the
War it was a more important city than Atlanta.
It was one of the first towns to push the building
of railroads; it became "the keystone of the
roads grappling with the ocean at the east and
with the waters beyond the mountains at the
west." The richer planters and merchants lived
on the hills above the city — in their costly man
sions with luxuriant flower gardens — while the
professional men and the middle classes lived in
the lower part of the city. Social lines were not,
however, so sharply drawn here as in cities like
Richmond or Charleston. Middle Georgia was
perhaps the most democratic section of the South.
It was a democracy, it is true, working within
the limitations of slavery,1 and greatly tempered
with the feudal ideas of the older States, but it
was a life which gave room for the development
of well-marked individual types. There were
many Georgia " Crackers " in the surrounding
country ; they were even recognized more than in

1 In Macon a great many citizens had no slaves at all, and
even those who had them had only a few. In 1850 the white
population was 3323, while there were only 2352 slaves. In
1859, when the population had grown to 8000, the proportion
was maintained.

ANCESTRY AND BOYHOOD 21

other States as part of the social structure. While
still a young boy Lanier was delivery clerk in the
Macon post-office, and entertained the family at
nights by " mimicry of their funny speech." In
later life he wrote dialect poems, setting forth the
humor of these people, and drew upon their speech -'
for illustrations of philological changes in lan
guage.

In Macon hospitality was regarded as an in
dispensable, even sacred duty. Cordiality and
kindness in all the ordinary relations of men and
women made up for whatever deficiencies there
were in art and literature. Professor Le Conte,
who lived in Macon during the boyhood of La
nier, speaking of some weeks he spent there dur
ing a college vacation, says, " Oh, the boundless
hospitality of those times — a continual round
of entertainments, musicales, and evening par
ties, . . . horseback rides and boat rides during
the day and piano-playing, singing, fluting, and
impromptu cotillions and Virginia reels in the
evening ! " 1 The Lanier House, a hotel owned
by Sterling Lanier from 1844 to 1854, was the
centre of this social life. Here many distinguished
men were entertained and many receptions were
held. The proprietor was a typical " mine host,"
endeavoring to throw around his guests some
of the atmosphere of the finer Southern homes.
1 The Autobiography of Joseph Le Conte.

22 SIDNEY LANIER

In 1851 President Fillmore and his Secretary of
the Navy, John P. Kennedy, visited Macon and
were entertained at this hotel. Macon was not with
out its cultivated people. Young ladies studied
music in New York and brought into the private
life of the city an atmosphere of musical cul
ture. Now and then students were sent to the
universities of the East. A group of professional
and business men — E. A. Nisbet, Washington
Poe, Charles Day, Colonel Whittle, L. Q. C.
Lamar (in his earlier days) — had the refine
ment and cordiality characteristic of the old
regime.

The religious spirit ran high in Macon. While
the Presbyterian church had a better educated
clergy and proportionately a greater number of
educated personages among the laity, the Meth
odist and Baptist churches dominated the life of
the community. Revivals that recall the Great
Awakening in New England in the time of Jona
than Edwards were frequent. The most popular
preacher in Macon — George F. Pierce, after
wards bishop in the Southern Methodist church
— is said to have preached the terrors of the
law so plainly that the editor of a long extinct
Universalist paper said he could smell fire and
brimstone half a mile from the church. The
type of religion that prevailed was emotional,
but in an earlier stage of society it was a great

ANCESTRY AND BOYHOOD 23

barrier against immorality. The clergy did not
raise the question of the ethics of slavery, —
on the other hand they defended it on biblical
grounds, — but they did enjoin upon masters
the duty of kindness to slaves. Many of them
were not cultivated men, but they laid the foun
dation for a better civilization in a stern and
righteous social life which flowered in the next
generation. "The only burning issues were sprin
kling versus immersion, freewill versus predesti
nation," and over these questions the churches
fought with energy. Divided though they were
on many points, they agreed in resisting the
forces of modern thought that were making for
a more liberal theology.

Although the people of Macon were thoroughly
alive to the commercial, social, and religious wel
fare of the community, they provided no adequate
school system. Lanier was schooled " in small
private one -roomed establishments, taught by a
Mrs. Anderson, a Mr. Hancock, or by that dear
old eccentric dominie, 4 Jake ' Danforth. One
of these schools stood in a grove of oak and
hickory-nut trees and was called the 'Cademy.
Sidney was bright in studies, but while parsing,
reading, writing, and figuring, he was also chuck
ing nuts from the tops of the tall trees, sym
pathizing with the dainty half-angel, half-ani
mal flying squirrels, and drinking deep draughts

24 SIDNEY LANIER

of the love of nature from the cool, solacing
oaks." i

Lanier was undoubtetjly influenced by the life
in Macon ; positively influenced in that much of
this life became a part of his own, and negatively
in that he reacted against many conditions and
ideals that prevailed there. All the time there
was developing in him his own genius. He did
not remember a time when he could not play
upon almost any musical instrument. " When he
was seven years old he made his first effort at
music upon an improvised reed cut from the
neighboring river bank, with cork stopping the
ends and a mouth hole and six finger holes ex
temporized at the side. With this he sought the
woods to emulate the trills and cadences of the
song birds." Santa Claus's gift one year took
the form of a small, yellow, one-keyed flute,
on which simple instrument he would " practice
with the passion of a virtuoso." Like Schumann,
he organized an orchestra among his friends and
young playmates. Simultaneously he was re
ceiving his first initiation into the joy of litera
ture. He would frequently retire from playing
with his brother and other companions to the
library of his father, where he followed with ab
sorbing interest the stories of Sir Walter Scott,

1 Article by Clifford Lanier, in Gulf States Historical Maga
zine, July, 1903.

ANCESTRY AND BOYHOOD 25

the romances of Froissart, the adventures of
Gil Bias, and other stories that his boyish mind
delighted in. He was already producing among
his playmates a sense of the distinction of his
personality, that caused them to reverence him
as one above them.

CHAPTER II

COLLEGE DAYS

JANUARY 6, 1857, Lanier entered the sophomore
class in Oglethorpe University, situated at Mid
way, Ga. — two miles from Milledgeville, which
was then the capital of the State. It would be
difficult to imagine a greater contrast than that
between the sleepy town of Milledgeville and
progressive Macon, or between Oglethorpe and
the better colleges of the South at the present
time. The essentially primitive life of the col
lege is seen in an act which was passed by the
legislature making it unlawful for any person to
" establish, keep, or maintain any store or shop
of any description for vending any species of
merchandise, groceries or confectioneries within
a mile and a half of the University." It was a
denominational college established by the Pres
byterian Church, and belonged to the synods of
South Carolina and Georgia. Like many other
denominational colleges throughout the South,
it arose in response to a demand that attention
should be given in education to the cultiva
tion of a strong religious faith in the minds

SIDNEY LANIER AT THE AGE OF FIFTEEN
From au ambrotype in the possession of the family

COLLEGE DAYS 27

of students. The older State universities were
supposed to be dominated by the aristocratic
class and by political parties, and there was a
tendency in them towards a more liberal view of
religion than comported with an orthodox faith.
The origin of the denominational colleges was
similar to that of Princeton and the smaller
colleges of New England. Many of them, with
small endowments and a small number of men
in the faculty, did much to foster intellectual as
well as spiritual growth ; their place in the his
tory of Southern life has not been fully appre
ciated. Before the public-school system of later
days was established, they did much to educate
the masses of the people.

Oglethorpe, at the time when Lanier became
a student, was presided over by Rev. Samuel
K. Talmage, originally of New Jersey, a gradu
ate of Princeton and a tutor there for three
years. He was a warm personal friend of Alex
ander H. Stephens, and was known throughout
Georgia as a preacher of much power, " fore
most in the councils of his church." Another
member of the small faculty was Charles W.
Lane, of the department of mathematics, of
whom one of his friends wrote that he was " the
sunniest, sweetest Calvinist that ever nestled
close to the heart of Arminians and all else who
loved the Master's image when they saw it. His

28 SIDNEY LANIER

cottage at Midway was a Bethel ; it was God's
house and heaven's gate."

The piety of such men confirmed in Lanier a
natural religious fervor. But the man who was
destined to have a really formative influence over
him was James Woodrow, of the department
of science. A native of England and during his
younger days a citizen of Pennsylvania, he had
studied at Lawrence Scientific School under
Agassiz, and had just returned from two years'
study in Germany when Lanier came under his
influence. Circumstances were such that he
never became an investigator in his special line
of work, but he was a thorough scholar who kept
abreast with the knowledge of his subject. He
afterwards became professor of science in the
Presbyterian Theological Seminary at Columbia,
S. C., and later the president of the University
of South Carolina, In 1873 and 1874 he was
the champion of science against those who called
the church "to rise in arms against Physical
Science as the mortal enemy of all the Christian
holds dear, and to take no rest until this infidel
and atheistic foe has been utterly destroyed." l
Dr. Woodrow maintained that the science of
theology, as a science, is equally human and un
inspired with the science of geology. He cited

1 An Examination of Certain Recent Assaults on Physical
Science. By James Woodrow. Columbia, 1873.

COLLEGE DAYS 29

illustrations from the long warfare of science and
theology to show that the church would make a
great mistake if it attempted to shut off the
human intellect from the search of truth as rev
erent investigators in the realms of geology and
biology might find it. Comparing scientific truth
to a great ocean, he speaks of an opponent of
science as " brandishing his mop against each suc
ceeding wave, pushing it back with all his might,
but the ocean rolls on, and never minds him ;
science is utterly unconscious of his opposition."
This point of view, maintained even to the point
of accepting the theory of evolution, led eventu
ally to his trial and condemnation by the South
ern Presbyterian Church. Throughout the whole
controversy he maintained a calm and moderate
temper and never abated in the least his accept
ance of the fundamental ideas of the Christian
religion. Such a man, coming into the life of
Lanier at a formative period, influenced him
profoundly. He set his mind going in the direc
tion which he afterwards followed with great
zest, the value of science in modern life and its
relation to poetry and religion. He also revealed
to him the meaning of genuine scholarship.

Teacher and pupil became intimate friends.
In a letter addressed to the writer, Professor
Woodrow says : " When he graduated I caused
him to be appointed tutor in the University, so

30 SIDNEY LANIER

that I became better acquainted with him, and
liked him better and better. I was professor of
natural science, and often took him to ramble
with me, observing and studying whatever we
saw, but also talking about everything either of
us cared for. About the same time I was licensed
to preach, and spent my Saturdays and Sundays
in preaching to feeble churches and in school-
houses, court houses, and private houses, within
forty or more miles of the college ; trying to
make my Sunday night services come within
twenty-five miles of home, so that I could drive
to the college in time for my Monday morning
sunrise lecture. Every now and then I would
invite Lanier to go with me. During such drives
we were constantly engaged without interruption
in our conversation. In these ways, and in listen
ing frequently to his marvelous flute-playing, we
were much together. We were both young and
fond of study."

The first letter written by Lanier to his father
from college announces his admission to the
sophomore class : " I have just done studying
to-night my first lesson, to wit, forty-five lines of
Horace, which I < did ' in about fifteen minutes."
Other letters show that he was a very hard stu
dent and intensely conscientious. At one time
having violated one of his father's regulations,
that he was not under any circumstances to

COLLEGE DAYS 31

borrow money from his college mates, he wrote:
" My father, I have sinned. With what intensity
of thought, with what deep and earnest reflec
tion have I contemplated this lately ! My heart
throbs with the intensity of its anguish. ... If
by hard study and good conduct I can atone for
that, God in heaven knows that I shall not be
found wanting. . . . Not a night passes but
what the supplication, God bless my parents, as
cends to the great mercy seat." At another time
he write*- for the following books: Olmsted's
Philosophy, Blair's Rhetoric, Cicero de Oratore,
and an Analytical Geometry. He already has
some Greek tragedies which he is to study. Con
templating his junior year, he writes : " I feel
quite enthusiastic on the subject of studying.
. . . The very name of Junior has something of
study-inspiring and energy-exciting to me."

Lanier pursued the limited curriculum of the
college with zeal and with mastery. From his
letters it is seen that he read such of the Greek
and Latin classics as were generally studied in
American colleges at that time. He mastered
mathematics beyond any man of his class, and
became interested in philosophy and science.
His alert mind and energy enabled him to take
at once a position of leadership in the college.
He joined a secret literary society, of which
he wrote to his father : " I have derived more

32 SIDNEY LANIER

benefit from that, than any one of my collegiate
studies. We meet together in a nice room, read
compositions, declaim, and debate upon interest
ing subjects."

His contact with these specially intimate friends
was a thoroughly healthy one. He took part in
their sports and mischief-making as well as in
their more serious pastimes. " I shall never for
get," says one of his companions, " those moon
light nights at old Oglethorpe, when, after study
hours, we would crash up the stairway and get
out on the cupola, making the night merry with
music, song, and laughter. Sid would play upon
his flute like one inspired, while the rest of us
would listen in solemn silence."

Besides being a faithful student, Lanier was
an omnivorous reader in the wide fields of Eng
lish literature, sharing his tastes with some of
his companions who with him lived in " an at
mosphere of ardent and loyal friendship." "I
can recall," says Mr. T. F. Newell, his class
mate and room-mate,1 " those Attic nights, for
they are among the dearest and tenderest recol
lections of my life, when with a few chosen com
panions we would read from some treasured
volume, it may have been Tennyson or Carlyle
or Christopher North's 4 Noctes Ambrosianae,'
or we would make the hours vocal with music and
1 Quoted from Baskervill's Southern Writers, p. 149.

COLLEGE DAYS 33

song ; those happy nights, which were veritable
refections of the gods. . . . On such occasions I
have seen him walk up and down the room and
with his flute extemporize the sweetest music
ever vouchsafed to mortal ear. At such times it
would seem as if his soul were in a trance, and
could only find existence, expression, in the
ecstasy of tone, that would catch our souls with
his into the very seventh heaven of harmony.
Or, in merry mood, I have seen him take a banjo,
for he could play on any instrument, and as
with deft fingers he would strike some strange
new note or chord, you would see his eyes
brighten, he would begin to smile and laugh as
if his very soul were tickled, while his hearers
would catch the inspiration, and an old-fashioned
4 walk-round ' and ' negro breakdown,' in which all
would participate, would be the inevitable result.
At other times, with our musical instruments,
we would sally forth into the night and 'neath
moon and stars and under ' Bonny Bell window
panes ' — ah, those serenades ! were there ever
or will there ever be anything like them again ?
— when the velvet flute notes of Lanier would
fall pleasantly upon the night."

Speaking further of his reading and of the
way in which he shared his delight with others,
the same writer says : " I recall how he de
lighted in the quaint and curious of our old

34 SIDNEY LANIER

literature. I remember that it was he who intro
duced me to that rare old book, Burton's 4 Ana
tomy of Melancholy,' whose name and size had
frightened me as I first saw it on the shelves,
but which I found to be wholly different from
what its title would indicate ; and old Jeremy
Taylor, ' the poet-preacher ; ' and Keats's ' En-
dymion,' and ' Chatterton,' the 4 marvelous boy
who perished in his pride.7 Yes, I first learned
the story of the Monk Rowley and his wonderful
poems with Lanier. And Shelley and Coleridge
and Christopher North, and that strange, weird
poem of 4 The Ettrick Shepherd ' of 4 How Kil-
meny Came Hame,' and a whole sweet host and
noble company, 'rare and complete.' Yes,
Tennyson, with his ' Locksley Hall ' and his 4 In
Memoriam ' and his ' Maud,' which last we almost
knew by heart. And then old Carlyle, with his
4 Sartor Resartus,' ' Hero- Worship,' 4 Past and
Present,' and his wonderful book of essays, es
pecially the ones on Burns and Jean Paul, ' The
Only.' Without a doubt it was Carlyle who first
enkindled in Lanier a love of German literature
and a desire to know more of the language."

His flute-playing and extensive reading did
not prevent Lanier from graduating at the head
of his class in July, I860.1 His oration was on

1 He was out of college the year 1858-9, being clerk in the
Macon post-office. The college records show that he received

COLLEGE DAYS 35

the ambitious subject, " The Philosophy of His
tory." One of the most important events in his
early life was the vacation following his gradua
tion. His grandfather had bought in the moun
tains of East Tennessee, at Montvale Springs,
a large estate, on which had been built a beau
tiful hotel. During the summer his children and
grandchildren — some twenty-five in all — visited
him. Here they enjoyed the pleasures of hunt
ing, fishing, and social life. There were many
visitors from the Southern States to this " Sara
toga of the South." " What an assemblage
of facilities for enjoyment," Lanier writes, " I
have up here in the mountains, — kinsfolk,
men friends, women friends, books, music, wine,
hunting, fishing, billiards, tenpins, chess, eating,
mosquitoless sleeping, mountain scenery, and a
month of idleness." This experience, somewhat
idealized, is the basis of the first part of " Tiger
Lilies." Here Lanier had the opportunity of see
ing at its best the life of the old South just
before it vanished in the cataclysm of the Civil
War. Of that life he afterwards wrote : " No
thing can be more pitiable than that at the time
when this amiable outcome of the old Southern
civilization became known to the world at large,
it became so through being laid bare by the

the highest marks in his senior year, but shared the honors of
graduation with one whose record for the entire course was
equal to his.

36 SIDNEY LANIER

sharp spasm of civil war. There was a time
when all our eyes and faces were distorted with
passion ; none of us either saw or showed true.
Thrice pitiable, one says again, that the fairer
aspects of a social state, which though neither per
fect as its violent friends preached, nor satanic as
its violent enemies denounced, yet gave rise to so
many beautiful relations of honor and fidelity,
should have now gone to the past, to remain il
luminated only by the unfavorable glare of acci
dentally associated emotions in which no man
can see clearly." 1

But while Lanier was thoroughly identified
with this life, he was at the time dreaming of a
career which was not fostered by it — a career
in which music and poetry should be the domi
nating figures. The scene in the first book of
" Tiger Lilies " of a band of friends gathered on
the balcony of John Sterling's house — a palace
of art reared by Lanier's imagination in the
mountains of East Tennessee — is strictly auto
biographical. As they watch the sunset over
the valley, the rich notes of violin, flute, and
piano blend with the beauty of nature ; the
future of music is the theme and poetry the
comment. The various characters of that imma
ture romance quote from Emerson, Carlyle, and
Richter. As they talk upon the theme so dear

1 Florida : Its Scenery, Climate, and History, p. 232.

COLLEGE DAYS 37

to their imagination twilight comes. "And so
the last note floated out over the rock, over the
river, over the twilight to the west."

With something of the power of Charles
Egbert Craddock, Lanier writes in the same book
of the mountain scenery of that region : " Here
grow the strong sweet trees, like brawny men
with virgins' hearts. Here wave the ferns, and
cling the mosses and clamber the reckless vines.
Here, one's soul may climb as upon Pisgah, and
see one's land of peace, seeing Christ who made
all these beautiful things." Again, it is "the
trees that ever lifted their arms toward heaven,
obeying the injunction of the Apostle, praying
always, — the great uncomplaining trees, whose
life is surely the finest of all lives, since it is
nothing but a continual growing and being beau
tiful." He describes a moonlight night on the
mountains : " All this time the grace of moon
light lay tenderly upon the rugged majesty of
the mountains, as if Desdemona placed a dainty
white hand upon Othello's brow. All this time
the old priestly oaks lifted yearning arms to
ward the stars, and a mighty company of leaf-
chapleted followers, with silent reverence, joined
this most pathetic prayer of these dumb minis
ters of the hills."

After this enchanting and inspiring expe
rience, he returned to Oglethorpe as tutor: it

38 SIDNEY LANIER

was to be a year of hard work, especially in
Greek. He described himself at this period as
" a spare-built boy, of average height and under
weight, mostly addicted to hard study, long
reveries, and exhausting smokes with a German
pipe." He did much miscellaneous reading and
was busy with " hints and fragments of a poetical,
musical conception, — a sort of musical drama
of the peasant uprising in France, called the
Jacquerie," which continued to interest him dur
ing the remainder of his life, but which re
mained unfinished at his death. If he wrote any
poetry, it has not been preserved. His brother is
of the opinion that his earliest efforts were Byron-
esque, if not Wertheresque. "I have his first
attempt at poetry," he says ; " it is characteristic,
it is not suggestive of swallow flights of song,
but of an eaglet peering up toward the empy
rean." His mind at this time turned more espe
cially in the direction of music. He jots down in
one of his note-books : " The point which I
wish to settle is merely by what method shall
I ascertain what I am fit for as preliminary to
ascertaining God's will with reference to me ; or
what my inclinations are, as preliminary to ascer
taining what my capacities are — that is, what I
am fit for. I am more than all perplexed by this
fact : that the prime inclination — that is, natu
ral bent (which I have checked, though) of my

COLLEGE DAYS 39

nature is to music, and for that I have the great
est talent ; indeed, not boasting, for God gave it
me, I have an extraordinary musical talent, and
feel it within me plainly that I could rise as high
as any composer. But I cannot bring myself to
believe that I was intended for a musician, be
cause it seems so small a business in comparison
with other things which, it seems to me, I might
do. Question here : ; What is the province of
music in the economy of the world ? ' '

But the really practical plan that formed it
self in Lanier's mind was that of study in a
German university, as preliminary to a profes
sorship in an American college, which might in
turn give opportunity for creative work. Young
Southerners from the University of Virginia —
such as Basil Gildersleeve and Thomas R. Price
— had already begun their pilgrimages to the
German universities. The situation in Lanier's
case is an exact parallel to that of Longfellow
at Bowdoin College, and one cannot but wonder
what would have been Lanier's future if circum
stances had allowed him to follow out the career
here indicated. The best account given of him
at this time is that of a young Northerner who
was teaching in an academy at Midway : —

" It was during the four months immediately
preceding the outbreak of the war that a kind
Fate brought me into contact and companion-

40 SIDNEY LANIER

ship with Sidney Lanier. We occupied adjoining
rooms at Ike Sherman's boarding-house and ate
at the same table. Myself a young fellow just
out of a Northern college, boasting the same num
ber of years, conducting a boys' academy in the
shadow of Oglethorpe, there was between us a
bond of sympathy which led to a friendship inter
rupted only by the Civil War and broken only
by his untimely death. Many a stroll and talk
we had together among the moaning pines, be
guiled by the song of the mocking-bird. To
gether we called on the young ladies of Midway,
— as this little college community was known, —
together joined in serenades, in which his flute or
guitar had the place of honor, played chess to
gether, and together dreamed day-dreams which
were never to be realized. Contemporary testi
mony to my joy in his companionship is borne in
frequent references thereto in my private corre
spondence of those days. ' Several students,' says
a New Year's letter to a Northern friend, ' room
in the hotel, as well as a young and very intel
lectual tutor, right back of me, which makes it
very pleasant.' In a later letter : ' The tutor is
a brick. I am much pleased with him and antici
pate much pleasure in his company.' As to his
plans for the future : 4 The tutor — Lanier —
is studying for a professorship ; is going to re
main here about two years, then go to Heidel-

COLLEGE DAYS 41

berg, Germany, remain about two years, come
back, and take a professorship somewhere.' It
is needless to add that the destroying angel of
war wrecked ruthlessly all these beautiful ambi
tions.

" Lanier's passion for music asserted itself at
every opportunity. His flute and guitar furnished
recreation for himself and pleasant entertainment
for the friends dropping in upon him. As a
master of the flute he was said to be, even at
eighteen, without an equal in Georgia. ' Tutor
Lanier,' I find myself recording at the time, 4 is
the finest flute-player you or I ever saw. It is
perfectly splendid — his playing. He is far famed
for it. His flute cost fifty dollars, and he runs
the notes as easily as any one on the piano. De
scription is inadequate.' " 1

Before he was twenty years old, then, the
master passions of Lanier's soul — scholarship,
music, and to a less degree poetry — had as
serted themselves. He had a right to look for
ward to a brilliant future.

1 " Recollections and Letters of Sidney Lanier," by Milton
H. Northrup. Lippincoti 's Magazine, March, 1905.

CHAPTER III

A CONFEDERATE SOLDIER

FROM his dreams of music and poetry and from
the ideal he had formed of study at Heidel
berg, Lanier was awakened by the guns of Fort
Sumter and by the agitation everywhere in
Georgia. At Milledgeville he heard some of
the great speeches made for and against seces
sion, for, from November to January, the con
flict throughout the State and especially in the
capital was a severe one. He himself, like his
father, hoped that the Union might be preserved,
but the forces of discord could not be stayed.
The people of Macon, on November 8, 1860,
passed a declaration of independence, setting
forth their grievances against the North. When
secession was declared in Charleston on Decem
ber 1, a hundred guns were fired amidst the
ringing of bells and the shouts of the people. At
night there was a procession of fifteen hundred
people with banners and transparencies.1 When
on January 16 the Georgia convention voted
to secede from the Union, Milledgeville was in

1 Butler's History of Macon.

A CONFEDERATE SOLDIER 43

" rapturous commotion." " Tears of joy fell from
many eyes, and words of congratulation were
uttered by every tongue. The artillery from the
capitol square thundered forth the glad tidings,
and the bells of the city pealed forth the joyous
welcome to the new-born Republic."

Lanier afterwards, in " Tiger Lilies," described
the war fever as it swept over the South. " An
afflatus of war was breathed upon us. Like a
great wind it drew on, and blew upon men,
women, and children. Its sound mingled with
the serenity of the church organs and arose with
the earnest words of preachers praying for guid
ance in the matter. It sighed in the half -breathed
words of sweethearts, conditioning impatient lov
ers with war services. It thundered splendidly
in the impassioned appeals of orators to the
people. It whistled through the streets, it stole
into the firesides, it clinked glasses in bar-rooms,
it lifted the gray hairs of our wise men in conven
tions, it thrilled through the lectures in college
halls, it rustled the thumbed book leaves of the
schoolrooms. This wind blew upon all vanes
of all the churches of the country and turned
them one way, — toward war. It blew, and shook
out as if by magic a flag whose device was un
known to soldier or sailor before, but whose
every flap and flutter made the blood bound in
our veins. ... It arrayed the sanctity of a

44 SIDNEY LANIER

righteous cause in the brilliant trappings of mil
itary display. ... It offered tests to all alle
giances and loyalties, — of church, of state; of
private loves, of public devotion; of personal
consanguinity, of social ties." 1

It does not fall within the province of this
book to discuss the issues that led to the Civil
War, — the questions of secession and slavery.
In 1861 they had ceased to be debated in the
halls of Congress ; all the Southern people were
being merged into a unit. Ardent opponents of
secession, like Alexander H. Stephens, threw in
their lot with the new Confederacy ; States like
Virginia, which hesitated to disrupt a Union
with which they had had so much to do, were as
enthusiastic as the more ardent Southern States ;
old men vied with young men in their military
ardor. Scotch-Irish opponents of slavery marched
side by side with the Cavaliers, to whom slavery
was the very corner-stone of a feudal aristocracy.
The fact is, the whole South was animated by a
passion for war. To young men like Lanier the
Southern cause was one of liberty, of resistance
to despotism and fanaticism, of the protection of
homes. He who would understand their point of
view must read such war lyrics as " Maryland,
My Maryland" and Timrod's " Ethnogenesis,"
or enter sympathetically into the lives of that
youthful band of Confederate soldiers all of
1 Tiger Lilies, p. 119.

A CONFEDERATE SOLDIER 45

whom were afterwards to become distinguished
in the field of letters, — Timrod, Hayne, Cable,
Maurice Thompson, and Lanier.

It was not given to many men on either side
to divine the true issues of the war. Lanier af
terwards rejoiced in the overthrow of slavery,
and knew that it was the belief in the soundness
and greatness of the American Union among
the millions of the North and of the great
Northwest which really conquered the South.
"As soon as we invaded the North," he said,
" and arrayed this sentiment against us, our
swift destruction followed." In a note-book of
1867 he pointed out with touches of humor the
folly of many of the ideas formerly held by him
self and other Southerners. He is writing an
essay on the Devil's Bombs, " some half-dozen of
which were exploded between the years 1861 and
1865 over the Southern portion of North Amer
ica with widespread and somewhat sad results :
namely, a million of men slain and maimed ; a
million of widows and orphans created ; several
billions of money destroyed; several hundred
thousand of ignorant schoolboys who could not
study on account of the noise made by the
shells ; and a large miscellaneous mass of poverty,
starvation, recklessness, and ruin precipitated so
suddenly upon the country that many were buried
beneath it beyond hope of being extricated."

46 SIDNEY LANIER

This universal tragedy he attributes in part to
the conceit of the Southern people. He himself
became " convinced of his ability to whip at least
five Yankees. The author does not know now
and did not then, by what course of reasoning he
arrived at this said conviction ; in the best of the
author's judgment he did not reason it out at all,
rather absorbed it, from the press of surround
ing similar convictions. The author, however,
was also confident, not only that he personally
could whip five Yankees, but any Southern boy
could do it. The whole South was satisfied it
could whip five Norths. The newspapers said
we could do it ; the preachers pronounced ana
themas against the man that did n't believe we
could do it ; our old men said at the street cor
ners, if they were young they could do it, and by
the Eternal, they believed they could do it any
how (whereat great applause and ' Hurrah for
ole Harris ! ') ; the young men said they 'd be
blanked if they could n't do it, and the young
ladies said they would n't marry a man who
could n't do it. This arrogant perpetual invita
tion to draw and come on, this idea which pos
sessed the whole section, which originated no one
knows when, grew no one knows how, was a
devil's own bombshell, the fuse of which spar
kled when Mr. Brooks struck Mr. Sumner upon
the head with a cane.

A CONFEDERATE SOLDIER 47

" Of course we laugh at it now, — laugh in the
hope that our neighbors will attribute the red
ness of our cheeks to that and not to our shame.
. . . The conceit of an individual is ridiculous
because it is powerless. . . . The conceit of a
whole people is terrible, it is a devil's bomb
shell, surcharged with death, plethoric with all
foul despairs and disasters."

So Lanier spoke in the sober maturity of his
manhood of the great tragedy through which he
with his section passed. But during the war
there was but one idea in his mind, and that was
that he might take part in the establishment of
a Confederacy. He dreamed with his people of a
nation that might be the embodiment of all that
was fine in government and in society, that the
" new Confederacy was to enter upon an era of
prosperity such as no other nation, ancient or
modern, had ever enjoyed, and that the city of
Macon, his birthplace and home, was to become
a great art centre." In this hope, soon after
finishing the year's work at Oglethorpe,1 he vol
unteered for service and went to Virginia to join
the Macon Volunteers, who had left Georgia early
in April — the first company that went out of the

1 The faculty and students almost, to a man enlisted in the
army ; and the college buildings were afterwards used for bar
racks and hospitals. President Talmage lost his mind by rea
son of the conflict between his affection for his native and for
his adopted section.

48 SIDNEY LANIER

State to Virginia. It was an old company that
had won distinction in the Mexican War, and was
the special pride of the city of Macon. The
company was stationed for several months near
Norfolk, where Lanier experienced some of the
joys of city life in those early days when war was
largely a picnic — a holiday time it was — " the
gay days of mandolin and guitar and moonlight
sails on the James River."

In the main, however, they played "Marsh-
Divers and Meadow-Crakes," their principal
duties being to picket the beach, and their " plea
sures and sweet rewards-of-toil consisting in agues
which played dice with our bones, and blue-
mass pills that played the deuce with our livers." l
The company was sent in 1862 to Wilmington, N.
C., where they experienced a pleasant change in
the style of fever, " indulging for two or three
months," continues Lanier, " in what are called
the ' dry shakes of the sand hills,' a sort of bril
liant, tremolo movement, brilliantly executed
upon 'that pan-pipe, man,' by an invisible but very
powerful performer." From here, where they
were engaged in building Fort Fisher, they were
called to Drewry's Bluff ; and from there to the
Chickahominy, participating in the seven days'

1 The account of Lanier's war experiences is based on the
poet's letters to Northrup, the reminiscences of Clifford Lanier,
Lanier's unpublished letters to his father, Tiger Lilies, and
the Official Records of the War of the Rebellion.

A CONFEDERATE SOLDIER 49

fighting around Richmond. Just before the battle
of Malvern Hill they marched all night through
drenching rain, over torn and swampy roads.
These were the only important battles in which
Lanier took part. Soon afterwards he was in a
little gunboat fight or two on the south bank of
the James River. On August 26 they were sent
to Petersburg to rest. While there he enjoyed
the use of the city library. He and his brother
and two friends were transferred to the signal
corps, which was considered at that time the most
efficient in the Southern army, and, becoming
soon proficient in the system, attracted the atten
tion of the commanding officer, who formed them
into a mounted field squad and attached them
to the staff of Major-General French. " Often
Lanier and a friend," says the latter officer,
" would come to my quarters and pass the even
ings with us, where the 4 alarums of war ' were lost
in the soft notes of their flutes, for Lanier was
an excellent musician." l Lanier tells in a letter
written to his father at that time of four Georgia
privates with one general, six captains, and one
lieutenant, serenading the city.

One of the most precious memories of Lanier's

war career was that of General Lee attending

religious services in Petersburg. The height of

every Confederate soldier's ambition was to get a

1 A History of Two Wars, by Samuel G. French.

50 SIDNEY LANIER

glimpse of the beloved general, who was the idol
of his soldiers. Lanier reverenced him as one of
the greatest of men. In later years he gave his
ideal of what a great musician ought to be. "A
great artist," he said, " should have the sensibil
ity and expressive genius of Schumann, the calm
grandeur of Lee, and the human breadth of
Shakespeare, all in one." In his " Confederate
Memorial Address " he speaks of Lee as " stately
in victory, stately in defeat ; stately among the
cannon, stately among the books ; stately in soli
tude, stately in society ; stately in form, in soul,
in character, and in action." Fortunately he
had the chance to see him under specially in
teresting circumstances. He afterwards related
the incident to the Confederate veterans in
Macon : " The last time that I saw with mor
tal eyes — for, with spiritual eyes, many, many
times have I contemplated him since — the scene
was so beautiful, the surroundings were so rare,
nay, time and circumstance did so fitly frame
him, as it were, that I think the picture should
not be lost. ... It was at fateful Petersburg,
on one glorious Sunday morning, whilst the
armies of Grant and Butler were investing our
last stronghold there. It had been announced,
to those who happened to be stationed in the
neighborhood of General Lee's headquarters,
that religious services would be conducted on

A CONFEDERATE SOLDIER 51

that morning by Major-General Pendleton. At
the appointed time I strolled over to Dunn's
Hill, where General Lee's tent was pitched,
and found General Pendleton ensconced under a
magnificent tree, and a small party of soldiers,
with a few ladies from the dwelling near by, col
lected about him. In a few moments, General
Lee appeared with his camp chair, and sat down.
The services began. That terrible battery, Num
ber Five, was firing, very slowly, each report of the
great guns making the otherwise profound silence
still more profound. I sat down on the grass and
gazed, with such reverence as I had never given
to mortal man before, upon the grand face of
General Lee. He had been greatly fatigued by
loss of sleep.

" As the sermon progressed, and the immortal
words of Christian doctrine came to our hearts
and comforted us, sweet influences born of the
liberal sunlight which lay warm upon the grass,
of the moving leaves and trembling flowers,
seemed to steal over the General's soul. Presently
his eyelids gradually closed, and he fell gently
asleep. Not a muscle of him stirred, not a nerve
of his grand countenance twitched ; there was no
drooping of the head, nor bowing of the figure.
... As he slumbered so, sitting erect, with arms
folded upon his chest, in an attitude of majestic
repose, such as I never saw assumed by mortal

52 SIDNEY LANIER

man before ; as the large and comfortable word
fell from the preacher's lips ; as the lazy cannon
of the enemy anon hurled a screaming shell to
within a few hundred yards of where we sat, as
finally a bird flew into a tree overhead and sat
and piped small blissful notes in unearthly con
trast with the roar of the war engines ; it seemed
to me as if the present earth floated off through
the sunlight, and the antique earth returned out
of the past, and some majestic god sat on a hill,
sculptured in stone, presiding over a terrible yet
sublime contest of human passion."

A pleasant interlude in Lanier's soldier life
was a two weeks' visit to Macon in the spring of
1863. The city had not yet felt any of the calam
ities of war, although high prices prevailed. Mrs.
Clay, wife of Senator Clement C. Clay, was a
visitor in the city at that time, waiting for a sum
mons to join her husband in Richmond. She
writes, in recalling those days : " Spring was in
its precious beauty. Gardens glowed with bril
liant blossoms. Thousands of fragrant odors
mingled in the air, the voices of myriad birds
sang about the foliaged avenues." l It was then
that Lanier met Miss Mary Day, at the home
of their friend, Miss Lamar. Her father was a
prominent business man in Macon. She had lived
for the first few years of her life in Macon, but
1 A Belle of the Fifties, p. 194.

A CONFEDERATE SOLDIER 53

had been since 1851 studying music in New York,
and living with cultivated people at Saratoga
and West Point. In an atmosphere of romance,
music, and love Lanier spent his vacation.

On their return to the Virginia battlefields the
two brothers were accompanied by Mrs. Clay and
her sister-in-law. Mrs. Clay had been a popular
belle in Washington in the fifties, and was well
acquainted with leading men and women through
out the country. She had heard and met in social
circles Charlotte Cushman, Jenny Lind, Thack
eray, Lord Napier, and other notabilities. Lanier,
eager always to hear of the larger world outside
of his own limited life, was much attracted by
her reminiscences of well-known men and women.
Returning to Suffolk, Va., Clifford Lanier wrote
to her : " What a transition is this — from the
spring and peace of Macon to this muddy and
war-distracted country ! Going to sleep in the
moonlight and soft air of Italy, I seem to have
waked embedded in Lapland snow." Sidney
wrote : " Have you ever wandered, in an all
night's dream, through exquisite flowery mosses,
through labyrinthine grottoes, i full of all spark
ling and sparry loveliness,' over mountains of
unknown height, by abysses of unfathomable
depth, all beneath skies of an infinite brightness
caused by no sun ; strangest of all, — wandered
about in wonder, as if you had lived an eternity

54 SIDNEY LANIER

in the familiar contemplation of such things ? If
you have dreamed, thought, and felt so, you can
realize the imbecile stare with which I gaze on
all of this life which goes on around me here.
Macon was my two weeks' dream." 1

During 1863 and a large part of 1864 the
two brothers served as scouts in Milligan's Corps
along the James River. The duties were unusu
ally dangerous and onerous, from the fact that
their movements had to be concealed, and that
they were in constant danger of being captured.
In this work of hard riding Lanier displayed
a cool and collected courage; he was untiring
in his energy, prudent and cautious. Notwith
standing the dangers and hardships, he looked
upon the period of life at Fort Boykin on Bur-
well's Bay — their headquarters — as " the most
delicious period of his life in many respects."
Writing of it later he said : " Our life was as
full of romance as heart could desire. We had
a flute and a guitar, good horses, a beautiful
country, splendid residences inhabited by friends
who loved us, and plenty of hairbreadth 'scapes
from the roving bands of Federals who were
continually visiting that Debatable Land. . . .
Cliff and I never cease to talk of the beauti
ful women, the serenades, the moonlight dashes
on the beach of fair Burwell's Bay, and the

1 A Belle of the Fifties, p. 200.

SIDNEY LANIER IN 1866
From a "carte de visite" photograph owned by Milton H. Northrup

A CONFEDERATE SOLDIER 55

spirited brushes of our little force with the
enemy." l

This is the period of his life which he de
scribes in the second part of " Tiger Lilies."
His brother Clifford also made it the basis of
his novel, " Thorn-Fruit." The effect produced
by the young poet and musician on the people
who lived in the stately mansions along the
James River has been told by one who knew him
well at this time : " The two brothers were in
separable ; slender, gray-eyed youths, full of en
thusiasm, Clifford grave and quiet, Sidney, the
elder, playful with a dainty mirthfulness. . . .
How often did we sit on the moonlight nights
enthralled by the entranced melodies of his
flute ! Always the longing for the very highest
pervaded his life, and child though I was, in
listening to him as he paced the long galleries of
my old home, or as we rode in the sweet green
wood, I felt even then that we sat 4 in the aurora
of a sunrise which was to put out all the stars.' " 2

This period of his army life is important also
from the fact that here at Fort Boykin he defi
nitely began to contemplate a literary life as his
probable vocation. He was studying hard, read
ing English poetry, and writing to his father to
" seize at any price " editions of the German

1 Letter to Northrup, June 11, 1866.

2 Southern Bivouac, May, 1887.

56 SIDNEY LANIER

poets, Uhland, Lessing, Schelling, and Tieck.
Thus at a time when other Southerners were, as
Professor Gildersleeve has said, getting out their
classics to reread them, Lanier was voyaging
into strange fields of thought alone. Once, when
the little camp was captured, he lost several of
his choicest treasures, — a volume containing
the poems of Coleridge, Shelley, and Keats, a
German glossary, Heine's poems, and "Aurora
Leigh." In a letter to his father, January 18,
1864, he says : " Gradually I find that my whole
soul is merging itself into this business of writ
ing, and especially of writing poetry. I am going
to try it ; and am going to test, in the most rigid
way I know, the awful question whether it is
my vocation." He sends his father a number of
poems, that they may be criticised. He has a
sense of his own deficiencies as a writer, — defi
ciencies which he never fully overcame, — for he
writes : " I have frequently noticed in myself a
tendency to a diffuse style ; a disposition to push
my metaphors too far, employing a multitude of
words to heighten the patness of the image, and
so making of it a conceit rather than a meta
phor, a fault copiously illustrated in the poetry
of Cowley, Waller, Donne, and others of that
ilk."

The tendency is seen in a poem written at
Boykin's Bluff on, perhaps, his twenty-first birth-

A CONFEDERATE SOLDIER 57

day. Notable also is the sense of the dawn of
manhood : —

So Boyhood sets: comes Youth,
A painful night of mists and dreams,
That broods till Love's exquisite truth,
The star of a morn-clear manhood, beams.

In this dawn of his manhood — not yet morn-
clear, however, — he began " Tiger Lilies," writ
ing those parts having to do with his experience
in the mountains, some passages of which have
already been quoted.

But Lanier's literary career was not to be
begun as soon as he hoped. He was, in August,
1864, transferred to Wilmington, N. C., where he
became a signal officer on the blockade-runners.
Wilmington was the port which, late in the
war, was the scene of the most brilliant successes
of these swift vessels and the most strenuous
efforts of the blockaders. " Long after every
other port was closed, desperate, but wary sea
pigeons would evade the big and surly watchers
on the coast . . . and ho ! for the open sea." This
was a service of keen excitement and constant
danger, demanding a clear head and iron nerves.
In the latter part of 1864 it became more and
more difficult for the blockade-runners to make
their way to Bermuda. On November 2, a stormy
night, Lanier was a signal officer on the Lucy,
which made its way out of the harbor, but four-

58 SIDNEY LANIER

teen hours later was captured in the Gulf Stream
by the Federal cruiser Santiago-de-Cuba. He was
taken to Point Lookout prison, where he spent
four months of dreary and distressing life. To
this prison life Lanier always attributed his
breakdown in health. In " Tiger Lilies " he af
terwards attempted to give a description of the
prison and the life led by prisoners, but turned
with disgust from the harrowing memories. The
few pages he did write serve as a counterpart to
Walt Whitman's strictures on Southern prisons
in his " Specimen Days in America."

And yet, under these loathsome conditions he
read German poetry, translating Heine's " The
Palm and the Pine" and Herder's "Spring
Greeting." Here, too, he found comfort for
himself and his companions in the flute which
he had carried with him during the entire war.
One of his comrades gives the following ac
count of Lanier's playing : " Late one evening
I heard from our tent the clear sweet notes of
a flute in the distance, and I was told that the
player was a young man from Georgia who had
just come among us. I forthwith hastened to
find him out, and from that hour the flute of
Sidney Lanier was our daily delight. It was an
angel imprisoned with us to cheer and console
us. Well I remember his improvisations, and
how the young artist stood there in the twilight.

A CONFEDERATE SOLDIER 59

(It was his custom to stand while he played.)
Many a stern eye moistened to hear him, many
a homesick heart for a time forgot its captivity.
The night sky, clear as a dewdrop above us,
the waters of the Chesapeake far to the east, the
long gray beach and the distant pines, seemed
all to have found an interpreter in him.

" In all those dreary months of imprisonment,
under the keenest privations of life, exposed to
the daily manifestations of want and depravity,
sickness and death, his was the clear-hearted,
hopeful voice that sang what he uttered in after
years."

The purity of Lanier's soul was never better
attested than in a letter written by a fellow-
prisoner, Mr. John B. Tabb, to Charles Day
Lanier, the oldest son of the poet, trying to im
press upon his mind the character of his father
as exhibited in this prison life at Point Lookout :

" To realize what our surroundings were, one
must have lived in a prison camp. There was no
room for pretense or disguise. Men appeared
what they really were, noble or low-minded, pure
or depraved ; and there did one trait of your
father's character single him out. In all our
intercourse I can remember no conversation or
word of his that an angel might not have uttered
or listened to. Set this down in your memory.
... It will throw light upon other points, and

62 SIDNEY LANIER

playing. As he played the first few notes, you
should have heard the yell of joy that came up
from the shivering wretches down below, who
knew that their comrade was alive. And there
we sat entranced about him, the colonel and
his wife, Lilla and I, weeping at the tender music,
as the tones of new warmth and color and hope
came like liquid melody from his magic flute." l

Thus closes his war period. His name does
not appear in any of the official records, but no
private soldier had a more varied experience.2
One scarcely knows which to admire most, —
the soldier, brave and knightly, the poet, pre
paring his wings for a flight, or the musician,
inspiriting his fellow-soldiers in camp and in
prison.

1 Southern Writers, p. 169.

2 It is said that he refused promotion several times in order
to be with his brother. In a memorandum on the photograph
herewith presented he refers to himself as " captain " in the
late Confederate army. I have been unable to reconcile these
statements.

CHAPTER IV

SEEKING A VOCATION

LANIER reached Macon March 15, after a long
and painful journey through the Carolinas. Im
mediately upon his arrival, losing the stimulus
which had kept him going so long, he fell dan
gerously ill, and remained so for nearly two
months. Early in May, just as he was conva
lescing, General Wilson captured Macon, and
Jefferson Davis and Clement C. Clay were
brought to the Lanier House, whence they were
to start on their way as prisoners to Fortress
Monroe. Clifford Lanier reached home May 19.
He had, after the blockade was closed at Wil
mington, gone to Cuba. From there he sailed
to Galveston and walked thence to Macon. He
arrived just in time to see his mother, who a
few days after died of consumption. She had
kept herself alive for months by " a strong con
viction, which she expressed again and again, that
God would bring both her boys to her before she
died." Sidney spent the summer months with his
father and his sister, ministering to them in their
sorrow. In September he began to tutor on a

64 SIDNEY LANIER

large plantation nine miles from Macon. With
thirty classes a day and failing health, he
whose brain was " fairly teeming with beautiful
things " was shut up to the horrible monotony
of the " tare and tret " of the schoolroom. He
spent the winter at Point Clear on Mobile Bay,
where he was greatly invigorated by the sea
breezes and the air of the pine forests.

After these months of sorrow and struggle he
settled in Montgomery, Ala., as clerk in the Ex
change Hotel, the property of his grandfather
and his uncles. His first feeling as he faces the
new conditions which he is trying to explain to
Northrup, his Northern friend, is one of bewil
derment, — the immense distance between the
beginning and the end of the war : —

" So wild and high are the big war- waves dash
ing between '61 and '66, as between two shores,
that, looking across their 4 rude, imperious surge,'
I can scarcely discern any sight or sound of
those old peaceful days that you and I passed on
the 'sacred soil' of M . The sweet, half-
pastoral tones that should come from out that
golden time, float to me mixed with battle cries
and groans. It was our glorious spring : but, my
God, the flowers of it send up sulphurous odors,
and their petals are dabbled with blood.

" These things being so, I thank you, more than
I can well express, for your kind letter. It comes

SEEKING A VOCATION 65

to me, like a welcome sail, from that old world
to this new one, through the war-storms. It
takes away the sulphur and the blood-flecks, and
drowns out the harsh noises of battle. The two
margins of the great gulf which has divided you
from me seem approaching each other : I stretch
out my hand across the narrowing fissure, to grasp
yours on the other side. And I wish, with all
my heart, that you and I could spend this inef
fable May afternoon under that old oak at Whit-
taker's and 4 talk it all over.' " l

In another letter (June 29, 1866) he en
closes a photograph2 and comments on the life
in Montgomery : —

" The cadaverous enclosed is supposed to re
present the face of your friend, together with a
small portion of the Confederate gray coat in
which enwrapped he did breast the big wars.

" I have one favor to entreat ; and that is, that
you will hold in consideration the very primitive
state of the photographic art in this section, and
believe that my mouth is not so large, by some
inches, as this villainous artist portrays it.

" I despair of giving you any idea of the mor
tal stagnation which paralyzes all business here.
On our streets, Monday is very like Sunday:

1 This and the following letter were printed in Lippincotfs
Magazine, March, 1905. A few changes are made to conform
to the original copies.

2 See p. 54.

68 SIDNEY LANIER

was still the land they loved — was in a state of
despair. Middle Georgia had lost through Sher
man's march to the sea il.00,000,000.1 In the
wake of Sherman's armies Richard Malcom John
ston had lost his estate of $50,000, Maurice
Thompson's home was in ashes, and Joel Chan
dler Harris, who had begun life on the old Tur
ner plantation under such favorable auspices,
was forced to seek an occupation in New Orleans.
Only those who lived through that period or
who have imaginatively reproduced it, can real
ize the truth of E. L. Godkin's statement : " I
doubt much if any community in the modern
world was ever so ruthlessly brought face to face
with what is sternest and hardest in human life."
It was not simply the material losses of the war,
— these have often been commented on and sta
tistics given, — it was the loss of libraries like
those of Simms and Hayne, the burning of insti
tutions of learning like the University of Ala
bama, the closing of colleges, like Lanier's own
alma mater. It was the passing away of a civ
ilization which, with all its faults, had many at
tractive qualities — a loss all the more apparent
at a time when a more democratic civilization
had not yet taken its place. The South was

Wandering between two worlds — one dead,
The other powerless to be born.

1 Rhodes's History of the United States, v, 22.

SEEKING A VOCATION 69

Even States like Georgia, which soon showed signs
of recuperation and rejuvenation, suffered with
their more unfortunate sisters, South Carolina
and Louisiana, where the ravages of war were
terrific. There was confusion in the public mind
— uncertainty as to the future. The memories
of these days are suggested here, not for the pur
pose of awakening in any mind bitter memories,
but that some idea may be given of the tremen
dous obstacles that confronted a young man like
Lanier.

It is no wonder that under these circum
stances men went to other countries, and that some
of those who did not go cherished the project of
transporting the people of various States to other
lands, where the spirit of the civilization that
had passed away might be preserved.1 Many
men whose names are now lost passed out to the
States of the West. Business men, scholars, and
men of all professions, who have since become
famous in other States, were as complete a loss
to the South as those who died on the battle
field. And when to all these are added the men
and women who died broken-hearted at the losses
of war, some idea may be conceived of the dis
advantages under which the South began her
work.

1 See the Life and Letters of R. L. Dabney, for a plan in
which many Virginians were interested.

70 SIDNEY LANIER

The work of those men who remained in the
South and set about to inaugurate a new era can
not be too highly estimated, — a work made all
the more difficult by strong men who resisted the
march of events, and who refused to accept the
conditions that then prevailed. The readjustment
came soon to more men than some have thought.
Lanier, writing in 1867, before the pressure of
reconstruction government had been felt, said,
in commenting on the growing lack of re
straint in modern political life : " At the close
of that war, three armies which had been fight
ing on the Southern side, and which numbered
probably forty thousand men, were disbanded.
These men had for four years been subjected to
the unfamiliar and galling restrictions of military
discipline, and to the most maddening privations.
... At the same time four millions of slaves,
without provisions and without prospect of labor
in a land where employers were impoverished,
were liberated. . . . The reign of law at this
thrilling time was at an end. The civil powers
of the States were dead ; the military power of
the conquerors was not yet organized for civil
purposes. The railroad and the telegraph, those
most efficient sheriffs of modern times, had fallen
in the shock of war. All possible opportunities
presented themselves to each man who chose to
injure his neighbor with impunity. The country

SEEKING A VOCATION 71

was sparsely settled, the country roads were in
tricate, the forests were extensive and dense,
the hiding-places were numerous and secure, the
witnesses were few and ignorant. Never had
crime such fair weather for his carnival. Seri
ous apprehensions had long been entertained by
the Southern citizens that in the event of a dis
astrous termination of the war, the whole army
would be frenzied to convert itself, after disin
tegration, into forty thousand highwaymen. . . .
Moreover, the feuds between master and slave,
alleged by the Northern parties in the contest to
have been long smouldering in the South, would
seize this opportunity to flame out and redress
themselves. Altogether, regarding humanity from
the old point of view, there appeared to many
wise citizens a clear prospect of dwelling in [the]
midst of a furious pandemonium for several
years after an unfavorable termination of the
war ; but was this prospect realized ? Where
were the highway robberies, the bloody ven
geances, the arsons, the rapine, the murders,
the outrages, the insults ? They were, not any
where. With great calmness the soldier cast
behind him the memory of all wrongs and hard
ships and reckless habits of the war, embraced
his wife, patched his cabin-roof, and proceeded
to mingle the dust of recent battles yet linger
ing on his feet with the peaceful clods of his

72 SIDNEY LANIER

cornfield. What restrained these men ? Was it
fear ? The word cannot be spoken. Was he who
had breasted the storms of Gettysburg and
Perryville to shrink from the puny arm of a
civil law that was more powerless than the
shrunken muscle of Justice Shallow ? And what
could the negro fear when his belief and assurance
were that a conquering nation stood ready to sup
port him in his wildest demands? It was the
spirit of the time that brought about these things.
... A thousand Atlantic Cables and Pacific
Railroads would not have contributed cause for
so earnest self-gratulation as was afforded by
this one feature in our recent political convul
sion."1

Many Southerners were ready, like Lee, to
forget the bitterness and prejudice of the war —
all but the hallowed memories. Lanier, at the
close of a fanciful passage on the blood-red
flower of war which blossomed in 1861, said : —

" It is supposed by some that the seed of
this American specimen (now dead) yet remain
in the land ; but as for this author (who, with
many friends, suffered from the unhealthy odors
of the plant), he could find it in his heart
to wish fervently that these seed, if there be
verily any, might perish in the germ, utterly
out of sight and life and memory and out of
1 Retrospects and Prospects, p. 29.

SEEKING A VOCATION 73

the remote hope of resurrection, forever and for
ever, no matter in whose granary they are cher
ished!" i

In this spirit Lanier began his work in Mont
gomery, Ala. As has been seen, he had ex
tended the hand of fellowship to his Northern
friend, thus laying the basis for the spirit of re
conciliation afterwards so dominant in his poetry.
Uncongenial as was his work, he went about it
with a new sense of the " dignity of labor." His
aunt, Mrs. Watt, who had in the more prosper
ous times before the war traveled much in the
North, and had graced the brilliant scenes of the
opening of the Confederate Congress in Monk
gomery, becoming the intimate friend of Jeffer
son Davis and Stephens, now threw around her
nephews — Clifford was also working in the
hotel — the charm of the olden days. They
found pleasure in social life : close to Mont
gomery lived the Cloptons and Ligons, who on
their plantations enjoyed the gifts of " Santa
Claus Cotton," just after the war. Lanier writes
to his sister, September 26, 1866: "I have just
returned from Tuskegee, where I spent a pleasant
week. . . . They feted me to death, nearly. . . .
Indeed, they were all so good and so kind to me,
and the fair cousins were so beautiful, that I
came back feeling as if I had been in a week's

1 Tiger Lilies, p. 116.

74 SIDNEY LANIER

dream of fairyland.'* The two brothers, eager
for more intellectual companionship, organized a
literary club, for the meetings of which Sidney
prepared his first literary exercises after the
war. He played the pipe-organ in the Presby
terian church in Montgomery. He writes to a
friend about some one who was in a state of
melancholy : " She is right to cultivate music,
to cling to it ; it is the only reality left in the
world for her and many like her. It will revolu
tionize the world, and that not long hence. Let
her study it intensely, give herself to it, enter
the very innermost temple and sanctuary of it.
. . . The altar steps are wide enough for all the
world." To another friend he writes at the
same time : " Study Chopin as soon as you be
come able to play his music ; and get his life by
Liszt. 'T is the most enjoyable book you could
read."

Most of the leisure time of the brothers, how
ever, was spent in literary work, with even
more ardor than while they had plenty of time
to devote to it. By May 12 Clifford had fin
ished his novel, " Thorn-Fruit," and Sidney was
at work on " Tiger Lilies," the novel begun
at Burwell's Bay in 1863 and retouched at dif
ferent times since then. They were planning,
too, a volume of poems, although with the ex
ception of their father they had not been able

SEEKING A VOCATION 75

" to find a single individual who sympathized in
Tsuch a pursuit enough to warrant them in show
ing him their production, — so scarce is general
cultivation here; but," Sidney adds, "we work
on, and hope to become at least recognized as
good orderly citizens in the fair realm of letters
yet." Indeed, they planned to go North in the
fall " with bloody literary designs on some hap
less publisher." l

In order to find out what was going on in the
world of letters, Lanier subscribed to the "Round
Table," which was then an important weekly
paper of New York — indeed, it was more like
the London " Spectator " than any paper ever
published on this side the water — a journal, said
the New York " Times," which " has the genius
and learning and brilliancy of the higher order
of London weeklies, and which at the same time
has the spirit and the instincts of America."
Moncure D. Con way was at that time writing
letters of much interest from England and Jus
tin Winsor from Cambridge, while Howells, Al-
drich, Stedman, and Stoddard were regular con
tributors. The reviews of books were thoroughly
cosmopolitan, and the editorials setting forth the
interpretation of contemporary events were char
acterized by sanity and breadth.

In addition to the fact that Lanier's first

1 Letters to Northrup.

76 SIDNEY LANIER

poems were published in this journal,1 it is to be
noted that it exerted considerable influence over
him — especially in two directions. Its broad
national policy — more sympathetic than that of
the " Nation " even — was evidence to him that
there were Northern people who were magnani
mous in their attitude to Southern problems. He
was especially impressed with an editorial on the
" Duties of Peace " (July 7, 1866) as "the most
sensible discussion " he had seen of the whole
situation. In it were these striking words : "The
people of the South are our brothers, bone of
our bone and flesh of our flesh. They have
courage, integrity, honor, patriotism, and all the
manly virtues as well as ourselves. . . . Can we
realize that our duty now is to heal, not to pun
ish? ... Consider their dilapidated cities, their
deserted plantations, their impoverished country,
their loss of personal property by thousands of
millions ; far more than this, their buried dead
and desolate hearts. ... No one with a heart can
realize the truth of their condition without feeling
that the punishment has been terrific. We should
address ourselves to the grave task of restoring
the disrupted relations of the two sections by

1 " In the Foam," " Barnacles," " The Tournament," " Re
surrection," " Laughter in the Senate " (not in his collected
poems), "A Birthday Song," "Tyranny," and "Life and
Song " were published in the Bound Table during 1867 and
1868.

SEEKING A VOCATION 77

acts of genuine kindness, truthfulness, fairness,
and love. ... In a word, let the era of blood be
followed by another era of good feeling." The
whole editorial is in accordance with the pre
viously announced policy of the paper : " The
Eebellion extinguished, the next duty is to ex
tinguish the sectional spirit, and to seek to
create fraternal feeling among all the States of
the Union."

In discussing literary questions the " Round
Table " showed the same national spirit, manifest
ing a healthy interest in those few Southern writ
ers who were left after the deluge. The words
found in two editorials, calling for a more vigor
ous and original class of writers, must have ap
pealed to Lanier. An editorial, May 12, 1866,
entitled a " Plain Talk with American Writers,"
said : " In fact the literary field was never so
barren, never so utterly without hope or life. . . .
The era of genius and vigor that seemed ready
to burst upon us only a few months ago has not
been fulfilled. There is a lack of boldness and
power. Men do not seem to strike out in new
paths as bravely as of old. ... We have very
little strong, original writing. Who will waken
us from this sleep ? Who will first show us the
first signs of a genuine literary reviving ? " And
again, July 14, 1866, " We look to see young
men coming forward who shall inaugurate a

78 SIDNEY LANIER

better literature. ... If ever there was a time
when a magnificent field opened to young aspir
ants for literary renown, that time is the present.
Every door is wide open. . . . All the graces of
poesy and art and music stand waiting by, ready
to welcome a bold new-comer. . . . Who will
come forward and inaugurate a new era of bold,
electrical, impressive writing ? "

With some such ambition as this in his mind,
Lanier gave up his work in Montgomery in the
spring of 1867 and went to New York with the
completed manuscript of <4 Tiger Lilies." 1 He
was there for more than a month, finally arran
ging for its publication with Hurd & Houghton,
the predecessors of the present firm of Hough-
ton, Miiflin & Co. He was enabled to publish
his book by the generous help of Mr. J. F. D.
Lanier. Some of his experiences on this, his first
visit to the metropolis, are significant. He is
somewhat dazed by the life of the big city. " I
tell you," he writes to a friend, " the Heavens are
alien to this town, and if it were anybody else
but the Infinite God that owned them, he would
n't let them bend so blue over here." In a letter
to his father, April 16, he describes the view of

1 William Gilmore Simms was there at about the same time
trying to get started again in his literary work, and Edward
Rowland Sill was making his first venture into the literary
world.

SEEKING A VOCATION 79

the city from Trinity Church steeple and tells
a characteristic incident : " The grand array of
houses and ships and rivers and distant hills did
not arrest my soul as did the long line of men
and women, which at that height seemed to writhe
and contort itself in its narrow bed of Broadway
as in a premature grave. ... I have not seen
here a single eye that knew itself to be in front
of a heart — but one, and that was a blue one,
and a child owned it. 'T was the very double of
Sissa's [the name for his sister] eye, so I had no
sooner seen it than I made love to it, with what
success you will hear. On Saturday I dined with
J. F. D. Lanier. We had only a family party.
. . . Last and best little Kate Lanier, eight
years old, pearly cheeked, blue eyed, broad of
forehead, cherried i' the lip. About the time that
the champagne came on I happened to mention
that I had been in prison during the war.

" s Poor fellow ! ' says little Katie, ' and how did
the rebels treat you ? '

" ' Rebels,' said I, ; I am a rebel myself, Kate ! '

" 4 What ! ' she exclaimed, and lifted up her
little lilies (when I say lilies I mean hands), and
peered at me curiously with all her blue eyes
astare. 4 A live Reb ! '

" This phrase in Katie's nursery had taken the
time-honored place of bugaboos, and hobgob
lins, and men under the bed. She could not

80 SIDNEY LANIER

realize that I, a smooth-faced, slender, ordinary
mortal, in all respects like a common man, should
be a live reb. She was inclined to hate me, as
in duty bound.

" I will not describe the manner of the siege
I laid to her : suffice it that when I rose to take
leave, Katie stood up before [me], and half
blushed, and paused a minute.

" With a coquetry I never saw executed more
prettily, 4 1 know,' said she, ' that you are dying
for a kiss, and you 're ashamed to ask for it.
You may take one.' . . . And so in triumph,
and singing poems to all blue eyes, I said good
night."

Leaving " Tiger Lilies " in the hands of the
publishers, he returned to Macon, where in Sep
tember we find him reading the proof of the same.
The novel appeared in October and was reviewed
somewhat at length in the " Round Table." 1
The review refers to Lanier as " the author of
some quaint and graceful verses published from
time to time in the 4 Round Table.' " " His novel
goes a long way to confirm the good opinion
which his poems suggested. We have, indeed,
seldom read a first book more pregnant with
promise, or fuller of the faults which, more
surely than precocious perfection, betoken talent.
. . . His errors seem to be entirely errors of

1 Bound Table, December 14, 1867.

SEEKING A VOCATION 81

youth and in the right direction." " Exuberance
is more easily corrected than sterility." " His
dialogue reads too often like a catalogue raisonne
of his library." The critic finds traces of a
scholarly and poetic taste, but withal a straining
after novelty and " an affectation of quaintness
so marked as to be often unpleasant." He ob
jects to long abstract disquisitions on meta
physics and music. He commends it, however,
for being " unmarred by the bad taste of its
contemporaries in fanning a senseless and profit
less sectional rancor."

With this review the reader of " Tiger Lilies "
at the present time must agree. It is seldom that
one finds a bit of contemporary criticism that
hits the mark so well as this. As a story it is
a failure — the plot is badly managed and the
work is strikingly uneven. Lanier was aware
of its defects, and yet pointed out its value to
any student of his life. In a letter to his father
from Montgomery, July 13, 1866, he says : " I
have in the last part adopted almost exclusively
the dramatic, rather than the descriptive, style
which reigns in the earlier portions, interspersed
with much high talk. Indeed, the book which I
commenced to write in 1863 and have touched
at intervals until now, represents in its change
of style almost precisely the change of tone
which has gradually been taking place in me all

82 SIDNEY LANIER

the time. So much so, that it has become highly
interesting to me : I seem to see portions of my
old self, otherwise forgotten, here preserved."

The note sounded in the preface is characteris
tic. He professes " a love, strong as it is hum
ble, for what is beautiful in God's Nature and in
man's Art." He utters a plea against " the hor
rible piquancies of quaint crimes and of white-
handed criminals, with which so many books
have recently stimulated the pruriency of men ;
and begs that the following pages may be judged
only as registering a faint cry, sent from a re
gion where there are few artists to happier lands
that own many ; calling on these last for more
sunshine and less night in their art, more vir
tuous women and fewer Lydian Guelts, more
household sweetness and less Bohemian despair,
clearer chords and fewer suspensions, broader
quiet skies and shorter grotesque storms ; since
there are those, even here in the South, who still
love beautiful things with sincere passion."

The story may be briefly indicated. The back
ground of the first book is, as has been seen,
the mountain scenery of East Tennessee. A
party of hunters — including Philip Sterling
and Paul Riibetsahl, two young transcendental-
ists — are on a stand waiting for deer. Philip
Sterling — with " large gray poet's eyes, with a
dream in each and a sparkle behind it " — is liv-

SEEKING A VOCATION 83

ing in the mountains with his father John Ster
ling and his sister Felix — their home a veritable
palace of art. Riibetsahl is from Frankfort,
Germany, whence he brings an enthusiasm for
music and philosophy, into which he inducts his
newly found friends. Another companion is John
Cranston, a Northerner who had also lived in
Frankfort, where he had often been compared
to Goethe in his youth. He had Lucifer eyes, he
spoke French and German ; he " walked like a
young god, he played people mad with his vio
lin." These lovers of music and poetry furnish
much amusement to the native mountaineers, one
of whom, Cain Smallin, becomes one of the
prominent characters in the latter part of the
book. It is worthy of note that in this charac
ter and his brother, who turns out to be a vil
lain, Lanier anticipated some of the sketches by
Charles Egbert Craddock. The merry party of
hunters retire to Sterling's house, where they en
joy the blessings of good friendship and of music
and high thought. They, with other friends from
all parts of the South, plan a masquerade party,
in which they represent the various characters
of Shakespeare's plays and the knights of the
Round Table. After a scene of much merri
ment and good humor, Cranston and Riibetsahl
fight a duel — both of them being in love with
Felix Sterling, each knowing the other's history

84 SIDNEY LANIER

at Frankfort. In the mean time Ottilie with her
maid comes from Germany to Chilhowee. She
was formerly the lover of Riibetsahl, and was be
trayed by Cranston. She becomes identified with
the Sterling family, she herself being a musi
cian, and naturally finding her place among these
music-loving people.

The first book is filled with " high talk " on
music, poetry, philosophy, and nature. These
conversations and masquerade parties, however,
are interrupted by war. The author omits the
breaking out of the war and the first three years
of it. The action is resumed at Bur well's Bay,
where we meet the hero again with " a light rifle
on his shoulder, with a good horse bounding
along under him, with a fresh breeze that had in
it the vigor of the salt sea and the caressing
sweetness of the spring blowing upon him."
With him are " five friends, tried in the tempests
of war, as well as by the sterner tests of the
calm association of inactive camp life." The
story here is strictly autobiographical, and is
filled with some stirring incidents taken from
Lanier's life as a scout. Perhaps the most strik
ing scene in the book is the one in which Cain
Smallin finds out that his brother is a deserter.
Never did Lanier come so near creating a scene
of real dramatic power.1 " We was poor. We

1 Part ii, chapter vi.

SEEKING A VOCATION 85

ain't never had much to live on but our name,
which it was as good as gold. And now it ain't no
better 'n rusty copper ; hit '11 be green and pi-
senous. An' whose done it ? Gorm Smallin ! My
own brother, Gorm Smallin ! " When he finds
his brother he says to him : " Ef ye had been
killed in a fa'r battle, I mought ha' been able to
fight hard enough for both of us ; for every time
I cried a-thinkin' of you, I 'd ha' been twice as
strong, an' twice as clear-sighted as I was buf-
f ore. But — sich things as these burns me an'
weakens me and hurts my eyes that bad that
I kin scarcely look a man straight furard in
the face. Hit don't make much difference to
me now whether we whips the Yanks or they
whips us. . . . We is kin to a deserter ! . . .
I cain't shoot ye hardly. The same uns raised
us and fed us. I cain't do it; an' I am sorry
I caiu't." He then makes him swear a vow:
" God A'mighty 's a-lookin at you out o' the stars
yon, an' he 's a-listenin' at you out o' the sand
here, and he won't git tired by mornin'."

The coming of gunboats up the river scatters
the party in all directions, some to prison and
others to the final scenes around Kichmond, with
the burning of which the story closes, not, how
ever, before the palace in the mountains — where
John Sterling and his wife, Felix and Ottilie,
have spent the intervening time — is set fire to

86 SIDNEY LANIER

by Gorm Smallin. The story is scarcely signi
ficant enough to follow all the threads.

" Tiger Lilies " has the same place in Lanier's
life that " Hyperion " has in Longfellow's. They
are both failures as novels or romances, but they
are valuable as autobiographies. Instead of lay
ing the scene in Germany, which he had never
seen and yet yearned for, Lanier brings Ger
many to America. There are long disquisitions
on the place of music and science in the modern
world, many crude fancies, some striking de
scriptions of nature, some of which have already
been quoted. Above all, there is Lanier's idea of
what a musician or a poet ought to be, — a study,
therefore, of himself.

Perhaps the best single passage on music is
that describing Phil's playing of the flute. " It
is like walking in the woods, amongst wild flow
ers, just before you go into some vast cathedral.
For the flute seems to me to be peculiarly the
woods-instrument : it speaks the gloss of green
leaves or the pathos of bare branches ; it calls up
the strange mosses that are under dead leaves ;
it breathes of wild plants that hide and oak
fragrances that vanish ; it expresses to me the
natural magic of music. Have you ever walked
on long afternoons in warm, sunny spots of the
woods, and felt a sudden thrill strike you with
the half fear that a ghost would rise out of the

SEEKING A VOCATION 87

sedge, or dart from behind the next tree, and
confront you ? " l

Two passages may be cited to show the au
thor's tendency to use personifications and his
insight into the " burthen of the mystery of all
this unintelligible world : " —

" A terrible melee of winged opposites is for
ever filling the world with a battle din which
only observant souls hear: Love contending
with Impurity ; Passion springing mines under
the calm entrenchment of Reason ; scowling
Ignorance thrusting in the dark at holy-eyed
Reverence ; Romance deathfully encountering
Sentimentality on the one side and Common
place on the other ; young Sensibility clanging
swords with gigantic maudlin Conventionalities.
... I have seen no man who did not suffer
from the shock of these wars, unless he got help
from that One Man whom it is not unmanly to
acknowledge our superior." 2

" Nature has no politics. She '11 grow a rose
as well for York as Lancaster, and mayhap beat
both down next minute with a storm !

" She has no heart ; else she never had rained
on Lear's head.

" She has no eyes ; for, seeing, she could
never have drowned that dainty girl, Ophelia.

" She has no ears ; or she would hear the wild
l Tiger Lilies, p. 28. 2 Ibid. p. 41.

88 SIDNEY LANIER

Sabian hymns to Night and prayers to Day that
men are uttering evermore.

" O blind, deaf, no-hearted Beauty, we cannot
woo thee, for thou silently contemnest us ; we
cannot force thee, for thou art stronger than
we ; we cannot compromise with thee, for thou
art treacherous as thy seas ; what shall we do,
we, unhappy, that love thee, coquette Nature ? " 1

When " Tiger Lilies " appeared it was very fa
vorably received. Lanier writes to his brother of
the " continual heavy showers of compliment and
congratulation " that he has received in Macon ;
that the Macon paper had. an editorial on his
novel, and that a book firm in the town had
already disposed of a large number of copies.
Writing to Northrup, March 8, 1868, he says :
" My book has been as well received as a young
author could have expected on his first plunge,
and I have seen few criticisms upon it which are
not on the whole favorable. My publishers have
just made me an offer to bring out a second
edition on very fair terms ; from which I infer
that the sale of the article is progressing." 2 At
twenty-five, then, he was recognized as one of the
promising writers of the South ; a biographical
article referring to his recent success, the " Tiger
Lilies," was written by J. Wood Davidson for

1 Tiger Lilies, p. 178.

2 There was never a second edition, however.

SEEKING A VOCATION 89

his " Living Writers of the South," which ap
peared in 1869, and his name was sought by
ambitious editors of mushroom magazines that
sprang up in abundance after the war.

Lanier was not destined, however, to begin his
literary career as yet, nor was the South to have
such an easy way out of her disaster as he had
hoped. He had made only one reference to poli
tics in his romance, and that was his manly utter
ance in behalf of Jefferson Davis, who was then
confined in prison under rather disagreeable cir
cumstances at Fortress Monroe. He said, " If
there was guilt in any, there was guilt in nigh
all of us, between Maryland and Mexico ; Mr.
Davis, if he be termed the ringleader of the Re
bellion, was so, not by virtue of any instigating
act of his, but purely by the unanimous will and
appointment of the Southern people ; and the
hearts of the Southern people bleed to see how
their own act has resulted in the chaining of Mr.
Davis, who was as innocent as they, and in the
pardon of those who were guilty as he."

The Davis incident was an indication that
forces other than those which one might have
hoped to see were in the air. By the fall of 1867
the reaction against the magnanimous policy of
Lincoln had come in the North. Reconstruction
governments were being inaugurated throughout
the South. This was due in part to the lack of

90 SIDNEY LANIER

wisdom displayed by Southern legislatures under
the Johnson governments, — a "disposition on
the part of the Southern States to claim rights
instead of submitting to conditions," and harsh
laws of Southern legislatures concerning the
freedmen. It must be confessed that the extreme
men of the South were in some localities as rash,
unreasonable, and impracticable as the radicals
of the North. The magnanimous spirit of Lin
coln and the heroic, chivalric spirit of Lee could
not prevail in the two sections ; hence followed
a direful period in American history. As E. L.
Godkin said, " That the chapter which tells the
story of reconstruction should have followed in
American history the chapter which tells the
story of the war and emancipation, is something
over which many a generation will blush."

Again it must be said, as was said of the
effect of the war on the South, that reconstruc
tion was something more than excessive taxation,
grinding and unjust as that was, something
more than the fear of black domination, as un
thinkable as that is. There was the uncertainty
of the situation, the sense of despair that rankled
in the hearts of men, with the knowledge that
nothing the South could do could have any influ
ence in deciding its fate. It was the closing of
institutions of learning, or running them under
such circumstances that the better element of

SEEKING A VOCATION 91

the South could have nothing to do with them.
Lanier, writing about a position in the University
of Alabama which he very much desired, said :
" The trustees, who are appointees of the State,
are so hampered by the expected change of
State government that nothing can be certainly
predicated as to their action."

Lanier felt the effect of reconstruction at
every point, — he was baptized with the baptism
of the Southern people. The weight of that sad
time bore heavily upon him. As he had during
the war touched the experience of his people at
every point, so now he went down with them
into the Valley of Humiliation.

Under these circumstances his friend North-
rup wrote him, inviting him to go to Germany
with him. He replied: " Indeed, indeed, y'r
trip-to-Europe invitation finds me all thirsty to
go with you ; but, alas, how little do you know
of our wretched poverties and distresses here, —
that you ask me such a thing. ... It spoils our
dreams of Germany, ruthlessly. I 've been pre
siding over eighty-six scholars, in a large Aca
demy at Prattville, Ala., having two assistants
under me ; 't is terrible work, and the labor diffi
culties, with the recent poor price of cotton, con
spire to make the pay very slim. I think y'r
people can have no idea of the slow terrors with
which this winter has invested our life in the

92 SIDNEY LANIER

South. Some time I'm going to give you a few
simple details, which you must publish in your
paper."

Prattville, where he spent the winter of 1867-
68, was a small manufacturing town, with all the
crudeness of a new industrial order and without
any of the refinement to which Lanier had been
accustomed in Macon and elsewhere. Perhaps
there was never a time when drudgery so
weighed upon him, although his usual playful
ness is seen in the remark : " There is but one
man in my school who could lick me in a fair
fight, and he thinks me at once a Samson
and a Solomon." He worked for people who
thought that he was defrauding them if he did
not work from " sun up to sun down," as one of
his patrons expressed it. It was here, too, that
he suffered from his first hemorrhages. His
poetry written at this time was an expression
of the despair which prevailed throughout the
South. He whom the Civil War had not in
spired to speech, and who had kept silent under
the suffering of the days after the war, now
gave expression to his disgust and his indigna
tion. It is not great poetry, for Lanier was
not adapted to that kind of poetry, and conse
quently neither he nor his wife ever collected
all the poems. " Laughter in the Senate," pub
lished in the "Round Table," is typical of

SEEKING A VOCATION 93

a group, several of which he left in an old
ledger : —

Comes now the Peace, so long delayed ?
Is it the cheerful voice of aid ?
Begins the time, his heart has prayed,
When men may reap and sow ?

Ah, God ! back to the cold earth's breast!
The sages chuckle o'er their jest!
Must they, to give a people rest,
Their dainty wit forego ?

The tyrants sit in a stately hall;
They gibe at a wretched people's fall;
The tyrants forget how fresh is the pall
Over their dead and ours.

Look how the senators ape the clown,
And don the motley and hide the gown,
But yonder a fast rising frown

On the people's forehead lowers.

To the same effect he wrote in unpublished
poems, " Steel in Soft Hands " and " To Our
Hills : " -

We mourn your fall into daintier hands

Of senators, rosy fingered,
That wrote while you fought,

And afar from the battles lingered.

And again in " Raven Days " and " Tyranny: " —

Oh, Raven days, dark Raven days of sorrow,
Will ever any warm light come again ?

Will ever the lit mountains of To-morrow
Begin to gleam athwart the mournful plain ?

94 SIDNEY LANIER

Young Trade is dead,

And swart Work sullen sits in the hillside fern
And folds his arms that find no bread to earn,

And bows his head.

In a letter to his father, January 21, 1868,
he wrote : " There are strong indications here
of much bad feeling between the whites and
blacks, especially those engaged in the late row
at this place ; and I have fears, which are
shared by Mr. Pratt and many citizens here,
that some indiscretion of the more thoughtless
among the whites may plunge us into bloodshed.
The whites have no organization at all, and
the affair would be a mere butchery. . . . The
Canton imbroglio may precipitate matters."
Writing of laws passed by Congress, he said:
" Who will find words to express the sorrowful
surprise at their total absence of philosophical
insight into the age which has resulted in those
hundreds of laws recently promulgated by the
reigning body in the United States ; laws which,
if from no other cause, at least from sheer mul
tiplicity, are wholly at variance with the genius
of the time and of the people, laws which have
resulted in such a mass of crime and hatred and
bitterness as even the four terrible years of war
have entirely failed to bring about." 1

He recognized the need of some great man.

1 Retrospects and Prospects, p. 31.

SEEKING A VOCATION 95

A pilot, God, a pilot ! for the helm is left awry.

Years later, when the end of the reconstruc
tion period had come, he described a type of
man that was needed for this emergency : whether
he realized it or not, it was a wish that Abra
ham Lincoln might have been spared to meet the
situation. " I have been wondering where we
are going to get a Great Man, that will be tall
enough to see over the whole country, and to
direct that vast undoing of things which has got
to be accomplished in a few years. It is a situa
tion in which mere cleverness will not begin to
work. The horizon of cleverness is too limited ;
it does not embrace enough of the heart of man,
to enable a merely clever politician, such as those
in which we abound, to lead matters properly
in this juncture. The vast generosities which
whirl a small revenge out of the way, as the winds
whirl a leaf; the awful integrities which will
pay a debt twice rather than allow the faintest
flicker of suspicion about it ; the splendid indig
nations which are also tender compassions, and
will in one moment be hustling the money
changers out of the Temple, and in the next be
preaching Love to them from the steps of it, —
where are we to find these ? It is time for a man
to arise who is a man." l

This state of affairs here set forth in Lanier's
1 Letter to Judge Logan E. Bleckley, Nov. 15, 1874.

96 SIDNEY LANIER

words caused many to leave the South in absolute
despair of its future. It drove Maurice Thomp
son from Georgia to Indiana, and the Le Conte
brothers from Columbia to California. It caused
the middle-aged Lamar to stand sorrowfully at
his gate in the afternoons in Oxford, Missis
sippi, gazing wistfully into the west, while young
men like Henry Grady — naturally optimistic and
buoyant — wondered what could be the future
for them. There is no better evidence of the he
roism of Lanier than the way in which he met
the situation that confronted him. He found
refuge in intellectual work. In a letter to his
father he urges him to send him the latest maga
zines and books. June 1, 1868, he writes from
Prattville : " I shall go to work on my essays,
and on a course of study in German and in the
Latin works of Lucretius, whom I have long de
sired to study." In another letter he said : " I
have been deeply engaged in working out some
metaphysical ideas for some time, — an application
which goes on all the time, whether I sit at desk or
walk the streets." The volume of essays referred
to was never published, but we have some of
them in the essays " Ketrospects and Prospects,"
" Nature-Metaphors," and some unpublished ones
in an old ledger in which he wrote at this time,
such as " The Oversight of Modern Philosophy,"
" Cause and Effect," " Time and Space," " The

SEEKING A VOCATION 97

Solecisms of Mathematics," " Devil's Bombs,"
and other essays, which reveal Lanier's tendency
to speculative philosophy and his exuberant
fancy. In this same ledger he wrote down many
quotations, which show that at the time he was
not only keeping up with contemporary literature,
but continuing his reading in German poetry.

In the meantime, December 21, 1867, Lanier
had married Miss Mary Day. " Not even the wide-
mouthed, villainous-nosed, tallow-faced drudger
ies of my eighty-fold life," he wrote his father,
" can squeeze the sentiment out of me." From
the worldly standpoint it was a serious mistake
to marry, with no prospect of position and in the
general upheaval of society about them. But to
the two lovers no such considerations could ap
peal, and with his marriage to this accomplished
woman came one of the greatest blessings of
Lanier's life. It was " an idyllic marriage, which
the poet thought a rich compensation for all
the other perfect gifts which Providence denied
him." She was a sufferer like himself, but her
accuracy and alertness of mind, her rare appre
ciation of music, and her deep divining of his
own powers, made her the ideal wife of the poet.
Those who know " My Springs " and the series
of sonnets which he wrote to her during their
separation when he -was spending the winters in
Baltimore, need not be told of the part that this

98 SIDNEY LANIER

love played in his life. Perhaps there are no two
single lines in American poetry which express
better the deeper meaning of love than these : —

I marvel that God made you mine,
For when He frowns 't is then ye shine.

In his later lectures at the Peabody Institute in
Baltimore, contrasting the heroines of epic poetry
with the lyric woman of modern times, — the
patient wife in the secure home, — he said :
" But the daily grandeurs which every good wife,
no matter how uneventful her lot, must achieve,
the secret endurances which not only have no
poet to sing them, but no human eye even to see
them, the heroism which is as fine and bright at
two o'clock in the morning as it is at noonday,
all those prodigious fortitudes under sorrows
which one is scarcely willing to whisper even
to God Almighty, and of which probably every
delicate-souled woman knows, either by intuition
or actual experience, — this lyric heroism, alto
gether great and beautiful as it is, does not ap
pear, save by one or two brief glimpses, in the
early poetry of our ancestors." 1 He could not
have described better his own wife and all that
she was to be in the years to come. Her fame is
linked with his as is Clara Schumann's with that
of the great German musician.

1 Shakspere and his Forerunners, i, 99.

MARY DAY LANIER IN 1873

CHAPTER V

LAWYER AND TRAVELER

UNABLE to secure a position in a Southern col
lege or to make a living by literary work, La-
nier decided at the end of 1868 to take up the
profession of law. He was led to do so by the
earnest solicitation of his father. With his mind
once made up in that direction, he went to the
work with characteristic zeal. He displayed a
business-like and methodical spirit which at once
attracted attention. On November 19, 1869, he
wrote to his brother, who was urging him to go
into the cotton-mill business : " I have a far more
feasible project, which I have been long incubat
ing : let us go to Brunswick. We know some
thing of the law, and are rapidly knowing more ;
it is a business which is far better than that of
any salaried officer could possibly be. ... It
is best that you and I make up our minds imme
diately to be lawyers, nothing but lawyers, good
lawyers, and successful lawyers ; and direct all
our energies to this end. We are too far in life
to change our course now ; it would be greatly
disadvantageous to both of us. Therefore, to the

100 SIDNEY LANIER

law, Boy. It is your vocation ; stick to it : It
will presently reward you for your devotion."
The scheme did not materialize, however ; he
remained at Macon in the office of Lanier and
Anderson. He writes to Northrup, who has
again held out to him a plan for going to Ger
many : —

" As for my sweet old dreams of studying in
Germany, eheu ! here is come a wife, and by'r
Lady, a boy, a most rare-lung'd, imperious, world-
grasping, blue-eyed, kingly Manikin ; l and the
same must have his tiring-woman or nurse, mark
you, and his laces and embroideries and small car
riage, being now half a year old : so that, what with
mine ancient Money -Cormorants, the Butcher
and the Baker and the Tailor, my substance is
like to be so pecked up that I must stick fast
in Georgia, unless litigation and my reputation
should take a simultaneous start and both grow
outrageously. For, you must know, these South
ern colleges are all so poor that they hold out
absolutely no inducement in the way of support
to a professor : and so last January I suddenly
came to the conclusion that I wanted to make
some money for my wife and my baby, and in
continently betook me to studying Law : wherein
I am now well advanced, and, D. V., will be ad
mitted to the Bar in May next. My advantages

1 Charles Day Lanier. See poem, " Baby Charley."

LAWYER AND TRAVELER 101

are good, since my Father and uncle (firm of
Lanier and Anderson) are among the oldest
lawyers in the city and have a large practice, into
which I shall be quickly inducted.

" I have not, however, ceased my devotion to
letters, which I love better than all things in my
heart of hearts ; and have now in the hands of
the Lit. Bureau in N. Y. a vol. of essays. I 'm
(or rather have been) busy, too, on a long poem,
yclept the ' Jacquerie,' on which I had bestowed
more real work than on any of the frothy things
which I have hitherto sent out ; tho' this is
now necessarily suspended until the summer
shall give me a little rest from the office busi
ness with which I have to support myself while
I am studying law." 1

Lanier 's work as a lawyer was that of the
office, as he never practiced in the courts. To the
accuracy and fidelity of this work the words of
his successor, Chancellor Walter B. Hill of the
University of Georgia, bear testimony : —

" About 1874 or 1875 I became associated as
partner with the firm of Lanier and Anderson, in
whose office Sidney Lanier practiced law up to
the time he left Macon [1869-1873] —I do not
know whether he was a partner in the firm or
whether he merely used the same office. At any
rate, it seems that the greater part of his work
1 LippincotC s Magazine, March, 1905.

102 SIDNEY LANIER

consisted in the examination of titles. The firm
of Lanier and Anderson represented several
building and loan associations and had a large
business in this line of work. To examine a title,
as you know, requires a visit to what Oliver Wen
dell Holmes calls ' that cemetery of dead trans
actions,' the place for the official registry of deeds
and other muniments of title, called in Georgia
the office of the Clerk of the Superior Court.
One cannot imagine work that is more dry-as-
dust in its character than going over these records
for the purpose of tracing the successive links in
a chain of title. When I came into the firm I
had occasion frequently to examine the letter
press copybook in which Lanier's ' abstracts ' or
reports upon title had been copied. Not only
were the books themselves models of neatness,
but all his work in the examination of titles
showed the utmost thoroughness, patience, and
fidelity. The law of Georgia in regard to the
registration of titles was by no means perfect at
that time ; so imperfect, indeed, that I have known
prominent lawyers to refuse to engage in the
work on account of the risk of error involved.
I remained a member of the firm for some time
afterwards, but during the whole period of my
residence in Macon I never heard any question
raised as to the correctness and thoroughness of
Lanier's work in this difficult and intricate de-

LAWYER AND TRAVELER 103

partment of practice. In going over some of his
work I have often keenly felt the contrast between
such toil and that for which Lanier's genius fit
ted him. To find that the poet. spent many la
borious days in such uninspiring labor was as
great an anomaly as it would be to see a foun
tain spring from a bed of sawdust and 4 shake
its loosened silver in the sun.' " 1

While engaged in the practice of law, Lanier
now and then made public addresses. The most
important of these was the Confederate Memo
rial Address, April 26, 1870.2 The spirit and
the language of it are equally admirable. He who
had suffered all that any man could suffer dur
ing the Civil War and during the reconstruction
period shows that he has risen above all bitter
ness and prejudice. There is no threshing over
of dead issues. The spirit of the address is more
like that seen in the letters of Robert E. Lee
than any other thing written by Southerners dur
ing this period. Lanier is not yet national in his
point of view, but he represents the best attitude
of mind that could be held by the most liberal
of Southerners at that time. Standing in the
cemetery at Macon, — one of the most beautiful
in the Southern States, — he begins : " In the
unbroken silence of the dead soldierly forms that

1 Letter to the author.

2 Retrospects and Prospects, p. 94.

104 SIDNEY LANIER

lie beneath our feet ; in the winding processions
of these stately trees ; in the large tranquillity of
this vast and benignant heaven that overspreads
us ; in the quiet ripple of yonder patient river,
flowing down to his death in the sea ; in the
manifold melodies drawn from these green leaves
by wandering airs that go like Troubadours sing
ing in all the lands ; in the many- voiced memories
that flock into this day, and fill it as swallows
fill the summer, — in all these, there is to me so
voluble an eloquence to-day that I cannot but
shrink from the harsher sounds of my own hu
man voice." Taking these as a text, he comments
first on the necessity for silence in an age when
"trade is the most boisterous god of all the false
gods under heaven." The clatter of factories,
the clank of mills, the groaning of forges, the
sputtering and laboring of his water power, are
all lost sight of in contemplating the august
presence of the dead, who speak not. He speaks
next of the stateliness of the trees, which suggests
to him the stateliness of the two great heroes of
the Confederacy, Robert E. Lee and Stonewall
Jackson, — " bright, magnificent exemplars of
stateliness, — those noble figures that arose and
moved in splendid procession across the theatre
of our Confederate war ! " The patience of the
river suggests the soldiers who walked their life of
battle, " patient through heat and cold, through

LAWYER AND TRAVELER 105

rain and drought, through bullets and diseases,
through -hunger and nakedness, through rigor of
discipline and laxity of morals, ay, through the
very shards and pits of hell, down to the almost
inevitable death that awaited them."

The most significant passage, however, is his
appeal to the men and women of the South to
rise to the plane of tranquillity and magnanim
ity :-

" I spoke next of the tranquillity of the over-
spanning heavens. This, too, is a noble quality
which your Association tends to keep alive. Who
in all the world needs tranquillity more than we ?
I know not a deeper question in our Southern
life at this present time, than how we shall bear
our load of wrong and injury with the calmness
and tranquil dignity that become men and women
who would be great in misfortune ; and believe
me, I know not where we will draw deeper in
spirations of calm strength for this great emer
gency than in this place where we now stand, in
the midst of departed heroes who fought against
these things to death. Why, yonder lies my
brave, brilliant friend, Lamar ; and yonder, ge
nial Robert Smith ; and yonder, generous Tracy,
— gallant men, all, good knights and stainless
gentlemen. How calmly they sleep in the midst
of it ! Unto this calmness shall we come, at last.
If so, why should we disquiet our souls for the

106 SIDNEY LANIER

petty stings of our conquerors ? There comes a
time when conqueror and conquered shall alike
descend into the grave. In that time, O my
countrymen, in that time the conqueror shall be
ashamed of his lash, and the conquered shall be
proud of his calm endurance ; in that time the
conqueror shall hide his face, and the conquered
shall lift his head with an exultation in his tran
quil fortitude which God shall surely pardon !

" For the contemplation of this tranquillity, my
friends of this Association, in the name of a land
stung half to madness, I thank you.

" To-day we are here for love and not for hate.
To-day we are here for harinony and not for
discord. To-day we are risen immeasurably
above all vengeance. To-day, standing upon the
serene heights of forgiveness, our souls choir
together the enchanting music of harmonious
Christian civilization. To-day we will not dis
turb the peaceful slumbers of these sleepers with
music less sweet than the serenade of loving
remembrances, breathing upon our hearts as the
winds of heaven breathe upon these swaying
leaves above us."

Lanier did not abandon altogether his ideal
of doing literary work. He was much encour
aged at this time by a sympathetic correspondence
with Paul Hamilton Hayne, who, after the Civil

LAWYER AND TRAVELER 107

War, had settled in a little cottage near Au
gusta. His beautiful home in Charleston had
been burned to the ground and his large, hand
some library utterly lost. With heroic spirit at
a time when, as Lanier said of him, " the war of
secession had left the South in a condition which
appeared to render an exclusively literary life
a hopeless impossibility, he immured himself in
the woods of Georgia and gave himself wholly
to his pen." When Simms visited him here in
1866, the poet had for supplies " a box of hard
tack, two sides of bacon, and fourscore, more or
less, of smoked herring, a frying-pan and a grid
iron." He and his wife lived as simply as the
Hawthornes did in the Old Manse. His writing
desk was a carpenter's work-bench. He wrote
continually for the magazines, corresponded
with the poets of England and New England,
received visitors, with whom he talked about the
old days in Charleston when he and Timrod and
Simms had projected " Russell's Magazine," and
held out to young Southern writers the encour
agement of an older brother.

It was this man who, at a critical time in
Lanier's life, inspired him to believe that he
might succeed in a literary career. " I have had
constantly in mind the kindly help and encour
agement which your cheering words used to
bring me when I was even more obscure than I

108 SIDNEY LANIER

am now," wrote the younger poet at a later time.
He did not have time, however, to act on this
encouragement. He wrote now and then a dia
lect poem which was printed in the Georgia
dailies and attracted attention by its humor and
its insight into contemporary life, and occasion
ally an exquisite lyric like " Nirvana." In the
main he had to say : —

" I have not put pen to paper in a literary
way in a long time. How I thirst to do so, —
how I long to sing a thousand various songs that
oppress me, unsung, — is inexpressible. Yet the
mere work that brings me bread gives me no
time. I know not, after all, if this is a sorrow
ful thing. Nobody likes my poems except two
or three friends, — who are themselves poets,
and can supply themselves ! " And yet he writes,
" It gives me great encouragement that you
think I might succeed in the literary life ; for
I take it that you are in earnest in saying so, be
lieving that you love Art with too genuine affec
tion to trifle with her by bringing to her service,
through mere politeness, an unworthy worker."1

Hayne was impressed with Lanier's intimate
knowledge of Elizabethan and older English liter
ature, as displayed in his letters of this period.
He says : —

" He had steeped his imagination from boy-

1 Letters, passim.

LAWYER AND TRAVELER 109

hood in the writings of the earlier English an
nalists and poets, — Geoffrey of Monmouth, Sir
Thomas Mallory, Gower, Chaucer, and the whole
bead-roll of such ancient English worthies. I
was of course a little surprised during our earlier
epistolary communion to perceive, not only his un
usually thorough knowledge of Chaucer, for exam
ple, whose couplets flowed as trippingly from his
pen as if ' The Canterbury Tales ' arid < The Ro-
maunt of the Rose ' were his daily mental food,
but to find him quoting as naturally and easily
from 4 Piers Plowman ' and scores of the half-
obsolete ballads of the English and Scottish
borders.

" He gloried in antiquarian lore and antiqua
rian literature. Hardly 4 Old Monkbarns ' him
self could have pored over a black-letter volume
with greater enthusiasm. Especially he loved the
tales of chivalry, and thus, when the opportunity
came, was fully equipped as an interpreter of
Froissart and ' King 'Arthur ' for the benefit of
our younger generation of students. With the
great Elizabethans Lanier was equally familiar.
Instead of skimming Shakespeare, he went down
into his depths. Few have written so subtly
of Shakespeare's mysterious sonnets. Through
all Lanier's productions we trace the influence
of his early literary loves ; but nowhere do the
pithy quaintnesses of the old bards and chron-

110 SIDNEY LANIER

iclers display themselves more effectively — not
only in the illustrations, but through the inner
most warp and woof of the texture of his ideas
and his style — than in some of his familiar
epistles." l

That Lanier kept in touch, too, with contem
porary literature is shown by an acute criticism
of Browning's " The Ring and the Book," then
recently published : " Have you seen Browning's
* The Ring and the Book ? ' I am confident that,
at the birth of this man, among all the good
fairies who showered him with magnificent en
dowments, one bad one — as in the old tale —
crept in by stealth and gave him a constitutional
twist i' the neck, whereby his windpipe became,
and has ever since remained, a marvelous tor
tuous passage. Out of this glottis-labyrinth his
words won't, and can't, come straight. A hitch
and a sharp crook in every sentence bring you
up with a shock. But what a shock it is ! Did
you ever see a picture of 'a lasso, in the act of
being flung ? In a thousand coils and turns, in
extricably crooked and involved and whirled, yet,
if you mark the noose at the end, you see that
it is directly in front of the bison's head, there,
and is bound to catch him ! That is the way
Robert Browning catches you. The first sixty
or seventy pages of 'The Ring and the Book'
1 Letters, p. 220.

LAWYER AND TRAVELER 111

are altogether the most doleful reading, in point
either of idea or of music, in the English lan
guage ; and yet the monologue of Giuseppe
Caponsacchi, that of Pompilia Comparini, and
the two of Guido Franceschini, are unapproach
able, in their kind, by any living or dead poet,
mejudice. Here Browning's jerkiness comes in
with inevitable effect. You get lightning glimpses
— and, as one naturally expects from lightning,
zigzag glimpses — into the intense night of the
passion of these souls. It is entirely wonderful
and without precedent. The fitful play of Guido's
lust, and scorn, and hate, and cowardice, closes
with a master stroke : —

" Christ ! Maria ! God ! . . .

Pompilia, will you let them murder me ?

" Pompilia, mark you, is dead, by Guido's own
hand ; deliberately stabbed, because he hated
her purity, which all along he has reviled and
mocked with the Devil's own malignant inge
nuity of sarcasm." *

On account of ill health Lanier frequently
had to leave Macon and go to places better suited
to his physical temperament. At Brunswick,
Georgia, — the scene of the Marsh poems, — at
Alleghany Springs in Virginia, and at Lookout
Mountain in Tennessee, he spent successive sum
mers. In all of these places he reveled in the
1 Letters, p. 206; letter to Hayne, April 13, 1870.

112 SIDNEY LANIER

beauty and grandeur of the scenery. His let
ters written to his wife and his father during
his absences from Macon are evidence that
he was at this time developing steadily in that
subtle appreciation of nature which was after
wards to play such an important part in his
poetry. In fact, the letters themselves, when
published, as they will be some time, show ar
tistic growth when compared with the writings
already noted. He was all his life a prolific
letter- writer — and a great one. Writing from
Alleghany Springs, July 12, 1872, he says to
his wife : —

"How necessary is it that one should occa
sionally place oneself in the midst of those more
striking forms of nature in which God has
indulged His fantasy ! It is very true that the
flat land, the bare hillside, the muddy stream
comes also directly from the creative hand : but
these do not bring one into the sweetness of the
heartier moods of God ; in the midst of them
it is as if one were transacting the business of
life with God: whereas, when one has but to
lift one's eyes in order to receive the exquisite
shocks of thrilling form and color and motion
that leap invisibly from mountain and groves
and stream, then one feels as if one had sur
prised the Father in his tender, sportive, and
loving moments.

LAWYER AND TRAVELER 113

" To the soul then, weak with the long flesh
fight and filled with a sluggish languor by those
wearisome disappointments which arise from the
constant contemplation of men's weaknesses, and
from the constant back-thrusting of one's con
sciousness of impotence to strengthen them —
thou, with thy nimble fancy, canst imagine what
ethereal and yet indestructible essences of new
dignity, of new strength, of new patience, of
new serenity, of new hope, new faith, and new
love, do continually flash out of the gorges, the
mountains, and the streams, into the heart, and
charge it, as the lightnings charge the earth,
with subtle and heavenly fires.

" A bewildering sorcery seems to spread itself
over even those things which are commonplace.
The songs and cries of birds acquire a strange
sound to me : I cannot understand the little
spontaneous tongues, the quivering throats, the
open beaks, the small bright eyes that gleam with
unknown emotion, the nimble capricious heads
that twist this way and that with such bizarre
unreasonableness.

" Nor do I fathom this long unceasing mono
tone of the little shallow river that sings yonder
over the rocks in its bosom as a mother crooning
over her children ; it is but one word the stream
utters : but as when we speak a well-known word
over and over again until it comes to have a

114 SIDNEY LANIER

frightful mystery in it, so this familiar stream-
sound fills me with indescribable wonder.

" Nor do I comprehend the eloquence of the
mountains which comes in a strange patois of
two tongues ; for the mountains speak at once
the languages of repose and of convulsion, two
languages which have naught in common.

" Wondering therefore, from day to night,
with a good wonder which directs attention not
to one's ignorance but to God's wisdom, stricken,
but not exhausted, by continual tranquil sur
prises ; surrounded by a world of enchantments
which, so far from being elusive, are the most
substantial of realties, — thou knowest that na
ture is kind to me."

He went to New York in 1869, 1870, and
1871, now on business and now to consult medi
cal experts. In May, 1869, we find him trying
to make the sale of some property on which iron
was supposed to be. He writes his father that
he has been down on Wall Street all day. There
is — now as compared with his 1867 visit — a
certain fascination for him in the intense spirit
of hurry which displays itself on every side. He
finds himself in competition with many South
erners who were at that time projecting similar
enterprises. He is also visiting the clients of
Lanier and Anderson, and is anxious to extend the
firm's name. He is given much social attention,

LAWYER AND TRAVELER 115

— " teas, dinners, calls, visits, business " con
sume his time. He visits the superb villa of his
cousin on the Hudson near Poughkeepsie1. He
writes, on May 15, that he is beginning " to feel
entirely unflurried in the crowd and to go about
business deliberately." He is in New York again
in 1871, when the Tweed ring is being exposed,
and he cannot but compare the situation there
with the reconstruction government that prevails
in his own State. " Somehow this is n't a good
day for thieves," he says. " Would n't it be a
curious and refreshing phenomenon if Tweed,
Hall, Bullock,1 and that ilk should all continue
in the service of the State — only changing the
scene of their labors from the office to the peni
tentiary ? "

Most of all, however, Lanier was interested in
the music which he heard on these trips to the
metropolis. He had kept up his flute-playing
while busy with his law work, frequently playing
at charity concerts in Macon and other cities of
Georgia. In New York he reveled in the singing
of Nilsson, in religious music at St. Paul's
Church, but above all in Theodore Thomas's
orchestra, then just beginning its triumphant
career. He writes, August 15, 1870 : " Ah, how
they have belied Wagner! I heard Theodore
Thomas's orchestra play his overture to ' Tann-

1 Governor of Georgia during reconstruction days.

116 SIDNEY LANIER

hauser.' The ' Music of the Future ' is surely
thy music and my music. Each harmony was a
chorus of pure aspirations. The sequences flowed
along, one after another, as if all the great and
noble deeds of time had formed a procession and
marched in review before one's ears instead of
one's eyes. These ' great and noble deeds '
were not deeds of war and statesmanship, but
majestic victories of inner struggles of a man.
This unbroken march of beautiful-bodied Tri
umphs irresistibly invites the soul of a man to
create other processions like it. I would I might
lead a so magnificent file of glories into
heaven!"1

And again, in 1871 : " And to-night I come
out of what might have been heaven. . . .

" 'T was opening night of Theodore Thomas's
orchestra, at Central Park Garden, and I could
not resist the temptation to go and bathe in the
sweet amber seas of the music of this fine or
chestra, and so I went, and tugged me through a
vast crowd, and, after standing some while, found
a seat, and the baton tapped and waved, and I
plunged into the sea, and lay and floated. Ah !
the dear flutes and oboes and horns drifted me
hither and thither, and the great violins and small
violins swayed me upon waves, and overflowed
me with strong lavations, and sprinkled glisten-

1 Letters, p. 68.

LAWYER AND TRAVELER 117

ing foam in my face, and in among the clarinetti,
as among waving water-lilies with flexile stems,
I pushed my easy way, and so, even lying in the
music-waters, I floated and flowed, my soul ut
terly bent and prostrate." 1

In November, 1872, Lanier went to San An
tonio in quest of health. In letters to his father
giving an account of his trip from New Orleans
to Galveston and thence to Austin, he shows
keen insight into the life of that State. He
sketches many types of character and scenes —
sketches that show at once his knowledge of
human nature and his ability as a reporter. It
may be said here that Lanier always took an
interest in the passing show, — he was not a de
tached dreamer. He arrived at San Antonio in
November. On account of his ill health he could
write but few letters, although he is " fairly
reeking with all manner of quips and quiddities
which I yearn to spread for the delectation of
such a partial set of people as a home set always
is." He writes to his sister : " To-day has been
as lovely as any day can hope to be this side of
Millennium ; and I have been out strolling morn
ing and afternoon, far and wide, ever tempted
onward by the delicious buoyant balm in the air
and pleasantly surprised in finding what a dis
tance I could accomplish without over fatigue."

1 Letters, p. 70.

118 SIDNEY LANIER

He rode horseback a great deal — a form of
exercise he was especially fond of all his life.

In a letter to his father he refers to some work
he is doing in the library : " I have also man
aged to advance very largely my conceptions of
the Jacquerie through a history which I secured
from the Library of the Alamo Literary Society,
— a flourishing institution here which is now
building a hall to cost some thirteen thousand
dollars, and of which I have become a literary
member." He has been reading Michelet's " His
tory of France " which " gives him the essence of
an old book which he had despaired of ever see
ing, but which is the only authority extant, —
save Froissart and a few others equally unreli
able ; it is the chronicle of the ' Continuator of
Guillaurne de Nangis.' " With Olmsted's book
of travels as a model, he planned a series of
articles for a New York paper.

The only result, however, from these plans
was a picturesque sketch of San Antonio,1 after
wards published in the " Southern Magazine."
This sketch is at once a history of San Antonio
and a description of the scenery and the people
of that quaint city. " Over all the round of as
pects in which a thoughtful mind may view a city,"
he says in a typical passage, " it bristles with strik
ing idiosyncrasies and bizarre contrasts. Its his-
1 Retrospects and Prospects, p. 34.

LAWYER AND TRAVELER 119

tory, population, climate, location, architecture,
soil, water, customs, costumes, horses, cattle, all
attract the stranger's attention, either by force
of intrinsic singularity or of odd juxtapositions.
It was a puling infant for a century and a quar
ter, yet has grown to a pretty vigorous youth
in a quarter of a century; its inhabitants are
so varied that the 4 go slow ' directions over its
bridges are printed in three languages, and the
religious services in its churches held in four ;
the thermometer, the barometer, the vane, the
hygrometer, oscillate so rapidly, so frequently, so
lawlessly, and through so wide a meteorological
range, that the climate is simply indescribable,
yet it is a growing resort for consumptives ; it
stands with all its gay prosperity just in the edge
of a lonesome, untilled belt of land one hundred
and fifty miles wide, like Mardi Gras on the aus
tere brink of Lent ; it has no Sunday laws, and
that day finds its bar-rooms and billiard-saloons
as freely open and as fully attended as its
churches ; its buildings, ranging from the Mexican
jacal to the San Fernando Cathedral, represent
all the progressive stages of man's architectural
progress in edifices of mud, of wood, of stone, of
iron, and of sundry combinations of those mate
rials ; its soil is in wet weather an inky-black
cement, but in dry a floury- white powder ; it is
built along both banks of two limpid streams,

120 SIDNEY LANIER

yet it drinks rain water collected in cisterns ; its
horses and mules are from Lilliput, while its
oxen are from Brobdingnag." In the same vivid
style he sketches the various characteristics of
the city and its people. His account of a Texas
" norther," his descriptions of the San Fernando
Cathedral and of the Mission San Jose de
Aquayo are especially good.

It was on this visit to San Antonio that Lanier
resolved finally to devote himself to an artist's
career. He came in contact with some of the
German musicians of the city and played before
the Maennerchor, which received his flute-play
ing with enthusiastic applause.

SAN ANTONIO, TEX., January 30, 1873.
Last night at eight o'clock came Mr. Scheide-
mantel, a genuine lover of music and a fine pian
ist, to take me to the Maennerchor, which meets
every Wednesday night for practice. Quickly
we came to a hall, one end of which was occupied
by a minute stage with appurtenances, and a
piano ; and in the middle thereof a long table,
at which each singer sat down as he came in.
Presently, seventeen Germans were seated at the
singing-table, long-necked bottles of Rhine-wine
were opened and tasted, great pipes and cigars
were all afire ; the leader, Herr Thielepape, -
an old man with long, white beard and mustache,

LAWYER AND TRAVELER 121

formerly mayor of the city, — rapped his tuning-
fork vigorously, gave the chords by rapid arpeg
gios of his voice (a wonderful, wild, high tenor,
such as thou wouldst dream that the old Welsh
harpers had, wherewith to sing songs that would
cut against the fierce sea-blasts), and off they
all swung into such a noble, noble old German
full-voiced lied, that imperious tears rushed into
my eyes, and I could scarce restrain myself
from running and kissing each one in turn and
from howling dolefully the while. And so ...
I all the time worshiping . . . with these great
chords ... we drove through the evening until
twelve o'clock, absorbing enormous quantities of
Rhine-wine and beer, whereof I imbibed my full
share. After the second song I was called on to
play, and lifted my poor old flute in air with
tumultuous, beating heart ; for I had no confi
dence in that or in myself. But, du Himmel !
Thou shouldst have heard mine old love warble
herself forth. To my utter astonishment, I was
perfect master of the instrument. Is not this
most strange ? Thou knowest I had never learned
it ; and thou rememberest what a poor muddle I
made at Marietta in playing difficult passages ;
and I certainly have not practiced ; and yet there
I commanded and the blessed notes obeyed me,
and when I had finished, amid a storm of ap
plause, Herr Thielepape arose and ran to me

122 SIDNEY LANIER

and grasped my hand, and declared that he hat
never heert de flude accompany itself pefore 1 I
played once more during the evening, and ended
with even more rapturous bravos than before,
Mr. Scheidemantel grasping my hand this time,
and thanking me very earnestly.

My heart, which was hurt greatly when I went
into the music-room, came forth from the holy
bath of concords greatly refreshed, strengthened,
and quieted, and so remaineth to-day. I also feel
better than in a long time before.1

Again he played for "an elegant - looking
company of ladies and gentlemen " in a private
home. " I had not played three seconds," he says,
" before a profound silence reigned among the
people, seeing which, and dreaming wildly, and
feeling somehow in an eerie and elfish, and half-
uncanny mood, I flew off into all manner of
trills, and laments, and cadenza-monstrosities for
a long time, but finally floated down into 4 La
Melancolie,' which melted itself forth with such
eloquent lamenting that it almost brought my
tears — and, to make a long story short, when I
allowed the last note to die, a simultaneous cry
of pleasure broke forth from men and women
that almost amounted to a shout." 2 Two weeks
later he wrote : " I have writ the most beautiful
piece, 'Field-larks and Blackbirds,' wherein I
1 Letters, p. 71. 2 Letters, p. 73.

LAWYER AND TRAVELER 123

have mirrored Mr. Field-lark's pretty eloquence
so that I doubt he would know the difference
betwixt the flute and his own voice."1

Inspired by the sympathy of people in whose
judgment he had confidence, and impelled by his
own genius asserting itself, and realizing that
his hold upon life was but slight, he went from
San Antonio in April, 1873, with the fixed pur
pose to give the remainder of his life to music
and poetry. The resolution is all the more sig
nificant when it is remembered that the year
1873 was one of financial distress, especially in
the South. " It was then," says Joel Chandler
Harris, " that the effects of war and waste were
fully felt, and then that the stoutest heart was
tried, labor was restless and hard to control, the
planter was out of funds and interest was high,
. . . the farmers were almost at the point of
desperation."

The formation of this resolution to devote
himself to artistic work marks an epoch in
Lanier's life so important as to call for further
comment. For twelve years he had been de
flected out of his true orbit. For seven years he
had given his time and talent to pursuits which
he did not cherish — writing only now and then
with his left hand. Everything had been against
him. To preserve unspotted the ideal of his
1 Letters, p. 47.

124 SIDNEY LANIER

youth — through all the changes and struggles
of these years — and now to give himself to it
meant heroism of a rare type. It meant that he
must seem disobedient to a father with whom his
relation had been peculiarly intimate, that he
would go in the face of the opinion of friends
and relatives, and that he must for a while at
least leave behind his family, whom he loved with
an unparalleled affection. He was to enter upon
a career the future of which was not certain. In
spite of all these obstacles, he deliberately made
up his mind to give the remainder of his life to
the work that he loved. Once again, after he had
settled down in Baltimore, his father made a
determined effort to induce him to change his
mind, but to no avail. Lanier's answer to his
father's letter, written November 29, 1873, is
really his declaration of independence — the vow
of consecration : —

" I have given your last letter the fullest and
most careful consideration. After doing so I feel
sure that Macon is not the place for me. If you
could taste the delicious crystalline air, and the
champagne breeze that I 've just been rushing
about in, I am equally sure that in point of
climate you would agree with me that my chance
for life is ten times as great here as in Macon.
Then, as to business, why should I, nay, how
can I, settle myself down to be a third-rate

LAWYER AND TRAVELER 125

struggling lawyer for the balance of my little
life, as long as there is a certainty almost abso
lute that I can do some other thing so much
better? Several persons, from whose judgment
in such matters there can be no appeal, have
told me, for instance, that I am the greatest
flute-player in the world ; and several others, of
equally authoritative judgment, have given me
an almost equal encouragement to work with my
pen. (Of course I protest against the necessity
which makes me write such things about myself.
I only do so because I so appreciate the love and
tenderness which prompt you to desire me with
you that I will make the fullest explanation pos
sible of my course, out of reciprocal honor and
respect for the motives which lead you to think
differently from me.) My dear father, think
how, for twenty years, through poverty, through
pain, through weariness, through sickness,
through the uncongenial atmosphere of a farcical
college and of a bare army and then of an exact
ing business life, through all the discouragement
of being wholly unacquainted with literary peo
ple and literary ways, — I say, think how, in
spite of all these depressing circumstances, and
of a thousand more which I could enumerate,
these two figures of music and of poetry have
steadily kept in my heart so that I could not
banish them. Does it not seem to you as to

126 SIDNEY LANIER

me, that I begin to have the right to enroll my
self among the devotees of these two sublime
arts, after having followed them so long and so
humbly, and through so much bitterness? " 1

The letter just quoted needs to be read with
caution. It sets in too sharp antagonism his
life up to this point and that of his later years.
Previous chapters of this book have been written
in vain if they have not revealed the fact that
Lanier was a much more highly developed man
when he left Georgia than the letter would indi
cate. He wrote it in the first flush of enthusiasm
at finding himself among artists. But it is mis
leading. For instance, he speaks of the " farcical
college ; " yet in his last days, when he saw his
life in its proper perspective, he said that he
owed to Dr. Woodrow the strongest and most
valuable stimulus of his early life. He was not a
raw provincial ; he had traveled extensively, had
been associated with people of culture, if not of
letters, and he had read widely and wisely. His
inheritance from Southern people, — their tem
perament and their civilization, — and his in
debtedness to Southern scenery will be the more
apparent in later chapters of this book. All the
while his genius had been steadily growing.
When the time came he was a prepared man —

1 Quoted by William Hayes Ward in his Introduction to
Lanier's Poems.

LAWYER AND TRAVELER 127

ready to seize with avidity every opportunity
that presented itself.

Furthermore, the very struggle he had to main
tain his ideal, and it will not do to minimize this
struggle, had strengthened and enlarged his soul.
One may as well lament Milton's absorption in
the conflicts of his country as Lanier's partici
pation in the war and in the stirring events of
reconstruction. After the fortitude and endur
ance manifested in this period of his life, his
later sufferings were the more easily borne. One
of his favorite theories was that antagonism or
opposition either in art or morals is to be wel
comed, for out of it comes a finer art and a
larger manhood. He developed somewhat at
length this theory in his admirable study of
Shakespeare's growth. In a passage evidently
autobiographical he traces Shakespeare's progress
in the three periods of his life, the Dream Period,
the Real or Harnlet Period, and the Ideal Period.
Lanier, too, passed through his Dream Period, —
the college days and the early years of the war.
He passed through his Hamlet Period — the
years from 1865 to 1873 — years in which he
felt the shock of the real, the twist and cross of
life. There had been suffering from poverty,
drudgery, and disease ; there had been also some
thing of the storm and stress of religious and
philosophic doubt. With the beginning of his

128 SIDNEY LANIER

artistic life he passes into his Ideal Period, when
by reason of the terrific shock of the real he was
able to realize " a new and immortally fine re
construction of his youth." He was to know what
suffering meant in the future ; but the serenity
and joy of his life from this point are apparent
to all who may study it.

Of fret, of dark, of thorn, of chill,

Complain no more ; for these, 0 heart,

Direct the random of the will

As rhymes direct the rage of art.

CHAPTER VI

A MUSICIAN IN BALTIMORE

WITH his purpose firmly fixed in his mind he
started for New York, which was then fast be
coming the musical and literary centre of the
country. For three months and more he gave him
self unstintedly to the work of perfecting himself
in playing the flute, and attended regularly the
great concerts then being given by Theodore
Thomas. It was an opportune time. The day of
the Italian opera, for which Lanier did not care,
was past, and orchestral music was beginning its
triumphant career in this country. These were
months, then, of education in the very music for
which Lanier had yearned. He at once attracted
musical critics and made a stir in some of the
churches and concert-rooms of the city. He had
brought along with him two of his own compo
sitions, " Swamp Robin" and "Blackbirds ; " and
there were some who did not hesitate to pro
phesy a brilliant career for him as " the greatest
flute-player in the world." Lanier did not rely
on inspiration, however, nor was he satisfied with
the applause of popular audiences ; he knew that

130 SIDNEY LANIER

his course must be one of " straightforward be
havior and hard work and steady improvement."
He would be satisfied only with the judgment
of Thomas or Dr. Leopold Damrosch, then con
ductor of the Philharmonic Society.

On his way to New York he had stopped at
Baltimore, and on the advice of his friend Henry
Wysham had played for Asger Hamerik, who
was at that time making efforts to have the Pea-
body Institute establish an orchestra. Hamerik
was so attracted by Lanier's playing, both of
masterpieces and of his own compositions, that
he invited him to become first flute in the pro
spective orchestra. With even this promise in
view, Lanier had written to his wife: "It is
therefore a possibility . . . that I may be first
flute in the Peabody Orchestra, on a salary of
$120 a month, which, with five flute scholars,
would grow to $200 a month, and so ... we
might dwell in the beautiful city, among the
great libraries, and midst of the music, the re
ligion, and the art that we love — and I could
write my books and be the man I wish to be." 1
Hamerik did succeed in getting the orchestra
established and Lanier accepted the position —
for far less money, however. Lanier settled in
Baltimore, in December, and at once attracted the
attention of the patrons of the orchestra. In the

1 Letters, p. 75.

A MUSICIAN IN BALTIMORE 131

Baltimore " Sun " of December 8, 1873, his
playing was mentioned as one of the features
of the opening symphony concert. In the same
paper of January 25 occurs this note : " Lanier
and Stubbs could not have acquitted themselves
better, nor done more justice to their very diffi
cult parts." And so throughout the winter there
is contemporary evidence that this "raw pro
vincial, without practice and guiltless of instruc
tion," was holding his own with the finely trained
Germans and Danes of Hamerik's Orchestra.

The fact is, Lanier was a musical genius. In
playing the flute he combined deftness of hand
and quick intuitiveness of soul. The director of
the Peabody Orchestra, who had been a pupil of
Von Biilow, and was a composer of distinction,
has left the most authoritative account of Lanier
as a performer : —

" To him as a child in his cradle Music was
given, the heavenly gift to feel and to express
himself in tones. His human nature was like an
enchanted instrument, a magic flute, or the lyre
of Apollo, needing but a breath or a touch to send
its beauty out into the world. It was indeed ir
resistible that he should turn with those poetical
feelings which transcend language to the pene
trating gentleness of the flute, or the infinite
passion of the violin ; for there was an agreement,
a spiritual correspondence between his nature

132 SIDNEY LANIER

and theirs, so that they mutually absorbed and
expressed each other. In his hands the flute no
longer remained a mere material instrument, but
was transformed into a voice that set heavenly
harmonies into vibration. Its tones developed
colors, warmth, and a low sweetness of unspeak
able poetry ; they were not only true and pure,
but poetic, allegoric as it were, suggestive of the
depths and heights of being and of the delights
which the earthly ear never hears and the earthly
eye never sees. No doubt his firm faith in these
lofty idealities gave him the power to present
them to our imaginations, and thus by the aid of
the higher language of Music to inspire others
with that sense of beauty in which he constantly
dwelt. His conception of music was not reached
by an analytic study of note by note, but was in
tuitive and spontaneous ; like a woman's reason :
he felt it so, because he felt it so, and his delicate
perception required no more logical form of rea
soning. His playing appealed alike to the musi
cally learned and to the unlearned — for he would
magnetize the listener ; but the artist felt in his
performance the superiority of the momentary
living inspiration to all the rules and shifts of
mere technical scholarship. His art was not only
the art of art, but an art above art. I will never
forget the impression he made on me when he
played the flute concerta of Emil Hartmann at

A MUSICIAN IN BALTIMORE 133

a Peabody symphony concert, in 1878, — his tall,
handsome, manly presence, his flute breathing
noble sorrows, noble joys, the orchestra softly re
sponding. The audience was spellbound. Such
distinction, such refinement! He stood, the
master, the genius ! " 1

He made the same impression on every other
artist he ever played for. Badger called his flute-
playing " astonishing ; " Wehner, the first flute
in Thomas's Orchestra, sought every opportunity
to play with him. Theodore Thomas planned to
have him in his orchestra at the time when
Lanier's health failed in 1876 ; Dr. Damrosch
said he played " Wind-Song " like an artist, —
that " he was greatly astonished and pleased with
the poetry of the piece and the enthusiasm of its
rendering."

His own compositions, too, appealed to men.
At times the " fury of creation " was upon him.
During the first winter in Baltimore he wrote a
midge dance, the origin of which he thus gives
in a letter to his wife : " I am copying off — in
order to try the publishers therewith — a 4Danse
des Moucherons ' (midge dance), which I have
written for flute and piano, and which I think
enough of to let go forward as Op. 1. Dost thou
remember one morning last summer, Charley and
I were walking in the upper part of the yard,

1 Quoted in Ward's Introduction to Poems.

134 SIDNEY LANIER

before breakfast, and saw a swarm of gnats, of
whose strange evolutions we did relate to thee a
marvelous tale ? I have put the grave oaks, the
quiet shade, the sudden sunlight, the fantastic,
contrariwise, and ever-shifting midge movements,
the sweet hills afar off, ... all in the piece,
and thus / like it ; but I know not if others will,
I have not played it for anybody. " *

During this winter and the succeeding one
Lanier gave almost his entire time to music. He
practiced assiduously, took every opportunity to
play with the best musicians, — both those of
his own orchestra and of Theodore Thomas's, —
and often spent evenings with three or four of
the choicest spirits he could command. Hamerik
was of special inspiration to him, bringing to
him as he did much of the spirit of music that
prevailed in German cities. Lanier studied the
technique of the flute, mastering his new silver
Boehm, which " begins to feel me," he writes.
" How much I have learned in the last two
months ! " he exclaims. " I am not yet an art
ist, though, on the flute. The technique of the
instrument has many depths which I had not
thought of before, and I would not call myself
a virtuoso within a year." He suffers agony
because he does not attain a point in harmony
which the audience did not notice. Writing of
1 Letters, p. 98.

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A MUSICIAN IN BALTIMORE 135

the temptation of flute soloists, he once said :
" They have rarely been able to resist the fatal
facility of the instrument, and have usually ad
dressed themselves to winning the applause of con
cert audiences by the execution of those brilliant
but utterly trifling and inane variations which
constitute the great body of existing solos for
the flute." * He fretted because " the flute had
been the black beast in the orchestra." With
his mastery of its technique and his own marvel
ous ability to bring new results from it, he looked
forward to the time when it would have a far
more important place therein.

Lanier played not only for the Peabody
Orchestra, but for the Germania Mannerchor
Orchestra, — one of the many companies of
Germans who did so much to develop music in
different parts of the country, — the Concordia
Theatre, charity concerts, churches, and in pri
vate homes. He was very popular in Baltimore.
Most of the musicians were Germans, but Lanier
was an American and a Southerner, who had
graces of manner and goodness of soul. He was
a close friend of the Baltimore musicians, such
as Madame Falk-Auerbach, a pupil of Kossini's
and a teacher in the Conservatory of Music, " a
woman who plays Beethoven with the large con
ception of a man, and yet nurses her children all
1 Music and Poetry, p. 38.

138 SIDNEY LANIER

lecture on the same, with special reference to the
function performed by each instrument, and in
the formation of harmonious tonal color." 1

While Lanier was giving his time to the per
fection of his flute-playing and to the study of
the orchestra, he became interested in the sci
ence of music. Helmholtz's recent discoveries in
acoustics inspired him to make research in that
direction. He ransacked the Peabody Library
for books on the subject, many of them yet not
unpacked.

While few people ever appreciated more the
art of music and its spiritual message to men,
he realized that there was a science of music as
well, " embodying a great number of classified
facts, and presenting a great number of scientific
laws which are as thoroughly recognized among
musicians as are the laws of any other sciences
among their professors. There is a science of
harmony, a science of composition, a science of
orchestration, a science of performance upon
stringed instruments, a science of performance
upon wind instruments, a science of vocalization ;
not a branch of the art of music but has its own
analogous body of classified facts and general
laws. Music is so much a science that a man
may be a thorough musician who has never
written a tune and who cannot play upon any

1 Letter from Mr. F. H. Gottlieb to the author.

A MUSICIAN IN BALTIMORE 139

instrument." l Some of these investigations
he afterwards used to good effect in his " Sci
ence of English Verse."

Furthermore, Lanier became interested in the
history of music. In his valuable monograph on
" Music in Shakespeare's Time " 2 he shows
a minute knowledge of Elizabethan music, —
madrigals, dances, catches, and other forms of
instrumental and vocal music. He took great
delight in following out through Shakespeare's
plays the dramatist's knowledge and appreci
ation of the art of music. Indeed, all the
people of that time were " enthusiastic lovers of
the art. There were professorships of music in
the universities, and multitudes of teachers of it
among the people. The monarch, the lord, the
gentleman, the merchant, the artisan, the rustic
clown, all ranks and conditions of society, from
highest to lowest, cultivated the practice of sing
ing or of playing upon some of the numerous
instruments of the time." For the class to which
he was then lecturing in the Peabody Institute
he was able to point out and illustrate various
forms of music and to give biographical sketches
of the English musicians of Shakespeare's age.

Lanier was most of all interested, however, in
the development of modern music, and especially

1 Music and Poetry, p. 50.

2 Shakspere and His Forerunners, vol. ii, p. 1.

140 SIDNEY LANIER

in orchestral music. He underrated some of the
classical composers, notably Mozart. He was
familiar with the biographies of Chopin, Beetho
ven, Schumann, and Wagner. He left behind a
translation of Wagner's " Rheingold." His
poems on Beethoven and Wagner indicate his
appreciation of their music, while his essays
" From Bacon to Beethoven " and " The Modern
Orchestra" show minute knowledge of their
work and of the significance of the orchestra in
modern life. A better description of Theodore
Thomas as the leader of an orchestra has not
been written than Lanier's : —

"To see Thomas lead ... is music itself!
His baton is alive, full of grace, of symmetry ;
he maketh no gestures, he readeth his score al
most without looking at it, he seeth everybody,
heareth everything, warneth every man, encour-
ageth every instrument, quietly, firmly, marvel-
ously. Not the slightest shade of nonsense, not
the faintest spark of affectation, not the minut
est grain of effect is in him. He taketh the or
chestra in his hand as if it were a pen, — and
writeth with it." l

If Lanier had been only a successful virtuoso
with the flute, the tradition of his playing would
have lingered in the minds of at least two gener
ations. Through the reminiscences of college

1 Letters^ p. 92.

A MUSICIAN IN BALTIMORE 141

mates, of soldiers and of frequenters of the Pea-
body concerts, the memory of this genius with
the flute would have remained like that of some
troubadour of the Middle Ages. It is unfortunate
that he left no compositions to indicate a musical
power sufficient to give him a place in the history
of American music. It cannot be controverted,
however, that he is the one man of letters in
America who has had an adequate appreciation
of the value of music in the culture of the mod
ern world. To him music was a culture study as
much as the study of literature. It was an edu
cation to him to hear the adequate representation
of modern orchestral works. Hamerik's plan of
giving separate nights to the music of various
nationalities was calculated to emphasize this
phase of musical culture. To Lanier, who had
never traveled abroad and who did not have time
to read the literatures of foreign nations, such mu
sical programmes had the effect of enabling him
to divine the places and the life from which the
music had come. " I am just come from Venice,"
he says, "and have strolled home through the
moonlight, singing serenades. ... I have been
playing 4 Stradella ' and I am full of gondellieds,
of serenades, of balconies with white arms lean
ing over the balustrades thereof, of gleaming
waters, of lithe figures in black velvet, of sting
ing sweet coquetries, of diamonds, daggers, and

142 SIDNEY LANIER

desperadoes. ... I cannot tell the intense de
light which these lovely conceptions of Flotow
gave me. The man has put Venice, lovely, ro
mantic, wicked-sweet Venice, into music, and the
melodies breathe out an eloquence that is at once
sentimental and powerful, at once languid and
thrilling."! '

A description -of the " Hunt of Henry IV "
shows how Lanier associated nature, music, and
poetry with each other. He was an ardent ad
vocate of "programme-music." He saw music
as he heard poetry. He felt the musical effects
in poetry and the poetical effects in music:
*' Then, the 4 Hunt of Henry I V M ... It open-
eth with a grave and courteous invitation, as of
a cavalier riding by some dainty lady, through
the green aisles of the deep woods, to the hunt,
— a lovely, romantic melody, the first violins
discoursing the man's words, the first flute re
plying for the lady. Presently a fanfare; a
sweet horn replies out of the far woods ; then the
meeting of the gay cavaliers ; then the start,
the dogs are unleashed, one hound gives tongue,
another joins, the stag is seen — hey, gentlemen !
away they all fly through the sweet leaves, by
the great oaks and beeches, all a-dash among the
brambles, till presently, bang ! goeth a pistol (it
was my veritable old revolver loaded with blank

1 Letters, p. 98.

A MUSICIAN IN BALTIMORE 143

cartridge for the occasion, the revolver that hath
lain so many nights under my head), fired by Tym-
pani (as we call him, the same being a nervous
little Frenchman who playeth our drums), and
then the stag dieth in a celestial concord of flutes,
oboes, and violins. Oh, how far off my soul
was in this thrilling moment ! It was in a rare,
sweet glen in Tennessee ; the sun was rising over
a wilderness of mountains, I was standing (how
well I remember the spot !) alone in the dewy
grass, wild with rapture and with expectation.
Yonder came, gracefully walking, a lovely fawn.
I looked into its liquid eyes, hesitated, prayed,
gulped a sigh, then overcome with the savage
hunter's instinct, fired ; the fawn leaped convul
sively a few yards, I ran to it, found it lying on
its side, and received into my agonized and re
morseful heart the reproaches of its most tender,
dying gaze. But luckily I had not the right to
linger over this sad scene ; the conductor's baton
shook away the dying pause ; on all sides shouts
and fanfares and gallopings ' to the death,' to
which the first flute had to reply in time, re
called me to my work, and I came through bril
liantly." i

Because of its culture value, Lanier believed
that music should have its place in every college
and university. As far back as 1867 — in " Tiger
1 Letters, p. 85.

144 SIDNEY LANIER

Lilies " — he had advocated the appointment
of professors of music in American colleges of
equal dignity with other specialists. He himself
hoped that he might be appointed to such a chair,
first in the College of Music in New York and
later in Johns Hopkins University. It is easy
to conceive that he might have become an ex
pert teacher in the science of music, but it is
more probable that if he had held a chair in an
academic institution he would have forwarded the
work that has now become a distinct feature of
all the larger universities. He would have made
an excellent " literary " teacher of music, interest
ing men in the biographies of great musicians,
and interpreting for them the mysteries of or
chestra and opera. He conceived of music as
one of the humanities, and would have agreed
with President Eliot that " music is a culture
study, if there is one in the world." In his life
it took the place that travel and many literatures
held in the lives of Longfellow and Lowell.
He believed with Theodore Thomas that Bee
thoven's music is " something more than mere
pleasure ; it is education, thought, emotion, love,
and hope."

Furthermore, Lanier believed in the religious
value of music ; it was a " gospel whereof the
people are in great need, — a later revelation
of all gospels in one." " Music," he says, " is

A MUSICIAN IN BALTIMORE 145

to be the Church of the future, wherein all
creeds will unite like the tones in a chord." He
was one of " those fervent souls who fare easily
by this road to the Lord." Haydn's inscription,
"Laus Deo," was in Lanier's mind whenever he
listened to great music ; for it tended to " help
the emotions of man across the immensity of the
known into the boundaries of the Unknown." He
would have composers to be ministers of reli
gion. He could not understand the indifference
of some leaders of orchestras, who could be sat
isfied with appealing to the esthetic emotions of
an audience, while they might " set the hearts of
fifteen hundred people afire." The final mean
ing of music to him was that it created within
man " a great, pure, unanalyzable yearning after
God."

Holding this exalted view of music, he be
lieved that its future was immense and that
in America its triumphs were to be greater
than they had been elsewhere. At a time when
musical culture was rare in this country, he
looked forward with hope and expectation to the
time when America would become a patron of
the best music. "When Americans," he said,
" shall have learned the supreme value and
glory of the orchestra, . . . then I look to see
America the home of the orchestra, and to hear
everywhere the profound messages of Beetho-

146 SIDNEY LANIER

ven and Bach to men." And again : ",A11 the
signs of the times seem to point to this country
as the scene of the future development of mu
sic. ... It only needs direction, artistic atmo
sphere, and technique in order to fill the land
with such orchestras as the world has never heard.
When our so-called conservatories and music
schools, instead of straining every nerve to outdo
each other in turning out hosts of bad piano-
players, shall address themselves earnestly to the
education of performers upon all the orchestral
instruments ; when our people shall have become
aware of the height and glory of the orchestra,
as the only instrument for the deepest adorations
in man ; . . . when our young women shall ask
themselves for any serious reason why they
should all, with one accord, devote themselves to
the piano instead of to the flute, the violin, the
hautboy, the harp, the viola, the violoncello, the
horn instruments which pertain to women fully
as much as to men, and some of which actually
belong by nature to those supple, tactile, deli
cate, firm, passionate, and tender fingers with
which the woman is endowed ; when our young
men shall have discovered that the orchestral
player can so exercise his office as to make it of
far more dignity and worth than any political
place in the gift of the people, and that the
business of making orchestral music may one

A MUSICIAN IN BALTIMORE 147

day become far higher in nobility than the ig
noble sentinelship over one's pocket to which
most lawyers are reduced, or the melancholy
slaveries of the shop and the counting-room and
the like i business ' which is now paramount in es
teem ; when — I will not say when we have a new
music to perform, but when we shall have played
Beethoven's symphonies as they should be played,
and shall have revealed to us all the might,
all the faith, all the religion, the tenderness, the
heavenly invitation, the subtle excursions down
into the heart of man, the brotherhood, the free
dom, the exaltation, the whisperings of sorrow
unto sorrow, the messages of God which these
immortal and yet unmeasured compositions em
body," 1 then will America give to music the place
it deserves. Music will be one of the redeemers
of the people from crass commercialism.

While Lanier held before the American people
the vision of what they might accomplish in
music, he held up to musicians the high ideal of
what they should be. In the essay just quoted, he
indorses the saying of Mazzini's that " musicians
may become a priesthood and ministry of moral
regeneration. . . . Why rest contented with
stringing notes together — mere trouveres of a
day — when it remains with you to consecrate

1 An uncollected essay by Lanier, " Mazzini on Music," The
Independent, June 27, 1878.

148 SIDNEY LANIER

yourselves, even on earth, to a mission such as
in the popular belief only God's angels know ? "
With his high ideal of what a musician should
be, he could not but be disgusted at times with
the Boheniianism of the men who played with
him, and with the loose moral life of many more
eminent musicians. " Ah, these heathenish Ger
mans ! " he exclaims, as he sees some of the or
chestra at a church service making fun of the
communion service : " Double-bass was a big
fellow, with a black mustache, to whom life was
all a joke, which he expressed by a comical
smile, and Viola was a young Hercules, so full
of beer that he dreamed himself in heaven, and
Oboe was a young sprig, just out from Munich,
with a complexion of milk and roses, like a girl's,
and miraculously bright spectacles on his pale
blue eyes, and there they sat — Oboe and Viola
and Double-bass — and ogled each other, and
raised their brows, and snickered behind the
columns, without a suspicion of interest either
in the music or the service. Dash these fellows,
they are utterly given over to heathenism, pre
judice, and beer." 1

The best expression of his ideal of what a great
composer should be, is in a letter written to his
wife just after he had read the life of Robert
Schumann : —

1 Letters, p. 88.

A MUSICIAN IN BALTIMORE 149

NEW YORK, Sunday, October 18, 1874.
I have been in my room all day ; and have
just concluded a half-dozen delicious hours, dur
ing which I have been devouring, with a hungry
ferocity of rapture which I know not how to ex
press, " The Life of Robert Schumann," by his
pupil, von Wasielewski. This pupil, I am sure,
did not fully comprehend his great master. I
think the key to Schumann's whole character,
with all its labyrinthine and often disappointing
peculiarities, is this : That he had no mode of
self-expression, or, I should rather say, of self-
expansion, besides the musical mode. This may
seem a strange remark to make of him who was
the founder and prolific editor of a great musical
journal, and who perhaps exceeded any musician
of his time in general culture. But I do not
mean that he was confined to music for self-
expression, though indeed, the sort of critical
writing which Schumann did so much of is not
at all like poetry in its tranquillizing effects
upon the soul of the writer. What I do mean is
that his sympathies were not big enough, he did
not go through the awful struggle of genius, and
lash and storm and beat about until his soul was
grown large enough to embrace the whole of life
and the All of things, that is, large enough to
appreciate (if even without understanding) the
magnificent designs of God, and tall enough to

150 SIDNEY LANIER

stand in the trough of the awful cross-waves of
circumstance and look over their heights along
the whole sea of God's manifold acts, and deep
enough to admit the peace that passeth under
standing. This is, indeed, the fault of all Ger
man culture, and the weakness of all German
genius. A great artist should have the sensibility
and expressive genius of Schumann, the calm
grandeur of Lee, and the human breadth of
Shakespeare, all in one.

Now in this particular, of being open, un
prejudiced, and unenvious, Schumann soars far
above his brother Germans ; he valiantly de
fended our dear Chopin, and other young musi
cians who were struggling to make head against
the abominable pettiness of German prejudice.
But, withal, I cannot find that his life was great,
as a whole ; I cannot see him caring for his land,
for the poor, for religion, for humanity ; he was
always a restless soul ; and the ceaseless wear of
incompleteness finally killed, as a maniac, him
whom a broader Love might have kept alive as
a glorious artist to this day.

The truth is, the world does not require enough
at the hands of genius. Under the special plea
of greater sensibilities, and of consequent greater
temptations, it excuses its gifted ones, and even
sometimes makes " a law of their weakness."
But this is wrong: the sensibility of genius is

A MUSICIAN IN BALTIMORE 151

just as much greater to high emotions as to low
ones ; and whilst it subjects to stronger tempta
tions, it at the same time interposes — if it will
— stronger considerations for resistance.

These are scarcely fair things to be saying
apropos of Robert Schumann ; for I do not
think he was ever guilty of any excesses of ge
nius — as they are called : I only mean them to
apply to the unrest of his life.

And yet, for all I have said, how his music
does burn in my soul ! It stretches me upon the
very rack of delight ; I know no musician that
fills me so full of heavenly anguish, and if I had
to give up all the writers of music save one, my
one should be Robert Schumann. — Some of his
experiences cover some of my own as aptly as
one half of an oyster shell does the other half.1
1 Letters, p. 103.

CHAPTER VII

THE BEGINNING OF A LITERARY CAREER

DURING the winter of 1873-74, the first win
ter in Baltimore, Lanier had, as has been seen,
given his entire time to music. The only poetry
he had written had been inspired by love for his
absent wife, — poems breathing of the deepest
and tenderest affection. Scarcely less poetical
were the letters written to her giving expression
to his joy in the large new world into which he
was entering, and at the same time to his sense
of loneliness and pain at their separation. To
her and his boys he went as soon as his engage
ment with the Peabody Orchestra was ended.
In one of his letters he had spoken of himself as
" an exile from his dear Land, which is always
the land where my loved ones are." He found
delight during this summer, as in the following
ones, in the renewal of home ties, and in the
enjoyment of the natural scenery of Macon and
Brunswick, to whose beauty he never ceased to
be sensitive.

It was in August, 1874, that he received a
fresh impulse towards poetry, or, at least, towards

BEGINNING A LITERARY CAREER 153

the writing of more important poems than those
he had heretofore written. While visiting at
Sunnyside, Georgia, some sixty miles from Ma-
con, he was struck at once with the beauty of
cornfields and the pathos of deserted farms.
Hence arose his first poem that attracted atten
tion throughout the country. He took it to New
York with him in the fall. Writing to his friend,
Judge Logan E. Bleckley, now Chief Justice of
Georgia, who during this summer spoke encour
aging words to him about the faith he had in his
literary future, he inclosed his recently finished
poem with these words : —

195 DEAN ST., BROOKLYN, N.Y.
October 9, 1874.

MY DEAR SIR, — I could never tell you how
sincerely grateful I am to you, and shall always
be, for a few words you spoke to me recently.

Such encouragement would have been pleasant
at any time, but this happened to come just at a
critical moment when, although I had succeeded
in making up my mind finally and decisively as
to my own career, I was yet faint from a desper
ate struggle with certain untoward circumstances
which it would not become me to detail.

Did you ever lie for a whole day after being
wounded, and then have water brought you ? If
so, you will know how your words came to me.

154 SIDNEY LANIER

I inclose the manuscript of a poem in which I
have endeavored to carry some very prosaic mat-
ters up to a loftier plane. I have been struck
with alarm in seeing the number of old, deserted
homesteads and gullied hills in the older coun
ties of Georgia ; and though they are dreadfully
commonplace, I have thought they are surely
mournful enough to be poetic. Please give me
your judgment on my effort, without reserve ; for
if you should say you do not like it, the only
effect on me will be to make me write one that
you do like.

Believe me always your friend,

SIDNEY LANIER.

The answer to this letter, giving a detailed
criticism of the poem, was very helpful to Lanier.
Judge Bleckley is a man of much cultivation,
and is widely known throughout Georgia as at once
one of the leading lawyers of the State and a man
who can in his leisure moments engage in literary
work which, though not published, gives evidence
of imagination and taste. Lanier was wise enough
to accept most of his criticism : the revised form
of the poem compared with the first form shows
a great many changes, and is striking evidence
of Lanier's power to improve his work. Judge
Bleckley 's characterization of " Corn " so accu
rately describes it that his words may be quoted

BEGINNING A LITERARY CAREER 155

here : " It presents four pictures ; three of them
landscapes and one a portrait. You paint the
woods, a cornfield, and a worn-out hill. These
are your landscapes. And your portrait is the
likeness of an anxious, unthrifty cotton-planter,
who always spends his crop before he has made
it, borrows on heavy interest to carry himself
over from year to year, wears out his land, meets
at last with utter ruin, and migrates to the West.
Your second landscape is turned into a vegeta
ble person [the cornstalk is Lanier's symbol of
the poet], and you give its poetry with many
touches of marvel and mystery in vegetable life.
Your third landscape takes for an instant the
form and tragic state of King Lear ; you thus
make it seize on our sympathies as if it were a
real person, and you then restore it to the inan
imate, and contemplate its possible beneficence
in the distant future." l

The poem was published in " Lippincott's
Magazine," February, 1875, and at once at
tracted the attention of some discriminating
readers of magazines, notably Mr. Gibson Pea
cock, the editor of the Philadelphia " Evening
Bulletin," who reviewed it in a most sympa
thetic manner, and became one of the poet's
best friends during the remainder of his life. It
is noteworthy that the scenery of the poem should

1 Quoted in Callaway's Select Poems of Lanier, p. 61.

156 SIDNEY LANIER

be so distinctively and realistically Southern.
There is in the first part all of Lanier's love
of the Southern forest : the shimmering forms
in the woods, the leaves, the subtlety of mighty
tenderness in the embracing boughs, the long
muscadines, the mosses, ferns, and flowers, are all
delicately felt and described — with a suggestion
of Keats. As he wanders from this forest to the
zigzag-cornered fence, his fieldward-faring eyes
take in the beauty of the cornfield, " the hea
ven of blue inwoven with a heaven of green."
One tall corn captain becomes to his mind the
symbol of the poet-soul sublime, who takes
from all that he may give to all. The picture
of the thriftless and negligent Southern farmer,
" a gamester's cat'spaw and a banker's slave,"
shows Lanier's keen insight into Southern con
ditions, which he had, while living in Macon,
studied with much care and which he now lifted
into the realm of poetry. The red hills of
Georgia, deserted and barren, are presented with
true pathos. Nevertheless, like a genuine pro
phet, the poet looks forward to a better day : —

Yet shall the great God turn thy fate,
And bring thee back into thy monarch state

And majesty immaculate.

Lo, through hot waverings of the August morn,
Thou givest from thy vasty sides forlorn
Visions of golden treasuries of corn —
Ripe largesse lingering for some bolder heart

BEGINNING A LITERARY CAREER 157

That manfully shall take thy part,

And tend thee,

And defend thee,
With antique sinew and with modern art.

This vision of the South's restored agriculture
was one that remained with Lanier to the end.
He did not properly appreciate the development
of manufacturing in the South, but he believed
that the redemption of the country would come
through the development of agriculture — not
the restoration of the large plantations of the
old regime, but the large number of small farms
with diversified products. On a later visit to the
South he exclaimed to his brother, " My coun
trymen, why plant ye not the vineyards of the
Lord ? " and later he wrote in his essay on the
" New South " of the actual fulfillment of his
prophecy in " Corn."

Encouraged by the success of " Corn," Lanier,
while giving a large part of his time to music
during the winter of 1874-75, looked more
and more in the direction of poetry. He writes
again to Judge Bleckley, November 15, 1874 :
" Your encouraging words give me at once
strength and pleasure. I hope hard and work
hard to do something worthy of them some day.
My head and my heart are both so full of poems
which the dreadful struggle for bread does not
give me time to put on paper, that I am often

158 SIDNEY LANIER

driven to headache and heartache purely for
want of an hour or two to hold a pen." He then
proceeds to outline what is to be his first magnum
opus, " a long poem, founded on that strange
uprising in the middle of the fourteenth century
in France, called 4 The Jacquerie.' It was the
first time that the big hungers of the People ap
pear in our modern civilization ; and it is full of
significance. The peasants learned from the mer
chant potentates of Flanders that a man who
could not be a lord by birth, might be one by
wealth ; and so Trade arose, and overthrew Chiv
alry. Trade has now had possession of the civil
ized world for four hundred years : it controls all
things, it interprets the Bible, it guides our na
tional and almost all our individual life with its
maxims ; and its oppressions upon the moral
existence of man have come to be ten thousand
times more grievous than the worst tyrannies of
the Feudal System ever were. Thus in the re
versals of time, it is now the gentleman who must
rise and overthrow Trade. That chivalry which
every man has, in some degree, in his heart ;
which does not depend upon birth, but which is
a revelation from God of justice, of fair dealing,
of scorn of mean advantages ; which contemns
the selling of stock which one knows is going to
fall, to a man who believes it is going to rise, as
much as it would contemn any other form of

BEGINNING A LITERARY CAREER

rascality or of injustice or of meanness — it is/
this which must in these latter days organize its
insurrections and burn up every one of the cun
ning moral castles from which Trade sends out
its forays upon the conscience of modern society.
— This is about the plan which is to run through
my book : though I conceal it under the form of
a pure novel." 1

Lanier never finished this poem, but he was
soon hard at work on another which was based
on the same idea, " The Symphony." Writ
ing to his newly acquired friend, Mr. Pea
cock, March 24, 1875, he says : " About four
days ago, a certain poem which I had vaguely
ruminated for a week before took hold of me
like a real James River ague, and I have been in
a mortal shake with the same, day and night,
ever since. I call it 4 The Symphony : ' I person
ify each instrument in the orchestra, and make
them discuss various deep social questions of the
times, in the progress of the music. It is now
nearly finished ; and I shall be rejoiced thereat,
for it verily racks all the bones of my spirit."
The poem was published in " Lippincott's Maga
zine," June, 1875 ; and besides confirming the
good opinion of Mr. Peacock, won the praise of
Bayard Taylor, George H. Calvert, Elizabeth
Stuart Phelps, and Charlotte Cushman, and was

1 Quoted in part in Callaway's Select Poems of Lanier, p. 65.

160 SIDNEY LANIER

copied in full in D wight's "Journal of Mu
sic."

As in his first poem Lanier had pointed out a
defect in Southern life, so in his second long
poem he struck at one of the evils of national
life. In the South he felt that there was not
enough of the spirit of industry ; looking at the
nation as a whole, however, he exclaims : —

" O Trade ! O Trade ! would thou wert dead !
The time needs heart — ' t is tired of head :
We are all for love," the violins said.

The germ of this poem is found perhaps in
a letter written from Wheeling, West Virginia,
where he went with some of his fellow musicians
to give a concert, April 16, 1874. It is a realistic
picture of a city completely dominated by fac
tory life. What he afterwards called " the hell-
colored smoke of the factories " created within
him a feeling of righteous indignation akin to
that of Ruskin, although it must be said in jus
tice to Lanier that, in combating the evils of in
dustrial life, he never went to the extreme of
eccentric passion displayed by the English writer.
Nor, on the other hand, could he say with Walt
Whitman: "I hail with joy the .oceanic, "varie
gated, intense practical energy, the demand for
facts, even the business materialism, of the cur
rent age. ... I perceive clearly that the extreme
business energy and this almost maniacal appe-

BEGINNING A LITERARY CAREER 161

tite for wealth prevalent in the United States
are parts of a melioration and progress, indis
pensably needed to prepare the very results I
demand."

Lanier's poem is more applicable to the condi
tions that prevail to-day than to those of his own
time. He shows himself a prophet, the truth of
whose words is realized by many of the finer
minds of the country. He lets the various in
struments of the orchestra utter their protest
against the evils of modern trade. The violin,
speaking for the poor who stand wedged by the
pressing of trade's hand and " weave in the mills
and heave in the kilns," protests against the spirit
of competition that says even when human life
is involved, "Trade is only war grown miserly."

Alas, for the poor to have some part
In yon sweet living lands of art.

Then the flute — Lanier's own flute, summing
up the voices of nature, " all fair forms, and
sounds, and lights " — echoes the words of the
Master, " All men are neighbors." Trade, the
king of the modern days, will not allow the poor
a glimpse of " the outside hills of liberty." The
clarionet is the voice of a lady who speaks of the
merchandise of love and yearns for the old days
of chivalry before trade had withered up love's
sinewy prime : —

162 SIDNEY LANIER

If men loved larger, larger were our lives;
And wooed they nobler, won they nobler wives.

To her the bold, straightforward horn answers,
"like any knight in knighthood's morn." He
would bring back the age of chivalry, when there
would be " contempts of mean-got gain and hates
of inward stain." He voices, too, the idea long
ago expressed by Milton that men should be as
pure as women : —

Shall woman scorch for a single sin,
That her betrayer may revel in,
And she be burnt, and he but grin
When that the flames begin,
Fair lady ?

Shall ne'er prevail the woman's plea,
We maids would far, far whiter be
If that our eyes might sometimes see
Men maids in purity.

Then the hautboy sings, " like any large-eyed
child," calling for simplicity and naturalness in
this modern life. And all join at the last in a
triumphant chant of the power of love to heal
all the ills of life : -

And ever Love hears the poor-folks' crying,
And ever Love hears the women's sighing,
And ever sweet knighthood's death-defying,
And ever wise childhood's deep implying,
But never a trader's glozing and lying.

And yet shall Love himself be heard,
Though long deferred, though long deferred :

BEGINNING A LITERARY CAREER 163

O'er the modern waste a dove hath whirred :
Music is Love in search of a word.

By this time Lanier was hard at work for the
publishers. Although he never lost his love for
music — he could not — he began to see that his
must be a literary career. In a letter of March
20, 1876, he says to Judge Bleckley that he has
had a year of frightful overwork. " I have been
working at such a rate as, if I could keep it up,
would soon make me the proverb of fecundity that
Lope de Vega now is." He refers to the India
papers written for "Lippincott's." "The collec
tion of the multitudinous particulars involved in
them cost me such a world of labor among the
libraries of Boston, New York, Philadelphia, and
Baltimore as would take a long time to describe.
... In addition to these I have written a num
ber of papers not yet published, and a dozen
small poems which have appeared here and there.

" Now, I don't work for bread ; in truth, I
suppose that any man who, after many days
and nights of tribulation and bloody sweat, has
finally emerged from all doubt into the quiet and
yet joyful activity of one who knows exactly
what his Great Passion is and what his God de
sires him to do, will straightway lose all anxiety
as to what he is working for, in the simple glory
of doing that which lies immediately before him.
As for me, life has resolved simply into a time

164 SIDNEY LANIER

during which I must get upon paper as many as

possible of the poems with which my heart is

stuffed like a schoolboy's pocket." He quotes

from " that simple and powerful sonnet of dear

old William Drummond of Hawthornden : " —

Know what I list, this all cannot me move,

But that, O me ! — I both must write and love.

He had to give much of his time, however, to
hackwork. During the summer of 1875 he was
engaged in writing a book on Florida for the
Lippincotts. It is, as he wrote to Paul Hamilton
Hayne, " a sort of spiritualized guide-book " to
a section which was then drawing a large num
ber of visitors. " The thing immediately began
to ramify and expand, until I quickly found I
was in for a long and very difficult job : so long,
and so difficult, that, after working day and night
for the last three months on the materials I had
previously collected, I have just finished the book,
and am now up to my ears in proof-sheets and
wood-cuts which the publishers are rushing
through in order to publish at the earliest pos
sible moment, the book having several features
designed to meet the wants of winter visitors
to Florida." It is filled with facts in regard to
climate and scenery, practical hints for travelers,
and other things characteristic of a guide-book ;
but it is more than that. Like everything else
that Lanier ever did, — even the dreariest hack

BEGINNING A LITERARY CAREER 165

work, — he threw himself into it with great zest.
It has suggestions to consumptives born out of
his own experience. There are allusions to music,
literature, and philosophy. There are descriptions
and historical anecdotes of the cities of South
Carolina and Georgia ; above all, there are de
scriptions of the Florida country which only a poet
could write. Two passages are characteristic : —

" And now it is bed-time. Let me tell you how
to sleep on an Ocklawaha steamer in May. With
a small bribe persuade Jim, the steward, to take
the mattress out of your berth and lay it slant
ing just along the railing that incloses the lower
part of the deck in front and to the left of the
pilot-house. Lie flat on your back down on the
mattress, draw your blanket over you, put your
cap on your head, on account of the night air,
fold your arms, say some little prayer or other,
and fall asleep with a star looking right down
on your eye. When you wake in the morning
you will feel as new as Adam."

" Presently we abandoned the broad highway
of the St. Johns, and turned off to the right into
the narrow lane of the Ocklawaha. This is the
sweetest water-lane in the world, a lane which
runs for more than one hundred and fifty miles
of pure delight betwixt hedge-rows of oaks and
cypresses and palms and magnolias and mosses
and vines ; a lane clean to travel, for there is

166 SIDNEY LANIER

never a speck of dust in it save the blue dust
and gold dust which the wind blows out of the
flags and lilies."

In the discussion of " The Symphony," empha
sis was laid upon Lanier's national point of view.
The opportunity soon came to him of giving ex
pression to his love of the Union. At Bayard
Taylor's suggestion he was appointed by the
Centennial Commission to write the words for
a cantata to be sung at the opening exercises
of the exposition in Philadelphia. Taylor, in
announcing the fact, on December 28, 1875,
said : " I have just had a visit from Theodore
Thomas and Mr. Buck, and we talked the whole
matter over. Thomas remembers you well, and
Mr. Buck says it will be especially agreeable to
him to compose for the words of a Southern poet.
I have taken the liberty of speaking for you, both
to them and to General Hawley, and you must
not fail me. ...

" Now, my dear Lanier, I am sure you can do
this worthily. It 's a great occasion, — not es
pecially for poetry as an art, but for Poetry to
assert herself as a power." 1 To this letter Lanier
replied : " If it were a cantata upon your good
ness, ... I am willing to wager I could write a
stirring one and a grateful withal.

" Of course I will accept — when 't is offered.

1 Letters, p. 136.

BEGINNING A LITERARY CAREER 167

I only write a hasty line now to say how deeply
I am touched by the friendly forethought of
your letter." l

He announces the fact to his wife in a jubi
lant letter of January 8, 1876 : " Moreover, I
have a charming piece of news which — although
thou art not yet to communicate it to any one
except Clifford — I cannot keep from thee. The
opening ceremonies of the Centennial Exhibition
will be very grand; and among other things
there are to be sung by a full chorus (and played
by the orchestra, under Thomas's direction) a
hymn and a cantata. General Hawley, President
of the Centennial Commission, has written invit
ing me to write the latter (I mean the poem ;
Dudley Buck, of New York, is to write the
music). Bayard Taylor is to write the hymn.2
This is very pleasing to me ; for I am chosen as
representative of our dear South ; and the matter
puts my name by the side of very delightful and
honorable ones, besides bringing me in contact
with many people I would desire to know.

" Mr. Buck has written me that he wants the
poem by January 15, which as I have not yet
had the least time for it, gives me just seven days
to write it in. I would much rather have had seven

1 Letters, p. 137.

2 Whittier wrote this hymn and Bayard Taylor wrote the
Ode for the Fourth of July celebration.

168 SIDNEY LANIER

months ; but God is great. Remember, thou and
Cliff, that this is not yet to be spoken of at all." l
With enthusiasm the poet entered upon the
task assigned him. The progress of the Cantata
from the time when it first presented itself to
his mind to the time when he completed it, may
be traced in the letters to Bayard Taylor and
Gibson Peacock, which have already been pub
lished.2 Writing to Mr. Dudley Buck, January
15, 1876, he said : -

DEAR MR. BUCK, — I send you herewith the
complete text for the Cantata. I have tried to
make it a genuine Song, at once full of fire and
of large and artless simplicity befitting a young
but already colossal land.

I have made out a working copy for you, with
marginal notes which give an analysis of each
movement (or rather motive, for I take it the
whole will be a continuous progression ; and I
only use the word " movement " as indicating the
entire contrast which I have secured between
each two .adjacent motives), and which will, I
hope, facilitate your labor by presenting an out
line of the tones characterizing each change of
idea. One movement is placed on each page.

Mr. Thomas was kind enough to express him-

1 Quoted in Baskervill's Southern Writers, p. 200.

2 See Letters, passim.

BEGINNING A LITERARY CAREER 169

self very cordially as to the ideas of the piece ;
and I devoutly trust that they will meet your
views. I found that the projection which I had
made in my own mind embraced all the substan
tial features of the Scheme which had occurred to
you, and therefore, although greatly differing in
details, I have not hesitated to avail myself of
your thoughtful warning against being in any
way hampered. It wiU give me keen pleasure
to know from you, as soon as you shall have
digested the poem, that you like it.

God send you a soul full of colossal and sim
ple chords, — says

Yours sincerely,

SIDNEY LANIER.

In another letter, of February 1, 1876, he
wrote : "I will leave the whole matter of the
publication of the poem jn the hands of Mr.
Thomas and yourself ; only begging that the
inclosed copy be the one which shall go to the
printer. The truth is, I shrank from the criti
cism which I fear my poem will provoke, — not
because I think it unworthy, but because I have
purposely made it absolutely free from all melo
dramatic artifice, and wholly simple and artless ;
and although I did this in the full consciousness
that I would thereby give it such a form as would
inevitably cause it to be disappointing on the first

170 SIDNEY LANIER

reading to most people, yet I had somewhat the
same feeling (when your unexpected proposition
to print first came) as when a raw salt spray
dashes suddenly in your face and makes you
duck your head. As for my own private poems,
I do not even see the criticisms on them, and am
far above the plane where they could possibly
reach me ; but this poem is not mine, it is to re
present the people, and the people have a right
that it should please them."

In this letter Lanier anticipates the criticism
that was sure to come upon the poem when printed
without the music. It was at once received
with ridicule in all parts of the country. The
leading critical journal of America exclaimed :
" It reads like a communication from the spirit
of Nat Lee, rendered through a bedlamite me
dium, failing in all the ordinary laws of sense and
sound, melody and prosody." It urged the com
missioners to " save American letters from the
humiliation of presenting to the assembled world
such a farrago as this." For several weeks La
nier could not pick up a newspaper without see
ing his name held up to ridicule, the Southern
papers alone, out of purely sectional pride and
with " no understanding of the principles in
volved," coming to his rescue. The spirit in which
he received this criticism may be seen in a let
ter written to his brother : —

BEGINNING A LITERARY CAREER 171

This is the sixth letter I 've written since
nine o'clock to night, and it is like saying one's
prayers before going to bed, to have a quiet word
with you.

Your letter came to-day, and I see that you
have been annoyed by the howling of the critics
over the Cantata. I was greatly so at first, be
fore I had recovered from my amazement at find
ing a work of art received in this way, sufficiently
to think, but now the whole matter is quite
plain to me and gives me no more thought,
at all. . . .

The whole agitation has been of infinite value
to me. It has taught me, in the first place, to
lift my heart absolutely above all expectation
save that which finds its fulfillment in the large
consciousness of beautiful devotion to the high
est ideals in art. This enables me to work in
tranquillity.

In the second place, it has naturally caused
me to make a merciless arraignment and trial of
my artistic purposes ; and an unspeakable con
tent arises out of the revelation that they come
from the ordeal confirmed in innocence and
clearly, defined in their relations with all
things. . . .

The commotion about the Cantata has not
been unfavorable, on the whole, to my personal
interests. It has led many to read closely what

172 SIDNEY LANIER

they would otherwise have read cursorily, and I
believe I have many earnest friends whose liking
was of a nature to be confirmed by such opposi
tion. . . .

And now, dear little Boy, may God convoy
you over to the morning across this night, and
across all nights, Prays your

S. L.

That the poem was misjudged cannot be de
nied. Lanier's defense published in the New
York " Tribune " must be taken as a justification,
in part at least, of the principles he had in mind.1
It was not written as a poem, — and Mrs. Lanier
has wisely put it as an appendix to her edition
of the poems, — but as the words of a musical
composition to be rendered by a large orchestra
and chorus. It compares, therefore, with a lyric
very much as one of the librettos of a Wagner
drama would compare with a genuine drama. It
serves merely to give the ideas which were to
be interpreted emotionally through the forms of
music. Lanier knew well the requirements of
an orchestra. He knew the effect of contrasts
and of short, simple words which would ^uggest
the deeper emotions intended by the author. He
thought of Beethoven's " large and artless forms "
rather than that of formal lyric poetry. He had

1 Music and Poetry, p. 80.

BEGINNING A LITERARY CAREER 173

heard Von Billow conduct the Peabody Orches
tra in a symphony based on one of Uhland's
poems, in which only the simple elemental words
were retained, " leaving all else to his hearers'
imaginations." This served as a model for his
Cantata.

That the Cantata was a success is borne out by
contemporary evidence. The very paper which
had criticised Lanier most severely said, in giv
ing an account of the opening exercises, " The
rendering of Lanier 's Cantata was exquisite, and
Whitney's bass solo deserves to the full ah1 the
praise that has been heaped upon it." Ex-Presi
dent Oilman thus writes of the effect produced
on the vast audience assembled in Philadelphia :

" As a Baltimorean who had just formed the
acquaintance of Lanier (both of us being
strangers at that time in a city we came to love
as a most hospitable and responsive home), — I
was much interested in his appointment. It was
then true, though Dr. Holmes had not yet said
it, that Baltimore had produced three poems,
each of them the best of its kind: the 'Star-
Spangled Banner' of Key, 'The Raven,' of Poe,
and 4 Maryland, My Maryland,' by Randall.
Was it to produce a fourth poem as remarkable
as these? Lanier's Cantata appeared in one of
the daily journals, prematurely. I read it as one
reads newspaper articles, with a rapid glance,

174 SIDNEY LANIER

and could make no sense of it. I heard the
comments of other bewildered critics. I read
the piece again and again and again, before the
meaning began to dawn on me. Soon afterwards,
Lanier's own explanation, and the dawn became
daylight. The ode was not written 4to be read.'
It was to be sung — and sung, not by a single
voice, with a piano accompaniment, but in the
open air, by a chorus of many hundred voices,
and with the accompaniment of a majestic or
chestra, to music especial^ written for it by a
composer of great distinction. The critical test
would be its rendition. From this point of view
the Cantata must be judged.

" I remember well the day of trial. The Presi
dent of the United States, the Emperor of Brazil,
the governors of States, the judges of the high
est courts, the chief military and naval heroes,
were seated on the platform in the face of an
immense assembly. There was no pictorial effect
in the way they were grouped. They were a
mass of living beings, a crowd of black-coated
dignitaries, not arranged in any impressive order.
No cathedral of Canterbury, no Sanders Hall,
no episcopal or academic gowns. The oratory
was likewise ineffective. There were loud voices
and vigorous gestures, but none of the eloquence
which enchants a multitude. The devotional ex
ercises awakened no sentiment of reverence. At

BEGINNING A LITERARY CAREER 175

length came the Cantata. From the overture to
the closing cadence it held the attention of the
vast throng of listeners, and when it was con
cluded loud applause rang through the air. A
noble conception had been nobly rendered.
Words and music, voices and instruments, pro
duced an impression as remarkable as the ren
dering of the Hallelujah Chorus in the nave of
Westminster Abbey. Lanier had triumphed. It
was an opportunity of a lifetime to test upon a
grand scale his theory of verse. He came off
victorious." l

The most important thing, however, about the
writing of the Cantata was that it gave expres
sion to a strong faith in the nation as felt by one
who had been a Confederate soldier. The central
note of the poem is the preservation of the
Union. In spite of all the physical obstacles
that had hindered the early settlers, in spite of
the distinct individualities of the various people
of the sections, in spite of sectional misunder
standings which had led in the process of time to
a bloody civil war, the nation had survived. All
of these had said, " No, thou shalt not be."

Now praise to God's oft-granted grace,
Now praise to man's undaunted face,
Despite the land, despite the sea,
I was : I am : and I shall be.

1 South Atlantic Quarterly, April, 1905.

176 SIDNEY LANIER

Lanier desired, however, to avoid anything
like spread-eagleism, and so after the chorus of
jubilation just quoted, there is a note of doubt
as to how long the nation will last. The answer,
sung by the Boston soloist, Myron W. Whitney,
was particularly impressive : —

Long as thine Art shall love true love,
Long as thy Science truth shall know,
Long as thine Eagle harms no Dove,
Long as thy Law by law shall grow,
Long as thy God is God above,
Thy Brother every man below,
So long, dear Land of all my love,
" Thy name shall shine, thy fame shall glow !

Soon after finishing the Centennial Cantata,
Lanier started upon a much longer centennial
poem which, as the " Psalm of the West," was pub
lished in " Lippincott's Magazine," June, 1876,
and for which he received $300. " By the grace
of God," he writes to Bayard Taylor, April 4,
1876, " my centennial Ode is finished. I now
only know how divine has been the agony of the
last three weeks, during which I have been rapt
away to heights where all my own purposes as
to a revisal of artistic forms lay clear before
me, and where the sole travail was of choice out
of multitude." This poem was written with the
idea of a symphony in his mind. One of the last
things he planned was to write the music for it.

BEGINNING A LITERARY CAREER 177

The poem as a whole is a musical rhapsody
rather than a self-contained work of art. Al
though there are fancies and obscurities, the gen
eral theme, the magnificent opening lines, and
the Columbus sonnets, with here and there lines
of imaginative power, make it noteworthy. The
poem is a passionate assertion of the triumph of
freedom in America, — freedom, the Eve of this
tall Adam of lands.

Her shalt thou clasp for a balm to the scars of thy

breast,

Her shalt thou kiss for a calm to thy wars of unrest,
Her shalt extol in the psalm of the soul of the West.

Freedom with all its dangers is the precious
heritage of Americans. " For Weakness, in free
dom, grows stronger than Strength with a chain."
With the aid of the God of the artist the poet
reviews the history of the past, beginning with
the time when in this continent " Blank was
king and Nothing had his will." The coming of
the Northmen, the discovery of the land by Co
lumbus, the voyage of the Mayflower, — ship of
Faith's best hope, — the battle of Lexington, the
signing of the Declaration of Independence, and
the opening up of the West, are all chanted in
unrestrained poetry. The Civil War is described
as a tournament : —

Heartstrong South would have his way,
Headstrong North hath said him nay.

178 SIDNEY LANIER

They charged, they struck ; both fell, both bled;

Brain rose again, ungloved;
Heart fainting smiled and softly said,

My love to my Beloved.

Heart and brain ! no more be twain;
Throb and think, one flesh again !
Lo ! they weep, they turn, they run;
Lo ! they kiss : Love, thou art one.

The poem closes as it began, with the tri
umphant vision of the future : —

At heart let no man fear for thee :
Thy Past sings ever Freedom's song,

Thy Future's voice sounds wondrous free ;
And Freedom is more large than Crime,
And Error is more small than Time.

The significance of the national spirit in these
two poems may be seen only when it is looked
at from the standpoint of the sectionalism that
prevailed in the South and in the North. At the
very time when Lanier was writing them, men in
Congress were giving exhibitions of partisanship
and prejudice that threatened to make of the
Centennial a farce. " The fate of the Centen
nial bill in Congress," he writes to Dudley
Buck, " reveals — in spite of its passage — a good
deal of opposition. All this will die out in a
couple of months, and then every one will be
in a temper to receive a poem of reconciliation.
I fancy that to print the poem now will be much

BEGINNING A LITERARY CAREER 179

like making a dinner speech before the wine has
been around." Indeed, there were few men in
America at this time who really understood the
significance of the national spirit. Southern
men, smarting under reconstruction governments
and bitter with the prejudice engendered by the
war, had not been able, except in rare cases, to
rise to a national point of view. The sectional
spirit was ready to break out at any time. It was
but natural. In the Centennial year a speaker
at the University of Virginia said : " Not space,
or time, or the convenience of any human
arm, can reconcile institutions for the turbulent
fanatic of Plymouth Rock and the God-fearing
Christian of Jamestown. . . . You may assign
them to the closest territorial proximity, with all
the forms, modes, and shows of civilization, but you
can never cement them into the bonds of broth
erhood." On the other hand, the leading public
men of the North, while protesting their love of
the Union and naturally believing in the Union,
which Northern armies had saved, had little
of the spirit of a sympathetic realization of the
South's problem and her condition. Only in a
few large-minded publicists, and in editors like
Godkin and poets like Lowell and Walt Whit
man, did the national spirit prevail.

Lanier came forward, therefore, at a critical
time to express his passionate faith in the future

180 SIDNEY LANIER

of the American Union. He was not the only
Southerner, however, who felt this way. His
two friends, Senators Morgan of Alabama and
Lamar of Mississippi (formerly of Georgia), had
been stout upholders of the national idea in
Congress. As early as 1873 Lamar had paid
a notable tribute to Charles Sumner. He had
risen to the point where he could see the whole
struggle against slavery and against secession
from Sumner's standpoint. At the conclusion
of his remarkable address he said : " Bound to
each other by a common constitution, destined
to live together under a common government,
shall we not now at last endeavor to grow toward
each other once more in heart, as we are already
indissolubly linked in fortunes? . . . Would
that the spirit of the illustrious dead whom we
lament to-day could speak from the grave to
both parties to this deplorable discord in tones
which should reach every heart throughout this
broad territory : My countrymen ! Know one
another, and you will love one another." In 1876
he made an extended argument for the Centen
nial bill, an eloquent plea against the old States'-
rights arguments. " He poured out," says his
biographer, "an exposition of nationalism and
constitutionalism which equaled in effect one of
Webster's masterpieces." " As a representative
of the South," Lamar said at a later time, " I

BEGINNING A LITERARY CAREER 181

felt myself, with my Southern associates, to be a
joint heir of a mighty and glorious heritage of
honor and responsibility."

It was in this spirit and to voice the better
sentiment of the South, that Lanier eagerly re
sponded to the invitation to write the Centennial
poems. He had fought with valor in the Con
federate armies, hoping to the last that they would
be victorious. He had suffered all the poverty
and humiliation of reconstruction days, but he
had risen out of sectionalism into nationalism. It
is a striking fact that the two poets who are the
least sectional of all American poets — for even
Lowell never saw Southern life and Southern
problems from a national point of view — were
Walt Whitman and Lanier, the only two poets
of first importance who took part in the Civil
War. It is also significant, that in Lanier 's
" Psalm of the West " we have a Southerner
chanting the glory of freedom, without any
chance of having the slavery of a race to make
the boast a paradox.

« Corn," " The Symphony," and the « Psalm
of the West," with a few shorter poems, were
published in a volume in the fall of 1876 (the
volume bore the date 1877, however). Reserving
the discussion of the merits of the volume for a
future chapter, I wish now to give some idea of
Lanier 's widening acquaintance with men of cul-

182 SIDNEY LANIER

ture and of letters. The first man of prominence
to herald him as a new poet was, as has been
seen, Mr. Gibson Peacock. The correspondence
between them is well known to all students of
Lanier.1 Mr. Peacock " had read widely the
best English literature, was familiar with the
modern languages, had traveled far in this
country and in Europe, and had cultivated him
self not less in dramatic criticism than in books."
He brought to Lanier financial aid at critical
times in his life ; but more than that, his home
in Philadelphia was as a second home to the
poet in those years before he had settled in Bal
timore, when, as he wrote Hayne, he was " as
homeless as the ghost of Judas Iscariot." Mrs.
Peacock — a good linguist, a highly skilled musi
cian, and withal a most magnetic personality —
joined with her husband in his hearty friendship
for the newly discovered poet. She was the
daughter of the Marquis de la Figaniere, Portu
guese minister to this country. In their home
were entertained all the first-rate artistic peo
ple who came to Philadelphia, such as Salvini,
Charlotte Cushman, Bayard Taylor, and others.
It was a home in which music and literature
were highly honored, and here Lanier met some
of the most interesting people then living in
Philadelphia, such as John Foster Kirk, editor

1 See Letters.

BEGINNING A LITERARY CAREER 183

of " Lippincott's Magazine," Charles Heber
Clarke — " big, heartsome, ' Max Adeler ' " —
and others.

Soon after meeting Mr. Peacock and his wife,
Lanier was sought out by Charlotte Cushman on
one of her trips to Baltimore. She had been
much interested in reading " Corn," and was so
attracted by the personality of the author (as he
was by her), that an intimate friendship sprang
up between them, growing in intensity until her
death, February 18, 1876. She had but recently
been greeted with a great ovation in New York
city, at a meeting in which Joseph -Jefferson had
represented the stage and Bryant and Stoddard
the realm of letters. The ovation was repeated
in the cities of Boston and Philadelphia.
" Though coming into the circle of her friend
ships during the latter years of her life, when
she had become famous throughout the English-
speaking world, Lanier won for himself there a
warm and high place," says her biographer.
There was much to attract the two to each, other.
Both had the highest ideals of their art ; for to
Miss Cushman as to Lanier, art was a sacred
thing. " I know," she said, " He does not fail to
set me his work to do and help me to do it and
help others to help me." Furthermore, they were
both sufferers from an incurable malady, and
both victors over it in a certain serene spirit

184 SIDNEY LANIER

which transcended suffering. Her words are
paralleled by many of Lanier's : " I know my
enemy ; he is ever before me and he must con
quer, but I cannot give up to him ; I laugh in
his face and try to be jolly — and I am ! I
declare I am even when he presses me hardest."
She talked much with him of the great men she
had known and discussed with him the ideals of
art.

Lanier threw himself into this friendship with
characteristic ardor. He gave her the manuscript
copies of his poems and dedicated the first volume
to her, greeting her as "Art's artist, Love's
dear woman, Fame's good queen." During 1875
he wrote many letters to her, letters full of chiv
alry and love and humility. Some of these tell
the story of his life during the months of 1875
so well, and are at the same time so characteristic,
that I quote : —

BRUNSWICK, GA., June 17, 1875.

It is only seldom, dear Miss Cushman, that I
can bring myself to such a point of daring as to
ask that you will stretch out your tired arms
merely to take one of my little roses, — you whose
hands are already filled with the best flowers this
world can grow.

Does she not (I say to myself) find them
under her feet and wear them about her brows ;

BEGINNING A LITERARY CAREER 185

may she not walk on them by day and lie on
them by night, nay, does not her life stand rooted
in men's regard like one pistil in a great lily?

But sometimes I really cannot help making
love to you, just for one little intense minute ;
there is a certain Communistic temper always
adhering in true love which will occasionally
break out and behead all the Royal Proprieties
and hang Law to the first lamp-post : it is even
now so, my heart is a little '93, aux armes !
Where is this minister that imprisons us, away
from our friends, in the Bastile of Separation,
let him die, — and as for Silence, that luxurious
tyrant that collects all the dead for his taxes, be
hold, I am even now pricking him to a terrible
death with the point of this good pen.

When one is in a state of insurrection, one
makes demands : mine is that you write me, dear
friend, if you are quite recovered from the
fatigues of Baltimore and of Boston, and if you
have not nourished yourself to new strength in
feeding upon the honeys the people brought you
there so freely.

Copies of " The Symphony " have been ordered
sent to you and Miss Stebbins, and I have the
MS. copy which you desired, ready to transmit
to you. You will be glad to know that " The Sym
phony " has met with favor. The " Power of

186 SIDNEY LANIER

Prayer " in " Scribner's " for June — although the
editor cruelly mutilated the dialect in some places,
turning, for instance, " Marster " (which is pure
Alabama negro) into Mah'sr (which is only Dan
Bryant negro, and does not exist in real life) —
has gone all over the land, and reappears before
my eyes in frequent heart-breaking yet comical
disguises of misprints and disfigurements. Tell
me ; ought one to be a little ashamed of writing
a dialect poem, — as at least one newspaper has
hinted ? And did Robert Burns prove himself
no poet by writing mostly in dialect ? And is
Tennyson's " Death of the North Country Far
mer " — certainly one of the very strongest things
he ever wrote — not a poem, really ?

Mr. Peacock's friendship, in the matter of
" The Symphony," as indeed in all others, has
been wonderful, a thing too fine to speak of in
prose.

To-morrow I go to Savannah, and hope to find
there a letter from Miss Stebbins. Tell me of
her, when you write : and tell her, from me, how
truly and faithfully I am her and
Your friend,

SIDNEY LANIER.

PHILADELPHIA, PA., July 31, 1875.

It was so good of you, my dear friend, to write
me in the midst of your suffering, that it amounts

BEGINNING A LITERARY CAREER 187

to a translation of pain into something beautiful ;
and with this thought I console myself for the
fear lest your exertion may have caused you some
pang that might have been spared.

I long to hear from you ; though Miss Steb-
bins's letter brought me a good account from your
physician about you. If tender wishes were but
medicinal, if fervent aspirations could but cure,
if my daily upward breathings in your behalf
were but as powerful as they are earnest, —
how perfect would be your state !

I have latterly been a shuttlecock betwixt
two big battledores — New York and Florida.
I scarcely dare to recall how many times I have
been to and fro these two States in the last six
weeks. It has been just move on, all the time :
car dust, cinders, the fumes of hot axle grease,
these have been my portion ; and between them
I have almost felt sometimes as if my soul would
be asphyxiated. But I now cease to wander for
a month, with inexpressible delight. To-morrow
I leave here for Brooklyn, where I will be en
gaged in hard labor for a month, namely, in fin
ishing up the Florida book. . . .

I am very glad to find my " Symphony " copied
in full in Dwight's "Journal of Music: " and I am
sure you will care to know that the poem has
found great favor in all parts of the land. I
have the keenest desire to see some English judg-

188 SIDNEY LANIER

ment on this poem ; but not the least idea how
to compass that end. Can you make me any sug
gestion in that behalf?

I am full curious to hear you talk about
Tennyson's " Queen Mary." Nothing could be
more astonishing than the methods of treatment
with which this production has been disposed of,
in the few criticisms I have seen upon it. One
critic declared that it was a good poem but no
drama ; another avers decidedly that it is a fine
drama, but not a poem ; while the " Nation " man
thinks that it is neither a poem nor a drama,
but a sort of didactic narrative intended to be in
the first place British, and, in the second place,
a warning against the advancing powers of the
Catholic Church. There is but a solitary thread
of judgment in common among these criticisms.

I cannot tell you with how much delight I
read the account of Sidney Dobell, nor with
how much loving recognition I took into my
heart all the extracts from his poems given in
the review. I am going to read all his poems
when my little holiday comes, I hope in Sep
tember, and I will send you then some organ
ized and critical thanks for having introduced
me to so noble and beautiful a soul. . . .

As for you, my dear Queen Catherine, may
this velvety night be spread under your feet even
as Raleigh's cloak was spread for his queen's, so

BEGINNING A LITERARY CAREER 189

that you may walk dry shod as to all pain over
to the morning, — prays

Your faithful SIDNEY LANIER.

195 DEAN ST., BROOKLYN, N. Y.,
August 15, 1875.

I did not dream, my dear friend, of giving you
anything in the least approaching the nature of
a worry, — in asking you for a suggestion as to
the best method of piercing the British hearts
of oak ; and you must not " think about it " as
you declare you are going to do — for a single
minute. Indeed, I had, in mentioning it to you,
no more definite idea in my head than that per
haps you might know somebody who knew some
body that knew somebody that . . . etc., etc., ad
infinitum . . . that might . . . and then my idea
of what the somebody was to do, completely faded
into vague nothing.

It is n't worth thinking about, to you ; and
I have not the least doubt that what I want will
finally come, in just such measure as I shall
deserve.

The publishers have limited me in time so
rigorously, quoad the Florida book, that I will
have to work night and day to get it ready. I
do not now see the least chance for a single day
to devote to my own devices before the fifth or
sixth of September.

190 SIDNEY LANIER

And I do so long to see you and Miss Steb-
bins !

Out of the sombre depths of a bottomless sea
of Florida statistics in which I am at this present
floundering, pray accept, my liege Queen, in art
as in friendliness, all such loyal messages and
fair reports compacted of love, as may come from
so dull a waste of waters ; graciously resting in
your mind upon nothing therein save the true
faithful allegiance of your humble knight and
subject, SIDNEY L.

In November, 1875, he visited her for a week
at the Parker House in Boston. Though she was
at that time critically ill, she was " fairly over
flowing with all manner of tender and bright and
witty sayings." " Each day," he wrote, " was
crowded with pleasant things which she and her
numerous friends had prepared for me." On this
visit to Boston Lanier spent two " delightful after
noons " with Lowell and Longfellow. Of this
visit Lowell afterwards wrote President Oilman :
" He was not only a man of genius with a rare
gift for the happy word, but had in him quali
ties that won affection and commanded respect.
I had the pleasure of seeing him but once, when
he called on me ' in more gladsome days,' at
Elmwood, but the image of his shining presence
is among the friendliest in my memory."

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BEGINNING A LITERARY CAREER 191

Lanier returned from Boston and on New
Year's day sent a greeting to Miss Cushman.
It is quoted as an illustration of Lanier's con
siderate regard for his friends, which expressed
itself in many delicate ways, especially on anni
versaries and special seasons of the year. It is
an Elizabethan sonnet in prose : —

If this New Year that approaches you (more
happy than I, who cannot) did but know you as
well as I (more happy than he, who does not)
he would strew his days about you even as
white apple-blossoms and his nights as blue-black
heart's-ease ; for then he should be your true
faithful-serving lover — as am I — and should
desire — as I do — that the general pelting of
time might become to you only a tender rain of
such flowers as foretell fruit and of such as
make tranquil beds.

But though I cannot teach this same New
Year to be the servant of my fair wishes, I can
persuade him to be the bearer of them ; and I
trust he and these words will come to you to
gether ; giving you such report, and so freshly
from my heart, as shall confirm to you that my
message, though greatly briefer than my love,
is yet greatly longer than I would the interval
were, which stands betwixt you and your often-
longing, S. L.

192 SIDNEY LANIER

Another friend that Mr. Peacock interested in
Lanier was Bayard Taylor, who was the means
of bringing the poet into the world of letters, and
became one of the most inspiring influences in his
life. Taylor had been a very prominent figure
in the literary world for over twenty-five years,
as author, translator, traveller, diplomatist, and
lecturer. To meet him was like the fulfillment
of a dream to a man who had lived all his life
outside of literary circles, and Taylor's encour
aging words to Lanier were " as inspiriting as
those from a strong swimmer whom one perceives
far ahead, advancing calmly and swiftly."
Taylor, on the other hand, was glad to extend the
young poet's acquaintance among those whom
he had a right to know. Through him Lanier
attended the Goethe celebration, August 28,
1875, and was admitted to the Century Club, of
which Bryant was at that time president, and
where Taylor, Stoddard, Stedman, and "many
other good fellows " frequently met. What this
meant to Lanier is shown in the following quo
tation : —

" As to pen and ink, and all toil, I Ve been
almost suppressed by continued illness. I can't
tell you how much I sigh for some quiet evenings
at the Century, where I might hear some of you
talk about the matters I love, or merely sit and
think in the atmosphere of the thinkers. I fancy

BEGINNING A LITERARY CAREER 193

one can almost come to know the dead thinkers
too well : a certain mournfulness of longing
seems sometimes to peer out from behind one's
joy in one's Shakespeare and one's Chaucer, —
a sort of physical protest and yearning of the
living eye for its like. Perhaps one's friendship
with the dead poets comes indeed to acquire
something of the quality of worship, through the
very mystery which withdraws them from us and
which allows no more messages from them, cry
how we will, after that sudden and perilous
Stoppage. I hope those are not illegitimate
moods in which one sometimes desires to sur
round one's self with a companionship less awful,
and would rather have .a friend than a god." l

Mr. Stedman has recorded his impression of
Lanier as he met him at Bayard Taylor's : " I
saw him more than once in the study of our
lamented Deucalion, — the host so buoyant and
sympathetic, the Southerner nervous and eager,
with dark hair and silken beard, features deli
cately moulded, pallid complexion, and hands of
the slender, white, artistic type." The friendship
between Lanier and Taylor was no less cherished
by the older poet. He rejoiced to recognize in
Lanier "a new, true poet — such a poet as I
believe you to be — the genuine poetic nature,
temperament, and morale." He was heartily glad

1 Letters, p. 171.

194 SIDNEY LANIER

to welcome him into the fellowship of authors.
He gave him some valuable criticism as to the
details of his work, and encouraged him by show
ing him that the struggle through which he was
passing was identical with his own. He, too, had
to resort to pot-boiling and hack work of all kinds,
and he had also been severely criticised by the
same men who now criticised Lanier. So he closed
many of his letters with the inspiriting words :
" Be of good cheer ! On ! be bold ! " The friend
ship which began as a literary friendship soon
developed on Taylor's part, as well as Lanier 's,
into one of deep personal regard. Taylor recog
nized, as did every other man who came in per
sonal touch with Lanier, the charm and the
fineness of his personality.

By the summer of 1876 Lanier had thus es
tablished himself as a promising man of letters.
He had not only written poetry that had at
tracted attention, but he had found a place among
a group of artists who recognized the value of his
work and the charm of his personality. When
Charlotte Cushman died, he had the promise that
he would be employed by her family to write
her life. Upon the basis of this promise he
brought his family North, and they settled down
at Chadd's Ford, Pennsylvania. Soon afterwards,
however, he received the disappointing news that
Miss Stebbins, on account of ill health, could

BEGINNING A LITERARY CAREER 195

not fulfill her part of the contract, namely, to go
over the correspondence of Miss Cushman. This
was a severe blow to him, and probably had
something to do with his breakdown in health.
He spent several weeks at Mr. Peacock's in
Philadelphia, attended by the best physicians in
the city. He was planning to go back to Balti
more to resume his place in the orchestra, when
he was told that he must go at once to Florida if
he wished to save his life. He went, attended by
his wife, and they spent the winter there and the
spring in Brunswick and Macon. The letters
written by him to Mr. Peacock and Bayard
Taylor are among the best he ever wrote, full
as they are of sunshine and hope. A few ex
tracts are given : l —

" 1 have found a shaggy gray mare upon
whose back I thrid the great pine forests daily,
much to my delight. Nothing seems so restora
tive to me as a good gallop."

" What would I not give to transport you from
your frozen sorrows instantly into the midst of
the green leaves, the gold oranges, the glitter of
great and tranquil waters, the liberal friendship
of the sun, the heavenly conversation of robins
and mocking-birds and larks, which fill my days
with delight ! "

" In truth I * bubble song ' continually during

1 Letters passim.

196 SIDNEY LANIER

these heavenly days, and it is as hard to keep
me from the pen as a toper from his tipple."

" I have at command a springy mare, with
ankles like a Spanish girl, upon whose back I go
darting through the green overgrown woodpaths,
like a thrasher about his thicket. The whole air
feels full of fecundity : as I ride I am like one
of those insects that are fertilized on the wing, —
every leaf that I brush against breeds a poem.
God help the world when this now-hatching
brood of my Ephemerae shall take flight and
darken the air."

" I long to be steadily writing again. I am
taken with a poem pretty nearly every day, and
have to content myself with making a note of its
train of thought on the back of whatever letter
is in my coat-pocket. I don't write it out, be
cause I find my poetry now wholly unsatisfactory
in consequence of a certain haunting impatience
which has its root in the straining uncertainty
of my daily affairs ; and I am trying with all my
might to put off composition of all sorts until
some approach to the certainty of next week's
dinner shall remove this remnant of haste, and
leave me that repose which ought to fill the
artist's firmament while he is creating."

They returned to the North in June and spent
another summer at Chadd's Ford, — a place
of great natural beauty. "As for me," says

BEGINNING A LITERARY CAREER 197

Lanier, " all this loveliness of wood, earth, and
water makes me feel as if I could do the
whole Universe into poetry ; but I don't want to
write anything large for a year or so. And thus
I content myself with throwing off a sort of spray
of little songs, whereof the magazines now have
several."

Notwithstanding his illness, then, the year
ending with September, 1877, was one of marked
productivity. He wrote " Waving of the Corn,"
44 Under the Cedarcroft Chestnut," "From the
Flats," "The Mocking-Bird," "Tampa Robins,"
" The Bee," " A Florida Sunday," " The Stirrup-
Cup," "To Beethoven," "The Dove," "The
Song of the Chattahooche," and " An Evening
Song." He was in a fair way to realize his am
bition with regard to poetry. Again, however,
he was to be deflected from his course, but at the
same time to find " fresh woods and pastures

CHAPTER VIII

STUDENT AND TEACHER OF ENGLISH
LITERATURE

WHEN Lanier returned from Florida he tried
to get various positions which might enable him
to secure a livelihood. A lectureship at Johns
Hopkins University, — about which President
Gilman had talked with him in 1876 — a libra
rian's position in the Peabody Library, and a
place in some of the departments of the govern
ment in Washington, — all these were sought for
in vain. One of the saddest commentaries on
the condition of political life in the seventies is
that Lanier was not able to secure even a clerk
ship in any department. The days of civil service
reform and the time when a commissioner of
civil service would urge the application for gov
ernment positions by Southern men had not yet
come. "Inasmuch," Lanier says in a letter to
Mr. Gibson Peacock, June 13, 1877, "as I
had never been a party man of any sort, I did
not see with what grace I could ask any ap
pointment ; and furthermore I could not see it
to be delicate, on general principles, for me to

TEACHER OF ENGLISH LITERATURE 199

make personal application for any particular
office. . . . My name has been mentioned to
Mr. Sherman (and to Mr. Evarts, I believe) by
quite cordially disposed persons. But I do not
think any formal application has been entered,
— though I do not know. I hope not ; for then
the reporters will get hold of it, and I scarcely
know what I should do if I could see my name
figuring alongside of Jack Brown's and Foster
Blodgett's and the others of my native State." *
It was the same year in which Bayard Taylor was
nominated as minister to Germany and Lowell
as minister to Spain, but Lanier could not obtain
a consulate to France or even the humblest posi
tion, " seventy-five dollars a month and the like,"
in any department in Washington.

Under these circumstances he wrote what are
perhaps the most pathetic words in all his letters.
44 Altogether," he says, " it seems as if there
was n't any place for me in this world, and if it
were not for May I should certainly quit it, in
mortification at being so useless." 2 He did not
remain in this mood long, however. He settled
in Baltimore with his family in November, 1877,
in four rooms arranged somewhat as a French
flat, and a little later in a cottage, about which
he writes enthusiastically to his friends. There
is no better illustration of his playfulness and

1 Letters, p. 43. 2 Letters, p. 46.

200 SIDNEY LANIER

his ability to get the most out of everything than
his letter to Gibson Peacock : —

33 DENMEAD ST., BALTIMORE, MD.,
January 6, 1878.

The painters, the whitewashes, the plumbers,
the locksmiths, the carpenters, the gas-fitters, the
stove-put-up-ers, the carmen, the piano-movers,
the carpet-layers, — all these have I seen, bar
gained with, reproached for bad jobs, and finally
paid off : I have also coaxed my landlord into all
manner of outlays for damp walls, cold bath
rooms, and other like matters : I have further
more bought at least three hundred and twenty-
seven household utensils which suddenly came to
be absolutely necessary to our existence : I have
moreover hired a colored gentlewoman who is
willing to wear out my carpets, burn out my
range, freeze out my water-pipes, and be gener
ally useful : I have also moved my family into
our new home, have had a Xmas tree for the
youngsters, have looked up a cheap school for
Harry and Sidney, have discharged my daily
duties as first flute of the Peabody Orchestra,
have written a couple of poems and part of an
essay on Beethoven and Bismarck, have accom
plished at least a hundred thousand miscellaneous
necessary nothings, — and have not, in conse
quence of the aforesaid, sent to you and my dear

TEACHER OF ENGLISH LITERATURE 201

Maria the loving greetings whereof my heart has
been full during the whole season. Maria's cards
were duly distributed, and we were all touched
with her charming little remembrances. With
how much pleasure do I look forward to the time
when I may kiss her hand in my own house !
We are in a state of supreme content with our
new home : it really seems to me as incredible
that myriads of people have been living in their
own homes heretofore as to the young couple
with a first baby it seems impossible that a great
many other couples have had similar prodigies.
It is simply too delightful. Good heavens, how
I wish that the whole world had a Home !

I confess I am a little nervous about the gas-
bills, which must come in, in the course of time ;
and there are the water-rates, and several sorts of
imposts and taxes : but then, the dignity of being
liable for such things (!) is a very supporting-
consideration. No man is a Bohemian who has
to pay water-rates and a street-tax. Every day
when I sit down in my dining-room — my dining-
room ! — I find the wish growing stronger that
each poor soul in Baltimore, whether saint or
sinner, could come and dine with me. How I
would carve out the merry thoughts for the old
hags ! How I would stuff the big wall-eyed rascals
till their rags ripped again ! There was a knight
of old times who built the dining-hall of his castle

202 SIDNEY LANIER

across the highway, so that every wayfarer must
perforce pass through : there the traveler, rich
or poor, found always a trencher and wherewithal
to fill it. Three times a day, in my own chair at
my own table, do I envy that knight and wish
that I might do as he did.1

He was soon to find another joy in the study
of Old and Middle English literature, which he
entered upon with unbounded zest and energy.
As has been seen in previous chapters, Lanier
had been all his life a reader of the best books.
Before he came to Baltimore to live he had
impressed Paul Hamilton Hayne with his un
usually thorough knowledge of Chaucer and the
Elizabethan poets. He was also familiar with
modern English literature. Now, however, he
was to begin the study of literature in a syste
matic and more scholarly way. A distinct ad
vance in his intellectual life must, therefore, be
dated from the winter of 1877-78, when he began
to study English with the aid of the Peabody
Library.

For purposes of research this library was,
during Lanier's lifetime, one of the best in
America. Mr. Peabody indicated its character
when he said, in his announcement of the gift,
that it was to be " well furnished in every de-
1 Letters, p. 49.

TEACHER OF ENGLISH LITERATURE 203

partment of knowledge, to be for the free use
of all persons who may desire to consult it, to
satisfy the researches of students who may be
engaged in the pursuit of knowledge not ordi
narily obtainable in the private libraries of the
country." It was modeled on the plan of the
British Museum, and he was anxious to " engraft
in Baltimore the offshoots of the highest culture
obtainable in the great capitals of Europe." In
accordance with his idea, the provost, Dr. Mori-
son, had in the selection of the library consulted
specialists in the leading universities of the coun
try. Besides containing the scientific journals in
the various departments of human learning, it
was especially rich in the publications of the
Early English Text Society, the Chaucer Society,
the Percy Society, and in the reprints of Eliza
bethan literature made by Alexander B. Grosart
and other English scholars. There had been
some complaint on the part of the citizens of
Baltimore that the library could not be of more
general use. To meet this Dr. Morison said in
1871 : " We cannot create scholars or readers
to use our library, but we can make a collection
of books which all scholars will appreciate, when
they shall appear among us as they surely will
some day." This prophecy was fulfilled when
Johns Hopkins University was established in
1876. In addition to the excellent collection of

204 SIDNEY LANIER

book,s there was a carefully prepared catalogue,
which made the investigator's task much easier.

To the Peabody thus furnished and arranged,
Lanier came with an eagerness of mind that few
men have had. Writing to J. F. Kirk, August
24, 1878, he said, speaking of an edition of
Elizabethan sonnets which he was preparing:
" I have found the Peabody Library here a rich
mine in the collection of material for my book,
especially as affording sources for the presenta
tion of the anonymous poems in the early col
lections which are very interesting." He always
expressed himself as grateful that he could find
his working material so easily accessible.

Of his habits of study one of the assistant
librarians says : " He usually came in the morn
ing, occupying the same seat at the end of the
table, where he worked until lunch time, so ab
sorbed with his studies that he scarcely ever raised
his eyes to notice anything around him. During
the winters that he was a member of the Peabody
Orchestra he came back in the afternoons when
the rehearsals were held, bringing his flute with
him, and continued his studies until it was time
to go into the rehearsal. He continued in this
way until his increasing weakness prevented him
from leaving home, when he would write notes to
the desk attendants asking them to verify some
reference, or copy some extract for him, and fre-

TEACHER OF ENGLISH LITERATURE 205

quently his wife would come to the library to do
the copying for him." 1

This library was Lanier's university. While
other Southerners were finding their way to Ger
man universities, he was training himself in the
methods and ideals of the modern scholar. The
dream of his college days was being fulfilled-
He lacked the patient and careful training of
men who have a lifetime to devote to some
special field of work. He could not in the short
time at his disposal explore the fields of learning
which he entered. Into those two or three years
of study and research, however, were .crowded
results and attainments that many less gifted
men, working with less prodigious zest and
power, do not reach in a decade.

Writing to Bayard Taylor, October 20, 1878,
he said : " Indeed, I have been so buried in study
for the past six months that I know not news
nor gossip of any kind. Such days and nights
of glory as I have had ! I have been studying
Early English, Middle English, and Elizabethan
poetry, from Beowulf to Ben Jonson : and the
world seems twice as large." 2 No sooner had he
begun this work than he desired to communicate
to others his own pleasure in English literature.
In March, 1878, he began a series of lectures at
the residence of Mrs. Edgworth Bird, who had

1 Letter of Mr. John Park to the author. 2 Letters, p. 214.

206 SIDNEY LANIER

welcomed him to her home when he first came
to Baltimore. These lectures on Elizabethan
poetry were attended by many of the most promi
nent men and women of the city. The following
winter Lanier arranged for a series of lectures
at the Peabody Institute. " In the spring of
1878," says one of his friends, " I was speaking
of the desultory study which women so often do
and of how much better it would be if all this
energy could be directed to some definite end.
He said : ' That is just what I am purposing.
Next winter I am going to have a Shakespearean
revival for women,' and he then proceeded to
tell me of the prospective lectures." He had
become imbued with the idea that much might
be done in the way of establishing " Schools
for Grown People " in all the leading cities of
America. He writes to Gibson Peacock : —

180 ST. PAUL ST., BALTIMORE, MD.,
November 5, 1878.

I have been " allowing " — as the Southern ne
groes say — that I would write you, for the last
two weeks ; but I had a good deal to say, and
have n't had time to say it.

During my studies for the last six or eight
months a thought which was at first vague has
slowly crystallized into a purpose, of quite de
cisive aim. The lectures which I was invited to

TEACHER OF ENGLISH LITERATURE 207

deliver last winter before a private class met
with such an enthusiastic reception as to set me
thinking very seriously of the evident delight
with which grown people found themselves re
ceiving systematic instruction in a definite study.
This again put me upon reviewing the whole
business of Lecturing which has risen to such
proportions in our country, but which, every one
must feel, has now reached its climax and must
soon give way — like all things — to something
better. The fault of the lecture system as at
present conducted — a fault which must finally
prove fatal to it — is that it is too fragmentary,
and presents too fragmentary a mass — indigesta
moles — of facts before the hearers. Now if,
instead of such a series as that of, the popular
Star Course (for instance) in Philadelphia, a
scheme of lectures should be arranged which
would amount to the systematic presentation of
a given subject, then the audience would receive
a substantial benefit, and would carry away some
genuine possession at the end of the course. The
subject thus systematically presented might be
either scientific (as Botany, for example, or Bi
ology popularized, and the like) or domestic
(as detailed in the accompanying printed extract
under the " Household " School) or artistic or
literary.

This stage of the investigation put me to

208 SIDNEY LANIER

thinking of schools for grown people. Men and
women leave college nowadays just at the time
when they are really prepared to study with
effect. There is indeed a vague notion of this
abroad, but it remains vague. Any intelligent
grown man or woman readily admits that it
would be well — indeed, many whom I have met
sincerely desire — to pursue some regular course
of thought ; but there is no guidance, no organ
ized means of any sort, by which people engaged
in ordinary avocations can accomplish such an
aim.

Here, then, seems to be, first, a universal ad
mission of the usefulness of organized intellectual
pursuit for business people ; secondly, an under
lying desire for it by many of the people them
selves ; and thirdly, an existing institution (the
lecture system) which, if the idea were once
started, would quickly adapt itself to the new
conditions. In short, the present miscellaneous
lecture courses ought to die and be born again
as Schools for Grown People.

It was with the hope of effecting at least the
beginning of a beginning of such a movement
that I got up the " Shakespeare Course " in Bal
timore. I wished to show, to such a class as I
could assemble, how much more genuine profit
there would be in studying at first hand, under
the guidance of an enthusiastic interpreter, the

TEACHER OF ENGLISH LITERATURE 209

writers and conditions of a particular epoch (for
instance) than in reading any amount of commen
tary or in hearing any number of miscellaneous
lectures on subjects which range from Palestine
to Pottery in the course of a week. With this
view I arranged my own part of the Shakespeare
course so as to include a quite thorough presen
tation of the whole science of poetry as prepara
tory to a serious and profitable study of some of
the greatest singers in our language.1

In accordance with this idea he drew up a
scheme for four independent series of class lec
tures, directed particularly to the systematic
guidance of persons — especially ladies — who
wished to extend the scope of their culture.
There were to be schools of (1) English Liter
ature, (2) the Household, (3) Natural Science,
and (4) Art. Thirty lectures were to be given
in each school, he to give those on English Lit
erature. He hoped that he would be able to
arrange for such series in Washington, Phila
delphia, and Southern cities. This scheme is
a striking anticipation of popular lectures that
have been given in New York city during the
past few years, as well as of the University Ex
tension lectures since established at the Univer
sity of Chicago, the University of Pennsylvania,
and other American universities.

1 Letters, p. 53.

210 SIDNEY LANIER

The only part of the scheme that took shape
was the Shakespeare course planned for the Pea-
body Institute. In addition to twenty-four lec
tures by Lanier, two lectures were to be given by
Prof. B. L. Gildersleeve, — " one on the Timon
of Lucian, compared with Timon of Shakespeare,
and one on Macbeth and Agamemnon ; two on
the State of Natural Science in Shakespeare's
Time, by Prof. Ira Remsen ; two on Religion in
Shakespeare's Time, by Dr. H. B. Adams ; two
readings from Marlowe's Faust and three lec
tures on the Mystery Plays as illustrated by the
Oberammergau Passion Play, by Prof. E. G.
Daves ; and three lectures on the Early English
Comedy as illustrated by Gammer Gurton's
Needle and Ralph Royster Doyster, by Col.
Richard M. Johnston."

Of these only Lanier 's lectures were given,
and they did not prove to be a financial success,
although they accomplished much good in Bal
timore. Published as they have been recently,1
they are among the most valuable aids in the
study of Lanier's personality and of his attitude
to literature. It must be borne in mind that
they were not written for publication, nor for
an academic audience, and that the only proper
way to estimate them is to compare them with

1 Shakspere and His Forerunners. Doubleday, Page & Co.,
1903.

TEACHER OF ENGLISH LITERATURE 211

lectures of a similar kind, — Lowell's Lowell
Institute lectures, for instance. Viewed from
this standpoint, one cannot but marvel at the
carefulness with which Lanier prepared his lec
tures, and the vital interest he took in work
which has been disagreeable to men of similar
temperament. Any one who expects to find in
them contributions to present day knowledge of
the subjects touched upon will be disappointed ;
but no one can read them without enjoying the
poet's nai' ve enthusiasm and his clear insight into
things that many a plodder never sees, nor can he
fail to be impressed with the modernness of his
mind. He must have been a successful teacher, —
he uses every effort to fix the attention of his
hearers, he summarizes frequently, illustrates,
vitalizes his subject.

There is evident throughout these lectures the
most enthusiastic appreciation of literature and
of its place in the life of the world. Few men
ever enjoyed reading more than Lanier. He
knew something of Stevenson's joy of being
" rapt clean out of himself by a book," — the
process was " absorbing and voluptuous." And
this enthusiasm he shared with all his hearers.
After much criticism of the scientific type by
followers of Arnold and Brunetiere, after many
class-room lectures and recitations, in which the
spiritual value of literature has been lost sight

212 SIDNEY LANIER

of, it is altogether refreshing to read the almost
childlike expressions of Lanier. One feels often
that the worship of what he calls his " sweet
masters " is overdone, and that he praises far
too highly some obscure sonneteer ; but there is
in his work the spirit of the romantic critic —
the zest of Charles Lamb and Hazlitt for the old
masters. Lowell, speaking of a period in his
own life when he was delivering his early lec
tures at Lowell Institute, said : " Then I was at
the period in life when thoughts rose in covies,
... a period of life when it does n't seem as if
everything has been said ; when a man overesti
mates the value of what specially interests him
self, . . . when he conceives himself a mission
ary, and is persuaded that he is saving his
fellows from the perdition of their souls if he
convert them from belief in some a3sthetic heresy.
That is the mood of mind in which one may read
lectures with some assurance of success. . . .
This is the pleasant peril of enthusiasm." There
could not be a better description of Lanier's lec
tures. Longfellow, referring to some lectures on
Dante which he had repeated often, said : " It
is become an old story to me. I am tired."
Lanier knew nothing of this ennui. He fretted
at times over the fact that he had to give to
work of this kind the time he might have given
to his poetry, but there is not in his lectures a

TEACHER OF ENGLISH LITERATURE 213

single note of weariness ; there is always the
freshness and exuberance of youth, the joy of
discovery, of interpretation, of illuminating com
ment.

He had the power of making even the older
English literature vital to a popular audience.
An Anglo-Saxon poem was not to him primarily
material for the study of philology, although he
now and then tried to interest his hearers in
the etymology of words — it was a revelation of
the life of a race in its childhood. While he
lost in technical precision, he gave the listener a
real grip on some old poem by which he could
always remember it and relate it to other things.
A few pages on " Beowulf," for instance, present
ing some specially striking scenes therefrom in a
translation that in rhythm and substance pre
serves the spirit of the original, would incite the
members of his audience to at least a literary study
of the Anglo-Saxon epic. By contrasting " The
Address of the Soul to the Dead Body" with
" Hamlet," he gave his hearers some clue to its
interpretation — he related it to an elementary
religious mood.

Is not this passage calculated to make one
realize the real meaning of " Beowulf," — espe
cially when accompanied by admirable transla
tions ?

" To our old ancestors there were many times

214 SIDNEY LANIER

when Nature must have seemed a true Grendel's
mother, a veritable hag, mindful of mischief;
and these monsters are not silly inventions, —
they are true types, ideals, removed very far,
if you please, yet born of the old struggle of man
against the wild beast for his meat, against the
stern earth for his bread, against the cold that
cracks his skin and wracks his bones, against the
wind that whirls his ship over in the sea, the
wave that drowns him, the lightning that con
sumes him. . . .

" And so, as I said, there is to me an inde
scribable pathos in these sombre pictures of
Nature in our old Beowulf here, — these drear
marshes, these monster-haunted meres, that boil
with blood and foam with tempests, these fast-
rooted, joyless woods that overlean the waters,
these enormous, nameless beasts that lie along
on promontories all day and wreak vengeance
on ships at night — have you not seen them,
headlands running out into the sea like great
beasts with their forepaws extended? And is it
not a huge Gothic picture of the wind rushing
down the windy nesse ... in the evening, and
whelming the frail ships of the old Dane, the
old Jute and Frisian and Saxon, in the sea?
All these, I say, are mere outcroppings of the
rude war which was not yet ended against Na
ture, traces of a time when Nature was still a

TEACHER OF ENGLISH LITERATURE 215

savage Mother of Grendel, tearing and devour
ing the sons of men." 1

Lanier believed strongly that the early Eng
lish poems ought to be taught in schools and col
leges. The following passage does not sound as
revolutionary now as it did in 1879 : —

" Surely it is time our popular culture were
cited into the presence of the Fathers. That we
have forgotten their works is in itself matter
of mere impiety which many practical persons
would consider themselves entitled to dismiss as
a purely sentimental crime ; but ignorance of
their ways goes to the very root of growth.

" I count it a circumstance so wonderful as to
merit some preliminary setting forth here, that
with regard to the first seven hundred years of
our poetry we English-speaking people appear
never to have confirmed ourselves unto ourselves.
While we often please our vanity with remark
ing the outcrop of Anglo-Saxon blood in our
modern physical achievements, there is certainly
little in our present art of words to show a liter
ary lineage running back to the same ancestry.
Of course it is always admitted that there was
an English poetry as old to Chaucer as Chaucer
is to us ; but it is admitted with a certain in
clusive and amateur vagueness removing it out
of the rank of facts which involve grave and im-

1 Shakspere and His Forerunners, vol. i, p. 55.

216 SIDNEY LANIER

portant duties. We can neither deny the fact
nor the strangeness of it, that the English poetry
written between the time of Aldhelm and
Csedmon in the seventh century and that of
Chaucer in the fourteenth century has never yet
taken its place by the hearths and in the hearts of
the people whose strongest prayers are couched
in its idioms. It is not found in the tatters of
use, on the floors of our children's playrooms ;
there are no illuminated boy's editions of it ; it
is not on the booksellers' counters at Christmas ;
it is not studied in our common schools ; it is
not printed by our publishers ; it does not lie
even in the dusty corners of our bookcases ; nay,
the pious English scholar must actually send to
Germany for Grein's Bibliothek in order to get
a compact reproduction of the body of Old Eng
lish poetry.

" One will go into few moderately appointed
houses in this country without finding a Homer
in some form or other ; but it is probably far
within the truth to say that there are not fifty
copies of Beowulf in the United States. Or
again, every boy, though far less learned than
that erudite young person of Macaulay's, can
give some account of the death of Hector ; but
how many boys — or, not to mince matters, how
many men — in America could do more than

TEACHER OF ENGLISH LITERATURE 217

stare if asked to relate the death of Byrhtnoth ?
Yet Byrhtnoth was a hero of our own England
in the tenth century, whose manful fall is re
corded in English words that ring on the soul
like arrows on armor. Why do we not draw in
this poem — and its like — with our mother's
milk ? Why have we no nursery songs of Beo
wulf and the Grendel ? Why does not the seri
ous education of every English-speaking boy
commence, as a matter of course, with the Anglo-
Saxon grammar ? " l

There would come from such study a strength
ening of English prose and a deepening of cul
ture. He continues : —

" For the absence of this primal Anglicism
from our modern system goes — as was said —
to the very root of culture. The eternal and im
measurable significance of that individuality in
thought which flows into idiom in speech becomes
notably less recognized among us. We do not
bring with us out of our childhood the fibre of
idiomatic English which our fathers bequeathed
to us. A boy's English is diluted before it has be
come strong enough for him to make up his mind
clearly as to the true taste of it. Our literature
needs Anglo-Saxon iron, — there is no ruddiness

1 Music and Poetry, p. 136. This quotation is an expansion
of one in the lectures now under consideration. He evidently
overstates his point, but the passage suggests what the study
of old English meant to Lanier himself.

218 SIDNEY LANIER

in its cheeks, and everywhere a clear lack of the
red corpuscles."

Lanier was more thoroughly at home in the
Elizabethan age, however. He reveled in its
myriad-mindedness — its adventures and exploits,
its chivalry and romance. The sonnets especially
appealed to him, for they abounded in conceits.
One of the striking characteristics that he noted
in the leading men of that age was the union of
strength and tenderness. " All this love-making
was manly," he says. " It was then as it is now,
that the bravest are the tenderest. . . . Stout
and fine Walter Raleigh pushes over to America,
quite as ready to sigh a sonnet as to plant a col
ony. Valorous Philip Sidney, who can write as
dainty a sonnet as any lover of them all, can at
the same time dazzle the stern eyes of warriors
with deeds of manhood before Ziitphen and touch
their hearts to pity and admiration as he offers
the cup of water — himself being grievously
wounded and in a rage of thirst — to the dying
soldier whose necessity is greater than his. Men's
minds in this time were employed with big ques
tions ; the old theory of the universe is just losing
its long hold upon the intellect, and people are
busy with all space, trying to apprehend the re
lation of their globe to the solar system. To all
this ferment the desperate conflict of the Catho
lic religion with the new form of faith now com-

TEACHER OF ENGLISH LITERATURE 219

ing in adds an element of stern strength ; men
are pondering not only the physical relation of
the earth to the heavens, but the spiritual rela
tion of the soul to heaven and hell. This is no
dandy period." l

" And if any one should say there is not time
to read these poets," he says in a strain of ex
cessive admiration, " I reply with vehemence that
in any wise distribution of your moments, after
you have read the Bible and Shakspere, you have
no time to read anything until you have read
these . . . old artists. They are so noble, so
manful, so earnest ; they have put into such perfect
music that protective tenderness of the rugged
man for the delicate woman which throbs all
down the muscles of the man's life and turns
every deed of strength into a deed of love ; they
have set the woman, as woman, upon such ador
able heights of worship, and by that act have so
immeasurably uplifted the whole plane upon
which society moves ; they have given to all ear
nest men and strong lovers such a dear ritual and
litany of chivalric devotion ; they have sung us
such a high mass of constancy for our love ; they
have enlightened us with such celestial revelation
of the possible Eden which the modern Adam
and Eve may win back for themselves by faith
ful and generous affection ; that — I speak it

1 Shakspere and His Forerunners, vol. i, p. 168.

220 SIDNEY LANIER

with reverence — they have made another re
ligion of loyal love and have given us a second
Bible of womanhood." l

Following his study of the sonnet-writers of
the Elizabethan age, comes a somewhat technical
study of the pronunciation of Shakespeare's time
— a restatement of Ellis's monumental work on
that subject. His discussion of music in Shake
speare's time has already been noticed. He next
tried to reproduce for his class the domestic life
of the age, commenting in full on the sermons,
the plays, the customs of the time. In order to
give unity to this study, he sketches in a some
what fanciful way the boyhood of Shakespeare in
Stratford and his early manhood in London.
The most important part of the lectures, how
ever, is his discussion of the growth of Shake
speare's mind and art, a study made possible by
recent publications of the New Shakespeare So
ciety. Lanier never wrote any more vigorous or
eloquent prose than these chapters, although it
must be said that he makes too much of the
dramatist's personality as revealed in his plays.
Two passages are quoted to indicate in the first
place the standpoint from which he studied the
plays, and in the second place to show his concep
tion of the moral height attained by Shakespeare
as compared with contemporary dramatists : —

1 Shakspere and His Forerunners, vol. i. p. 7.

TEACHER OF ENGLISH LITERATURE 221

«' The keenest scholarship, the freest discus
sion, the widest search for external evidence,
the most careful checking of conclusions by the
Metrical Tests one after another, have all been
applied to establish this general succession in
time of these three plays ; 1 and it is not in the
least necessary to commit ourselves to the exact
years here given in order to feel sure that these
three plays represent three perfectly distinct
epochs, separated from each other by several
years, in Shakspere's spiritual existence. . . .

"In short, the young eye already sees the
twist and cross of life, but sees it as in a dream :
and those of you who are old enough to look
back upon your own young dream of life will
recognize instantly that the dream is the only
term which represents that unspeakable seeing
of things, without in the least realizing them,
which brings about that the youth admits all we
tell — we older ones — about life and the future,
and, admitting it fully, nevertheless goes on right
in the face of it to act just as if he knew no
thing of it. In short, he sees as in a dream. It is
the Dream Period. But here suddenly the dream
is done, the real pinches the young dreamer and
he awakes. This, too, is typical. Every man re
members the time in his own life, somewhere
from near thirty to forty, when the actual oppo-

1 The Midsummer Night's Dream, Hamlet, and The Tempest.

222 SIDNEY LANIER

sitions of life came out before Mm and refused
to be danced over and stared him grimly in the
face : God or no God, faith or no faith, death or
no death, honesty or policy, men good or men
evil, the Church holy or the Church a fraud, life
worth living or life not worth living, — this, I
say, is the shock of the real, this is the Hamlet
period in every man's life.

" And finally, — to finish this outline, — just
as the man settles all these questions shocked
upon him by the real, will be his Ideal Period.
If he finds that the proper management of these
grim oppositions of life is by goodness, by humil
ity, by love, by the fatherly care of a Prospero
for his daughter Miranda, by the human tender
ness of a Prospero finding all his enemies in his
power and forgiving their bitter injuries and
practicing his art to right the wrongs of men
and to bring all evil beginnings to happy issues,
then his Ideal Period is fitly represented by this
heavenly play, in which, as you recall its plot,
you recognize all these elements. Shakspere has
unquestionably emerged from the cold, paralyz
ing doubts of Hamlet into the human tenderness
and perfect love and faith of The Tempest, a faith
which can look clearly upon all the wretched
crimes and follies of the crew of time, and still
be tender and loving and faithful. In short, he
has learned to manage the Hamlet antagonisms,

TEACHER OF ENGLISH LITERATURE 223

to adjust the moral oppositions, with the same
artistic sense of proportion with which we saw
him managing and adjusting the verse-oppositions
and the figure-oppositions." 1

"Surely the genius which in the heat and
struggle of ideal creation has the enormous con
trol and temperance to arrange and adjust in
harmonious proportions all these aesthetic an
tagonisms of verse, surely that is the same genius
which in the heat and battle of life will arrange
the moral antagonisms with similar self-control
and temperance. Surely there is a point of tech-
nic to which the merely clever artist may reach,
but beyond which he may never go, for lack of
moral insight ; surely your Robert Greene, your
Kit Marlowe, your Tom Nash, clever poets all,
may write clever verses and arrange clever
dramas ; but if we look at their own flippant
lives and pitiful deaths and their small ideals in
their dramas, and compare them, technic for
technic, life for life, morality for morality, with
this majestic Shakspere, who starts in a dream,
who presently encounters the real, who after a
while conquers it to its proper place (for Shak
spere, mind you, does not forget the real ; he will
not be a beggar nor a starveling ; we have docu
ments which show how he made money, how he
bought land at Stratford ; we have Richard

1 Shakspere and His Forerunners, vol. ii, p. 260.

224 SIDNEY LANIER

Quincy's letter to 4my loweinge good frend
and contreyman Mr. Wm. Shakspere, deliver
thees,' asking the loan of thirty pounds 4 uppon
Mr. Bushells and my securytee,' showing that
Shakspere had money to lend), and finally
turns it into the ideal in The Tempest ; if we
compare, I say, Greene, Marlowe, Nash, with
Shakspere, surely the latter is a whole heaven
above them in the music of his verse, as well as
in the temperance and prudence of his life, as
well also as in the superb height of his later
moral ideals. Surely, in fine, there is a point of
mere technic in art beyond which nothing but
moral greatness can attain, because it is at this
point that the moral range, the religious fervor,
the true seership and prophethood of the poet,
come in and lift him to higher views of all
things." i

Lanier frequently indulged in little homilies,
— " preachments " Thackeray would call them.
They were lectures on life as well as on literature
in its more technical sense. Two passages in
dicate a poet's feeling for nature, especially his
love of trees : —

" But besides the phase of Nature-communion
which we call physical science, there is the other,
artistic phase. Day by day we find that the mys
tic influence of Nature on our human personality

1 Shakspere and His Forerunners, vol. ii, p. 324.

TEACHER OF ENGLISH LITERATURE 225

grows more intense and individual. Who can
walk alone in your beautiful Druid Hill Park,
among those dear and companionable oaks, with
out a certain sense of being in the midst of a
sweet and noble company of friends ? Who has
not shivered, wandering among these trees, with
a certain sense that the awful mysteries which
the mother earth has brought with her out of
the primal times are being sucked up through
those tree-roots and poured upon us out of branch
and leaf in vague showers of suggestions that
have no words in any language ? Who, in some
day when life has seemed too bitter, when man
has seemed too vile, when the world has seemed
all old leather and brass, when some new twist
of life has seemed to wrench the soul beyond
all straightening, — who has not flown, at such
a time, to the deep woods, and leaned against a
tree, and felt his big arms outspread like the
arms of the preacher that teaches and blesses,
and slowly absorbed his large influences, and so
recovered one's self as to one's fellow-men, and
gained repose from the ministrations of the Oak
and the Pine?"1

" In the sweet old stories of ascetics who by
living pure and simple lives in the woods came
to understand the secrets of Nature, the con
versation of trees, the talk of birds, do we not
1 Shakspere and His Forerunners, vol. i, p. 72.

226 SIDNEY LANIER

find but the shadows of this modern communion
with Nature to keep ourselves simple and pure,
to cultivate our moral sense up to that point of
insight that we see all Nature alive with energy,
that we hear the whole earth singing like a flock
of birds, yet so that we remember Death with
Mr. Darwin, so that nothing is any more com
monplace, so that death has its place and life its
place, so that even a hasty business walk along
the street to pay a bill is a walk in fairyland
amidst unutterable wonders as long as the sky is
above and the trees in sight, — in other words,
to be natural . . . natural in our art, natural in
our dress, natural in our behavior, natural in
our affections, — is not that a modern consumma
tion of culture ? For to him who rightly under
stands Nature she is even more than Ariel and
Ceres to Prospero ; she is more than a servant
conquered like Caliban, to fetch wood for us :
she is a friend and comforter ; and to that man
the cares of the world are but a fabulous Mid
summer NigMs Dream, to smile at — he is ever
in sight of the morning and in hand-reach of
God." i

The lectures close, as they began, with an
estimate of the value of the poet to the world
and with a word of greeting to his audience : —

" Just as our little spheres of activity in life

1 Shakspere and His Forerunners, vol. i, p. 73.

TEACHER OF ENGLISH LITERATURE 227

surely combine into some greater form or pur
pose which none of us dream of, and which no
one can see save some unearthly spectator that
stands afar off in space and looks upon the whole
of things, — I was impressed anew with the fact
that it is the poet who must get up to this point
and stand off in thought at the great distance of
the ideal, look upon the complex swarm of pur
poses as upon these dancing gnats, and find out
for man the final form and purpose of man's life.
In short, — and here I am ending this course
with the idea with which I began it, — in short,
it is the poet who must sit at the centre of things
here, as surely as some great One sits at the
centre of things Yonder, and who must teach us
how to control, with temperance and perfect art
and unforgetfulness of detail, all our oppositions,
so that we may come to say with Aristotle, at
last, that poetry is more philosophical than philo
sophy and more historical than history.

" Permit me to thank you earnestly for the
patience with which you have listened to many
details that must have been dry to you ; and let
me sincerely hope that, whatever may be your
oppositions in life, whether of the verse kind or
the moral kind, you may pass, like Shakspere,
through these planes of the Dream Period and
the Real Period, until you have reached the ideal
plane from which you clearly see that wherever

228 SIDNEY LANIER

Prosperous art and Prospero's love and Prospero's
forgiveness of injuries rule in behavior, there a
blue sky and a quiet heaven full of sun and stars
are shining over every tempest." 1

One of the things which enabled Lanier to
produce the effect that he did in teaching liter
ature was the fact that he was an excellent
reader. He had a singularly clear and resonant
voice and a power to enter so into the spirit of a
work of art that he had no trouble in keeping
a large audience thoroughly interested. The fol
lowing account by one of his hearers, written a
short time after his death, gives the effect pro
duced by his readings : —

" Mr. Lanier did not lay claim to any extra
ordinary power as a reader ; indeed, he once,
when first requested to instruct a class of ladies
in poetic lore, modestly demurred, on the ground
of his inability to read aloud. ' I cannot read,'
he said simply ; ' I have never tried.' All, how
ever, who afterwards heard him read such scenes
from Shakespeare as he selected to illustrate his
lectures were thrilled by his vivid realization of
that great dramatist. His voice, though distinct,
was never elevated above a moderate tone ; he
rarely made use of a gesture ; certainly, there

1 Shakspere and His Forerunners, vol. ii, p. 328. I have
quoted freely from these lectures because they are in a form
not easily accessible to the general reader, and because, more
than any other of his prose works, they reveal the inner man.

TEACHER OF ENGLISH LITERATURE 229

was no approach to action or to the adaptation of
his voice to the varied characters of the play ; yet
many scenes which I have heard him read, I can
hardly believe that I have never seen produced on
the stage, so truly and vividly did he succeed in
presenting them to my imagination. At the time
I used to wonder in what element lay the charm.
Partly, of course, in his own profound apprecia
tion of the author's meaning, partly also in his
clear and correct emphasis, but most of all in the
wonderful word-painting with which, by a few
masterly strokes, he placed the whole scene be
fore the mental vision. In theatrical representa
tion, a man with a bush of thorn and lantern
must ' present moonshine ' and another, with a
bit of plaster, the wall which divides Pyramus
from his Thisbe ; but in Mr. Lanier's readings,
a poet's quick imagination brought forth in full
perfection all the accessories of the play. When
he read, in the Johns Hopkins lecture hall, that
scene from 4 Pericles ' in which Cerimon restores
Thaisa's apparently lifeless body to animation,
a large audience listened with breathless atten
tion. His graphic comments caused the whole
rapidly moving scene to engrave itself on the
memory." l

Such readings and lectures are treasured in
the minds of those who heard them. In addition

1 Letter of Mrs. Arthur W. Machen to the author.

230 SIDNEY LANIER

to his work at the Peabody Institute Lanier
taught in various schools, and so extended his
influence. It is easy to overstate the good he
accomplished, but it is within bounds to say
that his efforts to develop the culture life of the
city bore fruit, and that he has his place among
those who have contributed to the new Balti
more. He shared in all the advantages made pos
sible by the philanthropy of George Peabody
and Johns Hopkins, and in such aesthetic influ
ences as the Allston Art Association and the
Walters collection of French and Spanish pic
tures. In turn he promoted a love of music and
poetry. The successive invasions of Baltimore
by people from New England, Virginia, and
Georgia had added a cosmopolitan and cultured
society. By a wide circle Lanier was much be
loved. His admiration for the city and his ideals
for its future are well expressed in his " Ode to
the Johns Hopkins University : " —

And here, O finer Pallas, long remain, —
Sit on these Maryland hills, and fix thy reign,
And frame a fairer Athens than of yore
In these blest bounds of Baltimore. . . .

Yea, make all ages native to our time,
Till thou the freedom of the city grant
To each most antique habitant
Of Fame,— . . .

And many peoples call from shore to shore,
The world has bloomed again at Baltimore I

CHAPTER IX

LECTUKER AT JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY

THE Peabody lectures led to the appointment of
Lanier as lecturer in English literature at Johns
Hopkins University. As early as the fall of 1876,
he had written to President Gilman, asking for
a catalogue of the institution. In answer to his
first letter of inquiry, President Gilman, who
had followed with interest his Centennial poem,
and had been from the first an admirer of his
poetry, requested an interview for the purpose
of discussing with him the possibility of identify
ing him with the University. Lanier had then
talked with him about the advisability of estab
lishing a chair of music and poetry, a plan which
appealed to Dr. Gilman. In a letter to his brother
he writes of this interview : " He invited me to
tea and gave up his whole evening to discussing
ways and means for connecting me officially with
the University." He had been delayed in sug
gesting the matter to him before by his " igno
rance as to whether I had pursued any special
course of study in life." Dr. Gilman recom
mended to the trustees that Lanier be appointed

232 SIDNEY LANIER

to such a chair, and the latter looked forward to
a " speedy termination of his wandering and a
pleasant settlement for a long time." For some
reason, however, the plan did not materialize,
and we find Lanier a year later writing a letter
applying for a fellowship : —

WASHINGTON, D. C., Sept. 26, 1877.

DEAR MR. OILMAN, — From a published re
port of your very interesting address I learn that
there is now a vacant Fellowship. Would I be
able to discharge the duties of such a position ?

My course of study would be : first, constant
research in the physics of musical tone ; second,
several years' devotion to the acquirement of a
thoroughly scientific general view of Mineral
ogy, Botany, and Comparative Anatomy ; third,
French and German Literature. I fear this may
seem a nondescript and even flighty process ; but
it makes straight towards the final result of all
my present thought, and I am tempted, by your
great kindness, to believe that you would have
confidence enough in me to await whatever devel
opment should come of it.

Sincerely yours,

SIDNEY LANIER.

Such a plan of study did not fit in with the
scheme of graduate courses, and so he was not

AT JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY 233

awarded it. President Oilman had, however,
heard with much satisfaction Lanier's lectures at
Mrs. Bird's, and had cooperated with him in the
series of lectures at the Peabody Institute. Fi
nally, the trustees, convinced of Lanier's scholar
ship, and conscious of his growing influence in
Baltimore, agreed to his appointment as lecturer
in English literature, and Dr. Oilman had the
rare pleasure of announcing the fact on the poet's
thirty-seventh birthday — February 3, 1879.
Lanier responded in a letter, indicative at once
of the spirit in which he received the appoint
ment and of his high personal regard for the
president of the University. No story of Lanier's
life would be adequate that did not pay tribute
to the uniform kindness and thoughtful consid
eration of the poet's welfare manifested by Dr.
Oilman. He has his place in that inner circle of
Lanier's friends who meant much to him in open
ing up new fields of endeavor, and who after his
death zealously promoted his fame.

Lanier occupies a place in the history of Johns
Hopkins University that has perhaps not been
fully appreciated. His appointment was not a
merely nominal one, for he threw himself with
zeal and energy into the life of the University.
He breathed its atmosphere. He was a personal
friend of the president, of nearly every member
of the faculty, and of the university officers. He

234 SIDNEY LANIER

caught its spirit and grew with it into a real sense
of the ideals of University work. While his poem
written on the fourth anniversary of the opening
of the University, is not one of his best, it indi
cates the great love that he had for the institu
tion : —

How tall among her sisters, and how fair, —
How grave beyond her youth, yet debonair
As dawn ! . . .

Has she, old Learning's latest daughter, won
This grace, this stature, and this fruitful fame.

What the University meant to Lanier can be
realized only by those who have noted the eager
spirit with which he responded to every great in
fluence brought into his life, and who realize
what " those early days of unbounded enthusiasm
and unfettered ideality," characteristic of the
newly founded University, meant to the Ameri
can educational system. Her sister institutions
have in later days gone far beyond Johns Hop
kins in equipment and in opportunities for re
search, but students of American education can
never forget the pioneer work of the University
in the line of graduate study. Fortunately its
benefactor had left a board of trustees absolutely
untrammeled by any condition or reservation,
political, religious, or literary. A body of un
usually strong men, they were fortunate in secur
ing the services of Daniel Coit GilmaD, whose

AT JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY 235

experience in educational matters had commended
itself to the judgment of the four leading uni
versity presidents of the country to such an ex
tent that each of them without consulting with
the others advised his election. The newly elected
president and the trustees were accessible to
ideas, and finally decided that the wisest thing
that could be done was to make possible what
had been previously wanting in American univer
sities, a graduate school with high standards.
American professors had studied in German uni
versities and distinguished European scholars
had been called to chairs in American univer
sities, but neither had succeeded in essentially
modifying the type of higher education. Dr.
Gilman himself had tried in vain to secure the
opportunity for graduate work in this country.
Now, without any traditions to bind them, the
organizers of the University had the opportunity
" which marked the entrance of the higher edu
cation in America upon a new phase in its devel
opment." " The great work of Hopkins," said
President Eliot at the twenty-fifth anniversary
of its foundation, " is the creation of a school of
graduate studies, which not only has been in
itself a strong and potent school, but which has
lifted every other university in the country in
its departments of arts and sciences."

The trustees were very wise in choosing as

236 SIDNEY LANIER

the first faculty men who had the training and
the aspiration to make this work possible : the
" soaring-genius 'd Sylvester," —

That, earlier, loosed the knot great Newton tied,
And flung the door of Fame's locked temple wide;

Gildersleeve, who combined the best classical
traditions of the old South with recent methods
of German scholarship ; Morris, who came from
Oxford, " devout, learned, enthusiastic ; " accom
plished Martin, who " brought to this country
new methods of physiological inquiry ; " Row
land, " honored in every land, peer of the greatest
physicists of our day;" and Adams, "suggestive,
industrious, inspiring, ductile, beneficent," who,
though at first holding a subordinate position,
built up a department of history and economics
which has had a potent influence throughout the
South, and indeed throughout the country.1 These
men did much original work themselves, and put
before the public in popular articles and scien
tific journals the ideals of their several depart
ments. It is noteworthy that for every department
a special scientific journal was established. The
library, though small, was composed of special
working collections and of foreign periodicals,
which, when supplemented by the Peabody Li-

1 The account of the first faculty is based largely on ex-
President Oilman's article, " The Launching- of a University,"
in Scribner's Magazine, March, 1902.

AT JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY 237

brary, gave an opportunity for the most diligent
research. The students, who came from all parts
of the country, were shown " how to discover the
limits of the known ; how to extend, even by mi
nute accretions, the realm of knowledge ; how to
cooperate with other men in the prosecution of
inquiry." Reviewing the work done by the fac
ulty and students of the University, the leading
scientific journal of England said, July 12, 1883:
" We should like to see such an account of ori
ginal work done and to be done issuing each year
from the laboratories of Oxford and Cambridge."
In addition to the regular courses offered by
members of the faculty, the University provided
for series of lectures to be given by distinguished
scholars from both American and European uni
versities. These lectures, suggested by those given
at the College de France, appealed at once to
the University community and to the citizens of
Baltimore. In the course of the first five years
they had the chance to hear Lord Kelvin, Free
man, Bryce, Von Hoist, Edmund Gosse, Wil
liam James, Hiram Corson, and shorter series of
lectures by Phillips Brooks, Dean Stanley, and
others. The most notable of all were delivered
in 1877 by Lowell and Child, while at the same
time Charles Eliot Norton was lecturing at the
Peabody Institute, — " the three wise men of
the East."

238 SIDNEY LANIER

From far the sages saw, from far they came
And ministered to her.

Lowell lectured on Romance poetry, with Dante
as the central theme, while Child had " a four
weeks' triumph " in Chaucer, producing a cor
ner on that poet's works in all the bookstores
of the city. Readers of Lowell's letters will
remember the joy that he had in renewing his
association with Child and in forming new ac
quaintances in the circles of Johns Hopkins and
Baltimore. Unfortunately, Lanier was at that
time in Florida, seeking the restoration of his
health, and so missed the opportunity which he
would have coveted, of hearing, and of being
closely associated with, these eminent scholars.

To what degree was Lanier a scholar, worthy
to be named in connection with such men?
There are some who would deny him such a
rank ; and indeed, when one finds in his books
inaccuracies, conceits, and hasty generalizations,
one is apt to grow impatient with him. But there
are points which connect him with the modern
English scholar. In the first place, he was a
very hard and systematic student. He had none
of the slipshod methods of many men of his type.
He had respect for the most recent investiga
tions in his special line of work, — he knew the
value of scholarship. The Peabody Library en
abled him to have at hand the most recent

AT JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY 239

publications of the learned societies, and there is
no question that he steadfastly endeavored to
keep in touch with the authorities in any special
field of investigation in which he happened to
be interested. The footnotes in the " Science of
English Yerse " and iii the Shakespeare lectures
indicate that he had a knowledge of the bibli
ography of any subject he touched. Further
more, he consulted with men who were living
in Baltimore and had the special information
that he desired. While writing the " Science of
English Verse," he often talked with Professor
Gildersleeve as to Greek metrics. " We never
became intimate," says the latter, " and yet we
were good friends and there was much common
ground. Our talks usually turned on matters of
literary form. He was eager, receptive, reaching
out to all the knowable, transmuting all that he
learned. He would have me read Greek poetry
aloud to him for the sake of the rhythm and
the musical effect." 1 When the book was fin
ished, he wrote to Mr. Scribner : "I have had
no opportunity whatever to submit this book to
any expert friend and have often wished that I
might do so before it goes finally forth, in order
that I might avail myself of any suggestions
which would be likely to occur to another mind,
approaching the book from another direction.
1 Letter to the author.

240 SIDNEY LANIER

This being impossible, it has occurred to me
that perhaps you have sent the manuscript to be
read by some specialist in these matters, and
that possibly some such suggestions might be of
fered by him. Pray let me know if you think
this worthwhile." On questions of Anglo-Saxon
he conferred with Professor A. S. Cook, at that
time instructor in the University, and on matters
of scientific interest, such as he pursued in his
investigation into the physics of sound, he sought
advice from the scientists of the University, even
taking courses with them.

For Child, Furnivall, Hales, Grosart, and
other workers in the field of English literature
he had the greatest reverence. In his preface to
the " Boy's Percy," in commenting on the accu
racy of modern scholarship, he speaks of the
" clear advance in men's conscience as to literary
relations of this sort . . . the perfect delicacy
which is now the rule among men of letters, the
scrupulous fidelity of the editor to his text. . . .
I think there can be no doubt that we owe this in
estimable uplifting of exact statement and pure
truth in men's esteem to the same vigorous
growth in the general spirit of man which has
flowed forth, among other directions, into the
wondrous modern development of physical sci
ence. Here the minutest accuracy in observing
and the utmost faithfulness in reporting have

AT JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY 241

been found in the outset to be absolutely essen
tial, have created habits and requirements of
conscience which extend themselves into all
other relations." It may be seen from such
quotations that Lanier had respect for the most
minute investigations ; he had no tirades to make
against the peeping and botanizing spirit that
many men of his type have found in the modern
scholar. Speaking of the monumental work of
Ellis on the pronunciation of English in the time
of Shakespeare, he pays tribute to his " wonder
ful skill, patience, industry, keenness, fairness,
and learning."

Furthermore, Lanier himself had the spirit of
research and original work which we have seen
was characteristic of Johns Hopkins University.
He not only had the desire to investigate, but he
also gave form and shape to his investigations.
In this he was in striking contrast with many
Southern scholars. Joseph Le Conte, in his re
cent autobiography, tells of a friend of his who
had the. making of a great scientist. He met
him at Flat Kock in 1858, and heard him talk
most intelligently on the origin of species. At
that early date this South Carolina planter had
Darwin's idea. " Why did n't he publish it ? "
asks Le Conte, the answer to which question
leads him to comment on the lack of productive
scholars in the South. " Nothing could be more

242 SIDNEY LANIER

remarkable than the wide reading, the deep re
flection, the refined culture, and the originality
of thought and observation characteristic of them,
and yet the idea of publication never even enters
their minds. What right has any one to publish
unless it is something of the greatest importance,
something that would revolutionize thought ? "
Now Lanier was filled with the spirit of making
contributions, however insignificant, to the de
velopment of scholarship in some one direction.
He restates, for instance, with remarkable insight
and conciseness, the investigations of Fleay, Ed
ward Dowden, and other members of the New
Shakespeare Society, as to the metrical develop
ment seen in Shakespeare's plays. But he adds to
their investigations a suggestion as to the greater
freedom with which Shakespeare shifted the ac
cent in his later plays : " Several reasons may be
urged for the belief that this might prove one of
the most valuable of all metrical tests. In fact,
when we consider that the matter of rhythmic
accent is one which affects every bar of each line,
while the four tests just now applied affect only
the last bar of each line ; and when we consider
further that the real result of this freedom in
using the rhythmic accent is to vary the mono
tonous regularity of the regular system with
the charm of those subtle rhythms which we
employ in familiar discourse, so that the habit

AT JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY 243

of such freedom might grow with the greatest
uniformity upon a poet, and might thus pre
sent us with a test of such uniform development
as to be reliable for nicer discrimination than
any of the more regular tests can be pushed
to, — it would seem fair to expect confirmation
of great importance from a properly constructed
Table of Abnormal Rhythmic Accents in Shak-
spere."

Lanier not only made these investigations him
self, but incited his students to do so, especially
those in the smaller classes of the University. A
good illustration is in the suggestion he made to
a class that they might together work out some
interesting etymological and dialectical points.
" Why should not some of the intelligent ladies
of this class," he asks, " go to work and arrange
the facts — as I have called them — so that
scholars might have before them a comprehen
sive view of all the word-changes which have
occurred since the earliest Anglo-Saxon works
were written ? The other day a young lady — one
of the very brightest young women I have ever
met — asked me to give her a vocation. She
said she had studied a good many things, of one
sort or another ; that she was merely going over
ground which thousands of others had trodden ;
that she wanted some original work, some method
by which she could contribute substantially to

244 SIDNEY LANIER

the world's stock of knowledge : having this kind
of outlet she felt sure she had a genuine desire,
a working desire, to go forward. Well, of the
numerous plans which I can imagine for women
to pursue, I have suggested to you one which
would combine pleasure with profitable work in
a most charming manner. Suppose that some
lady — or better a club of ladies — should set
out to note down the changes in spelling — and
if possible in pronunciation — which have oc
curred in every word now remaining to us from
the Anglo-Saxon tongue. The task would not be
a difficult one. All that would be required would
be to portion out to each member of the club a
specific set of books to be read, each set consisting
of some books in Anglo-Saxon, some in Middle
English, and some in Modern English. Each
member would take her books and fall to reading.
As she would come to each word she would write
it down; and whenever she would happen on
the same word in a book of a later century she
would write it down under the first one ; if she
came upon the same word in a book of a still
later century she would write it down under
the other two, and so on. As each member of
the club would rapidly accumulate material, the
whole body might meet once a month to collate
and arrange the results. In this way a pursuit
which would soon become perfectly fascinating

AT JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY 245

would in no long time collect material for a thor
ough and systematic view of the growth of Eng
lish words for the last thousand years. The most
interesting questions concerning the wonderful
and subtle laws of word-change might then be
solved." 1

In his zeal for publishing and editing books
he conceived of a rather quixotic plan for start
ing a publishing house. In a letter written June
8, 1879, to his brother, Lanier urges him to
come to Baltimore and go into the publishing
business with him. They can then both become
writers, and thus resume the plan of working to
gether that they had formed just after the war.
Lanier himself expects to send forth at least two
books a year for the next ten years. " These are
to be works, not of one season, but — if pop
ular at all — increasing in value with each year.
Besides these works on language and literature
and the science of verse, — which I hope will be
standard ones, — my poems are to be printed.
... If you would only be my publisher ! In
deed, if we could be a firm together ! I have
many times thought that ; Lanier Brothers, Pub
lishers,' might be a strong house, particularly as
to the Southern States." He then outlines his
scheme in detail : they would need only an office,
a clerk and a porter, as they could have their

1 Shakspere and His Forerunners, vol. i, p. 134.

246 SIDNEY LANIER

printing done elsewhere. He closes with a strong
appeal to him to leave the South, inasmuch as
political conditions at that time seemed to render
the future of that section extremely doubtful.

A still more noteworthy characteristic of La-
nier's scholarship is the modernness of his work.
It is a striking fact that every subject he wrote
about has more and more engaged the attention
of scholars since his time. One may not agree
with any of his ideas, and may be convinced
of the superficiality of his treatment of litera
ture, but there is no question of the insight
manifested by him in seizing upon those subjects
that have been of notable interest to recent
scholars. When he lectured about Shakespeare,
for instance, he did not indulge in any of the
moralizing that had been characteristic of Ger
man commentators. On the other hand, he put
himself in thorough accord with the work outlined
by Dr. Furnivall and his fellow workers in their
efforts to study and interpret Shakespeare as a
whole. " The first necessity," said Dr. Furnivall
in the introduction to the Leopold Shakespeare
(1877), "is to regard Shakespeare as a whole,
his works as a living organism, each a member of
one created unity, the whole a tree of healing and
of comfort to the nations, a growth from small
beginnings to mighty ends." And again : " As
the growth is more and more closely watched and

AT JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY 247

discerned, we shall more and more clearly see
that his metre, his words, his grammar and syn
tax, move but with the deeper changes of mind
and soul of which they are outward signs, and
that all the faculties of the man went onward
together. . . . This subject of the growth, the
oneness of Shakespeare ... is the special busi
ness of the present, the second school of Victo
rian students ... as antiquarian illustration,
emendation, and verbal criticism were of the
first school. The work of the first school we have
to carry on, not to leave undone ; the work of
our own second school we have to do." Into this
study, thus outlined by the founder of the New
Shakespeare Society, Lanier threw himself with
unabated zeal.

The fact is all the more remarkable when we
compare his writing on Shakespeare with Swin
burne's book published during the same year.
Swinburne has only words of contempt for the
investigations of the New Shakespeare Society,
whom he characterizes as " learned and laborious
men who could hear only with their fingers. They
will pluck out the heart, not of Hamlet's, but of
Shakespeare's mystery by the means of a metrical
test ; and this test is to be applied by a purely
arithmetical process. . . . Every man, woman,
and child born with five fingers on each hand
was henceforward better qualified as a critic

248 SIDNEY LANIER

than any poet or scholar of time past." He calls
them " metre-mongers " and the " bastard brood
of scribblers." Lanier, however, while carefully
avoiding the methods and principles of a mere
dry-as-dust, spiritualizes all their facts, and works
out in passages of remarkable beauty and elo
quence the growth of Shakespeare's mind and art.
To Lanier a metrical test or a date is no insig
nificant thing. " Many a man," he says, " may
feel inclined to say, Why potter about your dates
and chronologies ? . . . But it so happens that
here a whole view of the greatest mind the hu
man race has yet evolved hangs essentially upon
dates." Lanier's reverence for exact scholarship
and his application of seemingly technical stand
ards do not interfere at all with his deeper
appreciation of Shakespeare's plays. While he
overstated the autobiographical value of a chro
nological study of the plays, — reading into this
study meanings that are not warranted by the
facts, — it must be said that it is difficult to find
in the writings of Americans on Shakespeare more
significant passages than chapters xx-xxiv of
" Shakspere and His Forerunners."

Other illustrations of the modernness of La
nier's scholarly work are easy to cite. His plan
for the publication of a book of Elizabethan son
nets, while not realized by him, has been carried
out during the past year in a far more extensive

AT JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY 249

and scholarly way than he could have done it
by Mr. Sidney Lee. In the light of the recent .
scholar's investigation, many of Lanier's ideas
with regard to the autobiographical value of the
sonnets vanish, but his insight into the need of the
study of the Elizabethan sonnets is none the less
notable. He was the first American to indicate
the necessity for the study of the novel as a form
of literature that was worthy of serious thought.
Lecture courses and books on the novel have
multiplied at a rapid rate during the past decade.
Whatever may be one's idea of the permanent
value of the " Science of English Verse," it is
evident that it was a pioneer book in a field which
has been much cultivated within recent years.
The thesis of the book will be discussed in a later
chapter ; here it needs to be said that it is one of
the best pieces of original work yet produced by
an English scholar in America, — in it are seen
at their best the qualities that have been noted
as distinctive in the author's work.

All these very essential characteristics of a
scholar Lanier had. He had not the time to
secure results from the plans that he clearly saw.
He was moving in the right direction. No scholar
should ever speak of him but with reverent lips.
Without the training, or the equipment, or the
time, of more fortunate scholars of our own day,
he should be an inspiration to all men who have

250 SIDNEY LANIER

scholarly ideals. If not a great scholar himself,
he wanted to be one, and he had the finest ap
preciation of all who were. And besides, did he
not have something which is often lacking in
scholars ? There is more science, more criticism
now in American universities, but it would be
well to keep in view the ideals of men who saw
the spiritual significance of scholarship. Pre
sident Gilman realized this when he wrote to
Lanier: "I think your scheme (of winter lec
tures) may be admirably worked in, not only with
our major and minor courses in English, but
with all our literary courses, French and German,
Latin and Greek. The teachers of these sub
jects pursue chiefly language courses. We need
among us some one like you, loving literature and
poetry, and treating it in such a way as to enlist
and inspire many students. ... I think your
aims and your preparation admirable."

Dr. Gilman refers here to a scheme for a
course in English literature outlined by the poet
in the summer of 1879. Lanier indicated three
distinct courses of study which would tend to give
to students (1) a vocabulary of idiomatic Eng
lish words and phrases, (2) a stock of illustra
tive ideas, (3) acquaintance with modern literary
forms. To secure the first point, he suggests that
students should read with a view to gathering
strong and homely English words and phrases

AT JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY 251

from a study of authors ranging from the Scotch
poets of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries to
Swift and Emerson. To secure ideas, the student
should study systems of thought, ancient and
modern. " The expansion of mental range, as
well as special facilities in expression, attainable
by such a course, cannot be too highly estimated."
Under the third head he suggests the study of
various forms of writing, — an idea which has been
carried out in recent years. The ultimate end of
all this study, however, is " the spiritual consola
tion and refreshment of literature when the day's
work is over, the delight of sitting with a favor
ite poet or essayist at evening, the enlargement
of sympathy, derivable from powerful individual
presentations such as Shakespeare's or George
Eliot's; the gentle influences of Sir Thomas
Browne or Burton or Lamb or Hood, the re
pose of Wordsworth, the beauty of Keats, the
charm of Tennyson should be brought out so as
to initiate friendships between special students
and particular authors, which may be carried on
through life." *

In another letter he wrote still further of his
plans, clearly distinguishing between the popular
lectures and the more technical work of the Uni
versity class-room. It is a long letter, but gives
so well Lanier's idea of his work in the Univer-
1 The Independent, March 18, 1886.

252 SIDNEY LANIER

sity and his plans for the future that it serves
better than much comment : —

180 ST. PAUL STREET, BALTIMORE, MD.,
July 13, 1879.

MY DEAR MR. GILMAN, — I see, from your
letter, that I did not clearly explain my scheme
of lectures.

The course marked " Class Lectures" is meant
for advanced students, and involves the hardest
kind of University work on their part. Perhaps
you will best understand the scope of the tasks
which this course will set before the student by
reading the inclosed theses which I should dis
tribute among the members of the class as soon
as I should have discovered their mental leanings
and capacities sufficiently, and which I should
require to be worked out by the end of the scho
lastic year. I beg you to read these with some
care : 1 send only seven of them, but they will be
sufficient to show you the nature of the work
which I propose to do with the University stu
dent. I should like my main efforts to take that
direction ; I wish to get some Americans at hard
work in pure literature ; and will be glad if the
public lectures in Hopkins Hall shall be merely
accessory to my main course. With this view, as
you look over the accompanying theses, please
observe : —

1. That each of these involves original research

AT JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY 253

and will — if properly carried out — constitute
a genuine contribution to modern literary scholar-
ship;

2. That they are so arranged as to fall in with
various other studies and extend their range, —
for example, the first one being suitable to a
student of philosophy who is pursuing Anglo-
Saxon, the second to one who is studying the
Transition Period of English, the sixth to one
who is studying Elizabethan English, and so on ;

3. That each one necessitates diligent study
of some great English work, not as a philological
collection of words, but as pure literature ; and

4. That they keep steadily in view, as their
ultimate object, that strengthening of manhood,
that enlarging of sympathy, that glorifying of
moral purpose, which the student unconsciously
gains, not from any direct didacticism, but from
this constant association with our finest ideals
and loftiest souls.

Thus you see that while the course of " Class
Lectures " submitted to you nominally centres
about the three plays of Shakspere1 therein
named, it really takes these for texts, and in
volves, in the way of commentary and of thesis,
the whole range of English poetry. In fact I
have designed it as a thorough preparation for
the serious study of the poetic art in its whole

1 Midsummer Night's Dream, Hamlet, and The Tempest.

254 SIDNEY LANIER

outcome, hoping that, if I should carry it out
successfully, the Trustees might find it wise next
year to create either a Chair of Poetry or a per
manent lectureship covering the field above indi
cated. It is my fervent belief that to take classes
of young men and to preach them the gospel ac-
cording-to-Poetry is to fill the most serious gap
in our system of higher education ; I think one
can already perceive a certain narrowing of sym
pathy and — what is even worse — an unsym-
metric development of faculty, both intellectual
and moral, from a too exclusive devotion to
Science which Science itself would be the first
to condemn.

As to the first six class lectures on " The Phys
ics and Metaphysics of Poetry : " they unfold my
system of English Prosody, in which I should
thoroughly drill every student until he should be
able to note down, in musical signs, the rhythm
of any English poem. This drilling would con
tinue through the whole course, inasmuch as I
regard a mastery of the principles set forth in
those lectures as vitally important to all syste
matic progress in the understanding and enjoy
ment of poetry.

I should have added, apropos of this class
course, that there ought to be one examination
each week, to every two lectures.

In the first interview we had, after my appoint-

AT JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY 255

ment, it was your intention to place this study
among those required by the University for a
degree. I hope sincerely you have not abandoned
this idea ; and the course outlined in " Class
lectures " forwarded to you the other day, and in
the theses of which I send the first seven here
with, seems to me the best to begin with. If it
should be made a part of the " Major Course in
English " (where it seems properly to belong),
I could easily arrange a simpler and less arduous
modification of it for the corresponding " Minor
Course."

I am so deeply interested in this matter — of
making a finer fibre for all our young American
manhood by leading our youth in proper rela
tions with English poetry — that at the risk of
consuming your whole vacation with reading this
long and unconscionable letter I will mention
that I have nearly completed three works which
are addressed to the practical accomplishment of
the object named, by supplying a wholly differ
ent method of study from that mischievous one
which has generally arisen from a wholly mis
taken use of the numerous " Manuals " of Eng
lish literature. These works are my three text
books : (1) " The Science of English Verse," in
which the student's path is cleared of a thousand
errors and confusions which have obstructed this
study for a long time, by a very simple system

256 SIDNEY LANIER

founded upon the physical relations of sound;
(2) " From Caedmon to Chaucer," in which I pre
sent all the most interesting Anglo-Saxon poems
remaining to us, in a form which renders their
literary quality appreciable by all students,
whether specially pursuing Old English or not,
thus placing these poems where they ought always
to have stood, as a sort of grand and simple
vestibule through which the later mass of Eng
lish poetry is to be approached ; and (3) my
" Chaucer," which I render immediately enjoy
able, without preliminary preparation, by an inter
lined glossarial explanation of the original text,
and an indication (with hyphens) of those terminal
syllables affecting the rhythm which have decayed
out of the modern tongue. I am going to print
these books and sell them myself, on the cheap
plan which has been so successfully adopted by
Edward Arber, lecturer on English literature in
University College, London. I have been work
ing on them for two months ; in two more they
will be finished ; and by the middle of Novem
ber I hope to have them ready for use as text
books. If they succeed, I shall complete the
series next year with (4) a " Spenser " on the same
plan with the " Chaucer," (5) " The Minor Eliza
bethan Song- Writers," and (6) " The Minor
Elizabethan Dramatists ; " the steady aim of the
whole being to furnish a working set of books

AT JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY 257

which will familiarize the student with the actual
works of English poets, rather than with their
names and biographers.

Pray forgive this merciless letter. I could not
resist the temptation to unfold to you all my
hopes and plans connected with my University
work among your young men which I so eagerly
anticipate.

I will trouble you to return these notes of
theses when you have examined them at leisure.
Faithfully yours,

SIDNEY LANIER.*

He endeavored to make his courses fit in with
other courses of the curriculum in Greek, Latin,
and modern literatures : —

MY DEAR SIR, — I had been meditating, as
a second course of public lectures during next
term, if you should want them, — twelve studies
on " The English Satirists ; " and on my visit
to the University to-day I observed from the
bulletin that Mr. Rabillon is now lecturing on
" The French Satirists." It occurs to me, there
fore, that perhaps some additional interest in the
subject might be excited if my course on the
English satirists should follow the completion of
Mr. Rabillon's — which I suppose will not be be-

1 Published in South Atlantic Quarterly, April, 1905.

258 SIDNEY LANIER

fore the holidays — and should be given in Janu
ary and February, instead of the course men
tioned in my note to you this morning. I may
add that if some other gentleman would offer
courses on the Greek and Latin satirists, we
might make a cyclus of it. Faithfully yours,

SIDNEY LANIER.

435 NORTH CALVEBT STREET,
Saturday evening.

Lanier's public lectures were largely attended.
What has been said of the Peabody lectures ap
plies to the University lectures. Of the effect
produced by him in his smaller University
classes, one of his students writes : —

"I think that it was in the winter of 1879-
80 that I heard that Mr. Lanier was to conduct
a class in English Literature at the Johns Hop
kins University, where I was then a Fellow. My
field of work was ^Esthetics and the History of
Art, and as I was eagerly searching for chances
to broaden and deepen my ideas, I enrolled my
self in the class. We were not many, and I
have no recollection of individuals in the group.
Neither can I distinctly recall either the topics
taken up or the method followed, except that
most of the hours consisted of extended readings
by Mr. Lanier with all sorts of interjected re
marks, often setting aside the reading altogether.

AT JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY 259

That the course was a real source of intellectual
profit to me I cannot doubt, but not in the form
of definite information or systemized opinion.
The benefit lay in a subtle expansion of the
power of appreciation and an undefinable exalta
tion of the instincts of taste that I have since
learned were more precious than any precise in
crements of cold knowledge.

" What I do remember vividly is the fact that
often, almost regularly, I used to wait for Mr.
Lanier after the class (which was held in the
evening) and walk home with him a mile or so,
sometimes walking up and down for a long time.
On these occasions we doubtless talked of all
manner of things. I was only a student trying
to ' find himself ' in reference to the vast areas
of thought. I was eager for sympathy and for in
spiration. My life-work was still unchosen, but
I was conscious of an intense drawing toward
artistic topics — not much with the creative im
pulse of the artist, but rather with the analytic
and rational desire of the student. I was begin
ning to have a profound sense of the interrela
tions of the fine arts with each other and of all of
them with the movement of history. I wanted a
chance to talk out what I was thinking and to
get new lights and promptings. So in our slow
strolls homeward I presume that I often babbled
freely of my studies in architecture and music,

260 SIDNEY LANIER

and my inconsequent remarks often led Mr.
Lanier to speak somewhat freely, too, of his
speculations and fancies. I now recall with won
der how he put me on such a footing of equality
that I often quite forgot the difference in age and
experience between us and almost felt him to be
a companion student. I now see that this was
the sign of two notable traits, — the extreme na
tive Southern courtesy that clothed him always
in all his dealings with every one, and the essen
tial youthf ulness of his mind when moving among
his favorite subjects. His was surely one of the
finest of sympathies, delicate, sensitive, elastic,
vital to the highest degree, the like of which is
all too rare among men, though hardly described
by the term ' feminine.' In it breathed a genu
ine capacity for love in the most noble sense, for
he was ready to identify himself with the interests
of another, to ether ealize and dignify what he
thought he saw in them, and thus absolutely to
transform them by the alchemy of his touch. And,
the more I think of it, the more I recognize that
his soul was incapable of aging. . . . This abso
lute freshness of heart and spirit seems to me
to have been one of the highest notes of Mr. La-
nier's genius. Here he was clearly allied to many
a more famous poet or painter or musician." 1

1 Letter to the author from Professor Waldo S. Pratt, now
of Hartford Theological Seminary.

AT JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY 261

Among American poets Lanier has the same
place with regard to the teaching of English that
Lowell and Longfellow have in the study of
modern languages. There were, to be sure, some
greater English scholars in this country during
the seventies than Lanier was, just as there were
more scientific students of modern languages in
the time of Longfellow and Lowell. Professors
Child of Harvard, Lounsbury of Yale, March of
Lafayette, Corson of Cornell, and Price of Ran-
dolph-Macon College — afterwards of Columbia
University — have a commanding place in the
development of English teaching which has be
come such a marked feature of educational pro
gress since, say, 1870. Throughout schools and
colleges and universities English is now firmly
established as perhaps the most important branch
of study. It is to the credit of Lanier that before
much had been done in this direction he saw the
great need of such work. Indeed, as early as
1868, while examining the catalogue of a South
ern university, he jotted down in his note-book
a suggestion that the most serious defect in the
curriculum was the lack of any English training.
It is true that there had been from time imme
morial chairs of belles lettres in institutions of
learning, but the department had rather to do
with things in general. Even where English was
studied there was a tendency to use manuals of

262 SIDNEY LANIEK

literature rather than the works of authors them
selves ; and there is now a tendency to use liter
ature as the basis for philological work. Lanier's
ideas strike one as singularly balanced and sane,
suggesting a compromise between the warring
camps of recent years.

By reason of Lanier's sympathy with the ideals
of the University, and his influence over some few
students, he has a permanent place in the history of
Johns Hopkins. Mr. Edmund Clarence Stedman
wrote to President Oilman : " It is a fine thing
that such an institution as your University should
have its shrines — and among them that of its own
poet, in a certain sense canonized, and with his
most ideal memory a lasting part of its associa
tions." The University has, indeed, kept the fame
and the personality of Lanier fresh in its memory.
As one enters McCoy Hall and notices the life-
size portraits of the first president and the first
members of the faculty, he misses the face of
Lanier ; but on entering Donavan Hall, just at
the end of the main hallway, he finds himself in
a room dedicated to the highest uses of poetry.
There are pictures of men who have delivered
lectures on the Percy Turnbull and Donavan
foundations, manuscript letters of distinguished
American poets and critics, and the bust of
Lanier, whose spirit seems to dominate the sur-

BRONZE BUST OF SIDNEY LANIER
By Ephraim Keyser, at Johns Hopkins University

AT JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY 263

roundings. It is the best of the likenesses of
the poet, and is the source of admiration to all
visitors, as well as an inspiration to all who
labor at Johns Hopkins. Those who were never
thrilled by the lustre of his dark eyes or never
heard the tones of his voice as he interpreted
passages of great poetry, may find some satis
faction in such an image.

CHAPTER X

THE NEW SOUTH

WHILE Lanier was finding his place in the larger
spheres of scholarship, of music, and of poetry,
he constantly returned in thought and imagina
tion to the South. Even after 1877, when he
and his family became residents of Baltimore, his
correspondence with his father and brother kept
him in touch with that section. He continued to
read Southern newspapers and to follow with in
terest Southern development. In his desk he kept
a regular drawer for matters pertaining to the
South. Both from his experience, which enabled
him to enter with unusual sympathy into the life
of the South, and from the larger point of view
gained from his life in other sections, his observa
tions on Southern life and literature are of spe
cial value. They show that he was not such a
detached figure as has been frequently thought.
He was of the South, and took delight in every
evidence of her progress. He sometimes de
spaired of her future — so much so that he urged
his brother to come to Baltimore in 1879. He
had little patience with the prevailing type of

THE NEW SOUTH 265

political leader at the time when the Silver Bill
was passed, so he wrote, June 8, 1879, to Clifford
Lanier : —

" I cannot contemplate with any patience your
stay in the South. In my soberest moments I
can perceive no outlook for that land. Our re
presentatives in Congress have acted with such
consummate unwisdom that one may say we have

no future there. Mr. and Mr. (as

precious a pair of rascals as ever wrought upon
the ignorance of a country) have disgusted all
thoughtful men of whatever party ; while the
shuffling of our better men on the question of
public honesty, their folly in allowing such people
as Blaine and Conkling to taunt them into cheap
huiiings back of defiance (as the silly Southern
newspapers term it), their inconceivable mistake
in permitting the stalwart Republicans to arrange
all the issues of the campaign and to bring on the
battle, not only whenever they want it, but on
whatever ground they choose, instead of manfully
holding before the people the real issues of the
time, — the tariff, the prodigious abuses clustered
about the capitol at Washington, the restriction
of granting powers in Congress, the non-inter
ference theory of government, — all these things
have completely obscured the admitted good in
tentions of Morgan and Lamar and their fellows,
and have entirely alienated the feelings of men

266 SIDNEY LANIER

who at first were quite won over to them. The
present extra session has been from the beginning
a piece of absurdity such as the world probably
never saw before. Our men are such mere poli
ticians, that they have never yet discovered —
what the least thoughtful statesmanship ought to
have perceived at the close of our war — that the
belief in the sacredness and greatness of the
American Union among the millions of the North
and of the great Northwest is really the principle
which conquered us. As soon as we invaded the
North and arrayed this sentiment in arms against
us, our swift destruction followed. But how soon
they have forgotten Gettysburg ! That the pre
sence of United States troops at the polls is an
abuse no sober man will deny ; but to attempt to
remedy it at this time, when the war is so lately
over, when the North is naturally sensitive as to
securing the hard-won results of it, when, con
sequently, every squeak of a penny whistle is
easily interpreted into a rebel yell by the artful
devices of Mr. Elaine and his crew, — this was
simply to invade the North again as we did in
'64. And we have met precisely another Gettys
burg. The whole community is uneasy as to the
silver bill and the illimitable folly of the green-
backers ; business men anxiously await the ad
journment of Congress, that they may be able to
lay their plans with some sense of security against

THE NEW SOUTH 267

a complete reversal of monetary conditions by
some silly legislation ; and I do not believe that
there is a quiet man in the Republic to whom the
whole political caucus at Washington is not a
shame and a sorrow.

" And thus, as I said, it really seems as if any
prosperity at the South must come long after
your time and mine. Our people have failed to
perceive the deeper movements under-running
the times ; they lie wholly off, out of the stream of
thought, and whirl their poor old dead leaves of
recollection round and round, in a piteous eddy
that has all the wear and tear of motion without
any of the rewards of progress. By the best in
formation I can get, the country is substantially
poorer now than when the war closed, and South
ern securities have become simply a catchword.
The looseness of thought among our people, the

unspeakable rascality of corporations like M

— how long is it going to take us to remedy
these things ? Whatever is to be done, you and
I can do our part of it far better here than there.
Come away."

The very next year, however, he wrote his
essay on the New South, showing a far more
hopeful view. After reading for two years the
newspapers of Georgia, with a view to under
standing the changed conditions in his native
State, Lanier published in October, 1880, an

268 SIDNEY LANIER

article on that subject in "Scribner's Maga
zine." l To one who reads it with the expecta
tion of getting an idea of the forces that have
made the New South, it is sadly disappointing ;
for he is told at once that the New South means
small farming, and the article deals largely with
the increase in the number of small farms and a
consequent diversity of products. Insignificant
as such a study may seem, it is noteworthy as
showing Lanier's interest in practical affairs. It
has been seen that ever since the war he had
been interested in the redemption of the agri
cultural life of the South, that this was the
subject of his first important poem. Since the
writing of " Corn " and of the earlier dialect
poems, he had frequently commented on the
future of the South as to be determined largely
by an improved agricultural system. To him the
best evidence of the enduring character of the
new civilization was a democracy, growing out
of a vital revolution in the farming economy of
the South. " The great rise of the small farmer
in the Southern States during the last twenty
years," he says, "becomes the notable circum
stance of the period, in comparison with which
noisier events signify nothing." The hero of the
sketch is a small farmer " who commenced work
after the war with his own hands, not a dollar

1 Retrospects and Prospects, pp. 104-135.

THE NEW SOUTH 269

in his pocket, and now owns his plantation, has
it well stocked, no mortgage or debt of any kind
on it, and a little money to lend." Lanier clips
from his newspaper files passages indicating the
constantly increasing diversity of crops. The
reader is carried into the country fairs and along
the roads and through plantations by a man who
had a realistic sense of what was going on in the
whole State of Georgia. " The last few years,"
he says, " have witnessed a very decided improve
ment in Georgia farming : moon-planting and
other vulgar superstitions are exploding, the in
telligent farmer is deriving more assistance from
the philosopher, the naturalist, and the chemist,
and he who is succeeding best is he who has
thirty or forty cattle, sheep, hogs, and poultry of
his own raising, together with good-sized barns
and meat-houses, filled from his own fields, in
stead of from the West."

Lanier saw that out of this growth in small
farming — this agricultural prosperity — would
come changes of profound significance. He saw
an intimate relation between politics, social life,
morality, art, on the one hand, and the bread-
giver earth on the other. " One has only to re
member, particularly here in America, whatever
crop we hope to reap in the future, — whether it
be a crop of poems, of paintings, of symphonies,
of constitutional safeguards, of virtuous behav-

270 SIDNEY LANIER

iors, of religious exaltation, — we have got to
bring it out of the ground with palpable plows
and with plain farmer's forethought, in order to
see that a vital revolution in the farming econ
omy of the South, if it is actually occurring, is
necessarily carrying with it all future Southern
politics and Southern relations and Southern art,
and that, therefore, such an agricultural change
is the one substantial fact upon which any really
new South can be predicated." It has been seen
that Lanier underrated the development of the
manufacturing interests in the South ; and yet
who does not see that with all the industrial
prosperity of this section during the last twenty
years, the most crying need now is the rehabili
tation of the South's agricultural life ? The pre
sent aggressive movement in the direction of the
improvement of the rural schools is a confirma
tion of Lanier's vision of " the village library,
the neighborhood farmers'-club, the amateur
Thespian Society, the improvement of the public
schools, the village orchestra, all manner of bet
terments and gentilities and openings out into
the universe." He saw, too, the effect on the
negro of his becoming a landowner, and the con
sequent obliteration of the color line in politics.
He cites from his newspaper clippings evidences
of the increasing prosperity of the negro race, —
for instance, how " at the Atlanta University for

THE NEW SOUTH 271

colored people, which is endowed by the State,
the progress of the pupils, the clearness of their
recitation, their excellent behavior, and the re
markable neatness of their schoolrooms, alto
gether convince 4 your committee that the colored
race are capable of receiving the education usu
ally given at such institutions.' " He sees in the
appearance of the negro as a small farmer a
transition to the point in which " his interests,
his hopes, and consequently his politics become
identical with those of all other small farmers,
whether white or black."

Much as has been accomplished, however, he
looks forward with expectancy to a still greater
future : " Everywhere the huge and gentle slopes
kneel and pray for vineyards, for cornfields, for
cottages, for spires to rise up from beyond the
oak-groves. It is a land where there is never a
day of summer or of winter when a man cannot
do a full day's work in the open field ; all the
products meet there, as at nature's own agricul
tural fair. ... It is because these blissful ranges
are still clamorous for human friendship ; it is
because many of them are actually virgin to
plow, pillar, axe, or mill-wheel, while others have
known only the insulting and mean cultivation
of the early immigrants who scratched the sur
face for cotton a year or two, then carelessly
abandoned all to sedge and sassafras, and saun-

272 SIDNEY LANIER

tered on toward Texas: it is thus that these
lands are with sadder significance than that of
small farming, also a New South."

In order to understand the development of
the New South, here briefly indicated, and in
order to appreciate what Lanier really accom
plished, two types of Southerners must be clearly
distinguished. After the war the conservative
Southerner — ranging all the way from the fiery
Bourbon to the strong and worthy protagonist
of the old order — failed to understand the
meaning of defeat. He interpreted the conflict
as the triumph of brute force, — sheer material
prosperity, — and comforted himself with the
thought that many of the noblest causes had
gone down in defeat. He threshed over the
arguments of Calhoun with regard to the Con
stitution of 1787. He quoted Scripture in de
fense of slavery, or tried to continue slavery —
in spirit, if not in name. He saw no hope for
the negro, and looked for his speedy deteriora
tion under freedom. Compelled by force of cir
cumstances to acknowledge the supremacy of the
Federal government, he was still dominated by
the ideas of separation. He saw «o future for
the nation. " This once fair temple of liberty,"
one of them said, — " rent from the bottom,
desecrated by the orgies of a half -mad crew of
fanatics and fools, knaves, negroes, and Jacob-

THE NEW SOUTH 273

ins, abandoned wholly by its original worshipers
— stands as Babel did of old, a melancholy monu
ment of the frustrate hopes and heaven-aspiring
ambition of its builders."

With him the passing away of the age of
chivalry was as serious a matter as it was to
Burke. He magnified the life before the war
as the most glorious in the history of the world.
He saw none of its defects ; he resented criticism,
either by Northerners or by his own people.
He opposed the public school system, as " Yan-
keeish and infidel," stoutly championing the sys
tem of education which had prevailed under the
old order. He recognized no standards. " We
fearlessly assert," said one of them, speaking of
the most distinguished of Southern universities,
" that in this university, the standard is higher,
the education more thorough, and the work done
by both teachers and students is far greater,
than in Princeton, or Yale, or Harvard, or in
any other Northern college or university." If
he ventured into the field of literary criticism,
he maintained that the Old South had a liter
ature equal to that of New England ; if he had
doubts upon that subject, he looked forward to
a time not far off when the Southern cause would
find monumental expression in a commanding
literature. If he thought on theological or philo
sophical subjects, he thought in terms of the

274 SIDNEY LANIER

seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The watch
words of modern life were so many red flags to
him, — science the enemy of religion, German
philosophy a denial of the depravity of man,
democracy the product of French infidelity and
of false humanitarianism, industrial prosperity
the inveterate foe of the graces of life. To use
Lanier's words, he " failed to perceive the deeper
movements underrunning the times." Defeated
in a long war and inheriting the provincialism
and sensitiveness of a feudal order, he remained
proud in his isolation. He went to work with
a stubborn and unconquered spirit, with the idea
that sometime in the future all the principles
for which he had stood would triumph.

Into the hands of such men the reconstruc
tion governments played. Worse even than the
effect of excessive taxation, misgove'rnment, and
despair produced in the minds of the people, was
the permanent effect produced on the Southern
mind. The prophecies that had been made with
regard to the triumph of despotism seemed to be
fulfilled ; every contention that had been made
in 1861 with regard to the dangers of Federal
usurpation seemed justified in the acts of the
government. The political equality of the negro,
guaranteed by the Fifteenth Amendment, and the
attempt to give him social equality, were stub
born facts which seemed to overthrow the more

THE NEW SOUTH 275

liberal ideas of Lincoln and of those Southern
leaders who after the war hoped that the mag
nanimity of the North would be equal to the great
task ahead of the nation. The conservative lead
ers were invested with a dignity that recalls the
popularity of Burke when his predictions with
regard to the French Revolution were realized.
During all the years that have intervened since
reconstruction days, the conservative has had as
a resource for leadership his harking back to
those days. The demagogue and the reactionary
— enemies of the children of light — have always
been able to inflame the populace with appeals
to the memories and issues of the past. Such
men have forgot nothing and learned nothing.1

In striking contrast with the conservative
Southerner has been the progressive Southerner,
a type ranging all the way from the unwise
and unreasonable reformer to the well-balanced
and sympathetic worker, who has endeavored to
make the transition from the old order to the
new a normal and healthy one. If the qualities
which have made Lanier's progress possible aae
recalled, — his lack of prejudice, his inexhausti
ble energy, the alertness and modernness of his
mind, his ability to find joy in constructive work,

1 I have here sketched a composite picture ; it is like no
one man, but the type is recognizable. It is the result of a
study of the magazines, newspapers, and biographies of the
period from 1865 to 1880. The type is not extinct.

276 SIDNEY LANIER

his adoption of the national point of view, —
then the reader may see the elements that have
made possible a New South. The same spirit ap
plied to industry, to education, to religion, is now
seen everywhere. The term "New South," used
by Lanier and others, is meant in no way as a
reproach to the Old South, — it is simply the
recognition of a changed social life due to one of
the greatest catastrophes in history. In the early
eighties it was employed by four Georgians, who
had a right to use it, — Benjamin H. Hill, Atticus
G. Haygood, Henry Grady, and Sidney Lanier.
Georgia was the Southern State that led in this
progressive work. Here the readjustment came
sooner, by reason of the fact that a more demo
cratic people lived there, and also that the bur
dens of reconstruction were less severe. Virginia
gave to the nation at the time of the foundation
of the republic a group of statesmen rarely ex
celled in the history of the world. South Carolina
statesmen led in the movement towards secession,
and her people were the first to make an aggres
sive movement in that direction. The leadership
of the New South must be found in a group of
far-seeing, liberal-minded, aggressive Georgians.
The action of the State legislature in repealing
the ordinance of secession and accepting the eman
cipation of slaves within one minute, was charac
teristic of her later work. In 1866, Alexander

THE NEW SOUTH 277

H. Stephens and Benjamin H. Hill — one before
the legislature of Georgia and the other before
Tammany Hall — sounded the note of patience,
of nationalism, and of hope. " There was a South
of slavery and secession," said the latter ; " that
South is dead. There is a South of Union and
freedom; that South, thank God! is living,
breathing, growing every hour." These words
became the text of the now celebrated address of
another Georgian who twenty years later, before
the New England Club of New York, gave nota
ble expression to his own ideals and those who
had wrought with him in the genuine reconstruc
tion of the South. Henry Grady, as editor of
the Atlanta " Constitution," was, after 1876, an
exponent of the idea that the future of the South
lay not primarily in politics, but in an industrial
order which should be the basis of a more endur
ing civilization. At his advice, as Joel Chandler
Harris says, everybody began to take a day off
from politics occasionally and devote themselves
to the upbuilding of the resources of the State.
Another Georgian, the late John B. Gordon,
united with Grady and others in saying " a bold
and manly word in behalf of the American Union
in the ear of the South, and a bold and manly
word in behalf of the South in the ear of the
North." While recounting the last days of the
Confederacy, he awoke in Northern hearts an

278 SIDNEY LANIER

admiration for Lee and in Southern hearts an
admiration for Grant, and in all an aspiration
towards nationalism.

Another Georgian, Atticus G. Haygood, — pre
sident of Emory College and afterwards bishop
of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, —
voiced the sentiment of the liberal South with re
gard to the negro, in a book whose title, "Our Bro
ther in Black," sufficiently indicates the spirit in
which it was written. In a Thanksgiving sermon
on the New South, delivered in 1881, he criti
cised severely the croakers and the demagogues
who were endeavoring to mislead the people, and
reviewed with sympathy the great progress that
had been made since the war. He pleads guilty
to the charge of having new light and is glad
of it. He points out with keen insight the illit
eracy of the masses of the Southern people and
the lack of educational facilities. A movement
for the development of a public school system in
the South was led by J. L. M. Curry, a Confed
erate soldier of Georgia stock. He became an
evangelist in the crusade for public education,
announcing before State legislatures the princi
ple upon which a true democratic order might be
established. "I am not afraid of the educated
masses," he said, in an address before the Georgia
legislature; " I would rather trust the masses than
king, priest, aristocracy, or established church.

THE NEW SOUTH 279

No nation can realize its full possibility unless it
builds upon the education of the whole people."

By 1885 the forces that have here been briefly
sketched were well under way throughout the
South. Factories were prospering, farm products
were becoming more diversified, more farmers
owned their own places, a public school system
was firmly established in all the leading cities
and towns, colleges and universities — some of
the strongest dating from the period just after
the war — were enabled to increase their endow
ments and to modernize their work, the national
spirit was growing, and a more liberal view of
religion was being maintained. A day of hope,
of freedom, of progress, had dawned.

It was natural that along with all these
changes, and indeed anticipating some of them,
there should arise a group of Southern writers.
Indeed, immediately after the war there was a
marked tendency in the direction of literary work
— " an avalanche of literature in a devastated
country." Magazines were started and books
were published in abundance. The literary ac
tivity was due, no doubt, in the first place, to the
poverty of men and women : some who would
have looked down upon literature as a profession
before the war were now eager to do anything
to keep starvation from the door. Furthermore,
there was a great desire among some people to

280 SIDNEY LANIER

have the Southern side of the war well repre
sented before the civilized world. Hence arose
innumerable biographies, histories, and historical
novels, and hence the demand for Southern text
books.

It is clearly impossible to give any adequate
sketch of this literary awakening, — if so it may
be called, when contrasted with a later one. Of the
magazines which were started, the most important
were "Debow's Review," "devoted to the restora
tion of the Southern States and the development
of the wealth and resources of the country," whose
motto was, " Light up the torches of industry ; "
the " Southern Review," edited by Dr. A. T.
Bledsoe and William Hand Browne and dedi
cated " to the despised, the disfranchised, and the
down-trodden people of the South ; " " The Land
We Love," started in Charlotte, N. C., by Gen.
D. H. Hill, and devoted to literature, military
history, and agriculture ; " Scott's Monthly,"
published in Atlanta, " Southern Field and Fire
side," in Raleigh, and " The Crescent Monthly,"
in New Orleans ; the " New Eclectic Magazine "
and its successor, the " Southern Magazine,"
published by the Turnbull Brothers of Balti
more ; and, as if Charleston had not had enough
magazines to die before the war, the " Nineteenth
Century," in that city. Most of these had but a
short career, and none of them survived longer

THE NEW SOUTH 281

than 1878. There was in them a continual cry
ing out for Southern literature which might
worthily represent the Southern people. The re
sponse came, too — so far as quantity was con
cerned. One of the editors remarked that he
had enough poetry on hand to last seven years
and five months.

Of these magazines the most important was the
" Southern Magazine," published at Baltimore
from 1871 to 1875, — a magazine which came
nearest filling the place occupied by the " South
ern Literary Messenger " before the war. While
it was somewhat eclectic in its character, — re
printing articles from the English magazines, —
it had as contributors a group of promising young
scholars and writers. The editor was William
Hand Browne, now professor of English literature
in Johns Hopkins University. Professor Gilder-
sleeve, then of the University of Virginia, Pro
fessor Thomas R. Price, then professor of Eng
lish at Randolph-Macon, James Albert Harrison,
later the biographer and editor of Poe, and Mar
garet J. Preston were regular contributors. Rich
ard Malcolm Johnston contributed his "Dukes-
borough Tales " to it. One of the publishers of
the magazine, Mr. Lawrence Turnbull, visited
Lanier at Macon in 1871 and became much in
terested in him. To the magazine Lanier con
tributed " Prospects and Retrospects " (March

282 SIDNEY LANIER

and April, 1871), " A Song " and " A Seashore
Grave" (July, 1871), "Nature-Metaphors"
(February, 1872), "San Antonio de Bexar "
(July and August, 1873), and " Peace " (Oc
tober, 1874).

Of the books published during this period,
few have survived. John Esten Cooke's novels
and his lives of Stonewall Jackson and Lee,
two or three collections of the war poetry of the
South, Gayarre's histories, the " War between
the States," by Alexander H. Stephens, Craven's
" Prison Life of Jefferson Davis," and Dabney's
"Defense of Virginia" are perhaps the most sig
nificant. J. Wood Davidson's " Living Writers
of the South," published in 1869, gives the best
general idea of the extent and quality of the post-
bellum writing. Noteworthy, also, is a series of
text-books projected with the idea that the moral
and mental training of the sons and daughters
of the South should no longer be intrusted to
teachers and books imported from abroad. As
planned originally, the scheme called for Bledsoe's
Mathematics, Maury's Geographies, Holmes's
Readers, Gildersleeve's Latin Grammar, histories
of Louisiana and South Carolina by Gayarre
and Simms respectively, scientific books by the
Le Conte brothers, and English Classics by
Richard Malcolm Johnston.

So much needs to be said of the character of

THE NEW SOUTH 283

the literature immediately succeeding the war, if
for no other reason, that it may be contrasted
with the literature of, say, the period from 1875
to 1885. With the death of Timrod in 1867,
and of Simms, Longstreet, and Prentice in 1870,
the old order of Southern writers had passed
away. By 1875 a new group of writers had be
gun their work, Paul Hamilton Hayne best repre
senting the transition from one to the other. The
younger writers either had been Confederate sol
diers, or had been intimately identified with those
who were. They began to write, not out of re
sponse to a demand for distinctively Southern
literature, but because they had the artistic spirit,
the desire to create. They were interested in
describing Southern scenery, and in portraying
types of character in the social life of their re
spective States. Unlike most of the literature of
the Old South, the new literature was related
directly to the life of the people. Men began
to describe Southern scenery, not some fantastic
world of dreamland ; sentimentalism was super
seded by a healthy realism. The writers fell in
with contemporary tendencies and followed the
lead of Bret Harte and Mark Twain, who had
begun to write humorous local sketches and inci
dents. With them literature was not a diversion,
but a business. They were willing to be known
as men of letters who made their living by litera-

284 SIDNEY LANIER

ture. They stood, too, for the national, rather
than the sectional, spirit. " What does it mat
ter," said Joel Chandler Harris, " whether I am
Northerner or Southerner if I am true to truth,
and true to that larger truth, my own true self ?
My idea is that truth is more important than
sectionalism, and that literature that can be
labeled Northern, Southern, Western, or East
ern, is not worth labeling at all." Again, he said,
speaking of the ideal Southern writer : " He
mus't be Southern and yet cosmopolitan ; he must
be intensely local in feeling, but utterly unpreju
diced and unpartisan as to opinions, tradition,
and sentiment. Whenever we have a genuine
Southern literature, it will be American and
cosmopolitan as well. Only let it be the work of
genius, and it will take all sections by storm."

And it did take all sections by storm. Con
trary to the idea which had prevailed after the
war that Northern people would be slow to re
cognize Southern genius, it must be said that
Northern magazines, Northern publishers, and
Northern readers made possible the success of
Southern writers. In 1873, " Scribner's Maga
zine " sent a special train through the South with
the purpose of securing a series of articles on
" the great South." While in New Orleans, Mr.
.Edward King, who had charge of the expedi
tion, discovered George W. Cable, whose story,

THE NEW SOUTH 285

" 'Sieur George," appeared in " Scribner's Maga
zine " in October of that year. Between that
time and 1881 the magazine published, in addi
tion to Cable's stories, — afterwards collected
into the volume " Old Creole Days," - - stories
and poems by John Esten Cooke, Margaret J.
Preston, Maurice Thompson, Mrs. Burnett, Mrs.
Harrison, Irwin Russell, Richard Malcolm John
ston, Thomas Nelson Page, and Sidney Lanier.
In an editorial of September, 1881, the editor,
referring to the fact that no less than seven
articles by Southerners had appeared in a recent
number of " Scribner's," said : " We are glad
to recognize the fact of a permanent productive
force in literature in the Southern States. . . .
We welcome the new writers to the great repub
lic of letters with all heartiness." " The Century
Magazine," the successor of " Scribner's," con
tinued to be the patron of the new Southern
writers. The number for April, 1884, contained
Lanier's portrait as a frontispiece, a sketch of
Lanier by William Hayes Ward, Thomas Nelson
Page's " Marse Chan," an installment of Cable's
" Dr. Sevier," Walter B. Hill's article on " Uncle
Tom Without a Cabin," and William Preston
Johnston's poem, " The Master."

" Harper's Magazine," in January, 1874, be
gan a series of articles on the New South, by
Edwin De Leon, and in the following year pub-

286 SIDNEY LANIER

lished a series of articles by Constance F. Wool-
son, giving sketches of Florida and western
North Carolina. In May, 1887, appeared an ar
ticle giving the first complete survey of Southern
literature, which, according to the author, had
introduced into our national literature " a stream
of rich, warm blood." The "Independent," a
paper which had seemed to Southerners extremely
severe in its criticism of the life of the South, is
especially connected with the rising fame of La
mer. The editor recognized his genius while he
was still alive, after his death continued to pub
lish his poems, and in 1884 wrote the Memo
rial for the first complete edition of his poems.
Maurice Thompson, another Southern writer, be
came its literary editor in 1888.

Nor was the " Atlantic Monthly," which had
been identified with the New England Renais
sance, slow to recognize the value of the new
Southern story-writers and poets. In 1873, while
Mr. Howells was editor, Maurice Thompson's
poem, " At the Window," was hailed by the edi
tor and by Longfellow as " the work of a new
and original singer, fresh, joyous, and true."
The author received encouraging letters from
Lowell and Emerson. In the same year and in
the following appeared a series of articles entitled
" A Rebel's Recollections," by George Gary Eg-
gleston. In May, 1878, appeared Charles Egbert

THE NEW SOUTH 287

Craddock's first story of the Tennessee Moun
tains, " A Dancing Party at Harrison's Cove."
The value of her work was at once recognized by
Mr. Ho wells and his successor, Mr. Aldrich. In
a review of 1880, Cable's stories in " Old Creole
Days " are characterized " as fresh in matter, as
vivacious in treatment, and as full of wit as were
the c Luck of Roaring Camp ' and its audacious
fellows, when they came, while they are much
more human and delicate in feeling." In Janu
ary, 1885, in an article on recent American
fiction, appears the following tribute to the work
of recent Southern writers : " It is not the sub
jects offered by Southern writers which interest
us so much as the manifestation which seemed to
be dying out of our literature. We welcome the
work of Mr. Cable and Mr. [sic] Craddock, be
cause it is large, imaginative, and constantly re
sponsive to the elemental movements of human
nature ; and we should not be greatly surprised
if the historian of our literature a few generations
hence, should take note of an enlargement of
American letters at this time through the agency
of a new South. . . . The North refines to a keen
analysis, the South enriches through a generous
imagination. . . . The breadth which character
izes the best Southern writing, the large free
handling, the confident imagination, are legiti
mate results of the careless yet masterful and

288 SIDNEY LANIER

hospitable life which has pervaded that section.
We have had our laugh at the florid, coarse-fla
vored literature which has not yet disappeared
at the South, but we are witnessing now the rise
of a school that shows us the worth of generous
nature when it has been schooled and ordered." 1
The effect of this literature on Northern
readers was altogether wholesome, and minis
tered no doubt to the better understanding both
of the Old South and of the New. The stories of
Harris, Page, Cable, and Craddock reached the
Northern mind to a degree never approached by
the logic of Calhoun or the eloquence of impetu
ous orators, while the poems of Hayne and La-
nier, breathing as they did the atmosphere of the
larger modern world, and at the same time char
acterized by the warmth and richness of South
ern scenery and Southern life, ministered in the
same direction. On Southerners the effect was
stimulating ; one of the younger scholars of that
time, the late Professor Baskervill, recalled " the
rapture of glad surprise with which each new
Southern writer was hailed as he or she revealed
negro, mountaineer, cracker, or Creole life and
character to the world. There was joy in behold
ing the roses of romance and poetry blossoming
above the ashes of defeat and humiliation, and

1 In 1896 Mr. Walter H. Page, a native North Carolinian,
became editor of the " Atlantic."

THE NEW SOUTH 289

that, too, among a people hitherto more remark
able for the masterful deeds of warrior and
statesman than for the finer, rarer, and more
artistic creations of literary genius." *

One of the most significant characteristics of
the Southern writers was that they all showed
a certain discipline in their artistic work. They
had little patience with much of the criticism that
had prevailed in the South. As early as 1871
the editor of the " Southern Magazine," in a re
view of " Southland Writers," said : " We shall
not have a literature until we have a criticism
which can justify its claims to be deferred to;
intelligent enough to explain why a work is good
or bad, . . . courageous enough to condemn bad
art and bad workmanship, no matter whose it
be; to say, for instance, to more than half the
writers in these volumes : ' Ladies, you may be
all that is good, noble, and fair ; you may be the
pride of society and the lights of your homes ;
so far as you are Southern women our hearts are at
your feet — but you have neither the genius, the
learning, nor the judgment to qualify you for lit
erature.' " In the same magazine for June, 1874,
Paul Hamilton Hayne condemned severely the
provincial literary criticism which had prevailed,

1 Baskervill's Southern Writers is the best studjr that has
been made of the Southern literature of this period. A second
volume was prepared by his pupils and friends after his death.

290 SIDNEY LANIER

— " indiscriminate adulations, effervescing com
monplace, shallowness and poverty of thought."
" No foreign ridicule," he said, " however richly
deserved, nothing truly either of logic or of
laughter, can stop this growing evil, until our
own scholars and thinkers have the manliness
and honesty to discourage instead of applauding
such manifestations of artistic weakness and artis
tic platitudes as have hitherto been foisted upon
us by persons uncalled and unchosen of any of
the muses. . . . Can a people's mental dignity
and sesthetical culture be vindicated by patting
incompetency and ignorance and self-sufficiency
on the back?"

Lanier himself wrote to Hayne, May 26, 1873,
commending a criticism that Hayne had passed
upon a popular Southern novel : " I have not
read that production ; but from all I can hear
't is a most villainous, poor, pitiful piece of work ;
and so far from endeavoring to serve the South
by blindly plastering it with absurd praises, I
think all true patriots ought to unite in redeem
ing the land from the imputation that such books
are regarded as casting honor upon the section.
God forbid we should really be brought so low
as that we must perforce brag of such works ;
and God be merciful to that man (he is an
Atlanta editor) who boasted that sixteen thou
sand of these books had been sold in the South !

THE NEW SOUTH 291

This last damning fact ought to have been con
cealed at the risk of life, limb, and fortune."
Lanier himself saw the futility of such praise
of his own work by the Southern people. Refer
ring to the defense made of his Centennial poem
by Southern newspapers, he wrote from Macon :
" People here are so enthusiastic in my favor at
present that they are quite prepared to accept
blindly anything that comes from me. Of course
I understand all this, and any success seems
cheap which depends so thoroughly upon local
pride as does my present position with the
South." And again : " Much of this praise has
come from the section in which he was born, and
there is reason to suspect that it was based often
on sectional pride rather than on any genuine
recognition of those artistic theories of which his
poem is — so far as he now knows — the first
embodiment. Any triumph of this sort is cheap,
because wrongly based, and to an earnest artist
is intolerably painful."

Lanier 's own standards of criticism did not
prevent his recognition of the value of the real
artists who lived in the South, nor his encour
agement of every young man contemplating an
artistic career. He wrote to Judge Bleckley
about his son : " I am charmed at finding a
Georgia young man who deliberately leaves the
worn highways of the law and politics for the

292 SIDNEY LANIER

rocky road of Art, and I wish to do everything
in my power to help and encourage him." Writ
ing to George Gary Eggleston, December 27,
1876, he said : " I know you very well through
your ' Rebel's Recollections,' which I read in
book form some months ago with great enter
tainment. Our poor South has so few of the
guild, that I feel a personal interest in the works
of each one." His letters and published writ
ings bear out the truth of this statement. It

o

has already been seen that he was intimate with
Paul Hamilton Hayne, who had encouraged him
to undertake the literary life at a time when all
other forces were tending in another direction.
Lanier criticised in detail many of Hayne's
poems. In a review of his poems published in
the " Southern Magazine," 1874, he paid a nota
ble tribute to his fellow worker in the realm of
letters. He does not fail to call attention to trite
similes, worn collocations of sound, and common
place sentiments ; and also his diffuseness, prin
cipally originating in a lavishness and looseness
of adjectives. At the same time he praises the
melody of Hayne's poetry, especially of his poem
" Fire Pictures," which he compares with Poe's
" Bells." In his book on Florida, while giving
an account of Southern cities which travelers are
apt to pass through in going to and from that
State, he has discriminating and sympathetic

THE NEW SOUTH 293

passages on Timrod, Randall, Jackson, Hayne,
and others. Of Timrod he says : " Few more
spontaneous or delicate songs have been sung in
these later days than one or two of the briefer
lyrics. It is thoroughly evident that he never
had time to learn the mere craft of the poet,
the technique of verse, and that broader associ
ation with other poets, and a little of the wine
of success, without which no man ever does the
very best he might do." In his lectures at the
Peabody Institute he quoted one of Timrod's
sonnets, prefacing it with the words : " And as
I have just read you a sonnet from one of the
earliest of the sonnet-writers, let me now clinch
and confirm this last position with a sonnet from
one of the latest, — one who has but recently
gone to that Land where, as he wished here,
indeed life and love are the same ; one who, I
devoutly believe, if he had lived in Sir Philip's
time, might have been Sir Philip's worthy bro
ther, both in poetic sweetness and in honorable
knighthood." l

He was one of the first to recognize the genius
of Joel Chandler Harris, whose Uncle Remus
stories he first read in the "Atlanta Constitu
tion." He refers in his article on the New South
to Uncle Remus as a " famous colored philoso
pher of Atlanta, who is a fiction so founded upon

1 Shakspere and His Forerunners, vol. i, p. 170.

294 SIDNEY LANIER

fact and so like it as to have passed into true
citizenship and authority, along with Bottom and
Autolycus. This is all the more worth giving,
since it is really negro-talk, and not that suppo
sititious negro-minstrel talk which so often goes
for the original. It is as nearly perfect as any
dialect can well be ; and if one had only some
system of notation by which to convey the tones
of the speaking voice, in which Brer Remus and
Brer Ab would say these things, nothing could
be at once more fine in humor and pointed in
philosophy. Negroes on the corner can be heard
any day engaged in talk that at least makes
one think of Shakespeare's clowns ; but half the
point and flavor is in the subtle tone of voice,
the gesture, the glance, and these, unfortunately,
cannot be read between the lines by any one who
has not studied them in the living original."

In a letter to his brother, September 24, 1880,
Lanier said : " Have you read Cable's book, ' The
Grandissimes ' ? It is a work of art, and he has
a fervent and rare soul. Do you know him?"
In his announcement of the course on the Eng
lish Novel at Johns Hopkins University, he in
cluded this novel in a list of recent American
novels which he intended to discuss.

Nor was he contented with recognizing the
genius of men who wrote of their own accord.
His letters to " Father " Tabb were especially

THE NEW SOUTH 295

stimulating. He was the prime cause in induc
ing Richard Malcolm Johnston to offer first to
the magazines, and then to the publishers, his
stories of Middle Georgia. Johnston had pub
lished the " Dukesborough Tales " in the " South
ern Magazine " as early as 1871, but they had
made little or no impression on account of the
limited circulation of that periodical. In 1877
" Mr. Neelus Peeler's Condition " was sent by
Lanier to Mr. Richard Watson Gilder, then
editor of " Scribner's Monthly." He had the
rare pleasure of sending Mr. Gilder's letter of
acceptance with enclosed check to his friend.
The following letter shows how he advised Colo
nel Johnston as to one of the stories.

55 LEXINGTON STREET, BALTIMORE, MD.,
November 6, 1877.

MY DEAR COL. JOHNSTON, — Mrs. Lanier's
illness on Saturday devolved a great many do
mestic duties upon me, and rendered it quite im
possible for me to make the preparations neces
sary for my visit to you on Sunday. This caused
me a great deal of regret ; a malign fate seems
to have pursued all my recent efforts in your
direction.

I have attentively examined your " Dukesbor
ough Tale." I wish very much that I could read
it over aloud in your presence, so that I might

296 SIDNEY LANIER

call your attention to many verbal lapses which
I find and which, I am sure, will hinder its way
with the magazine editors. I will try to see you
in a day or two, and do this. Again, ascending
from merely verbal criticism to considerations of
general treatment, I find that the action of the
story does not move quite fast enough during the
first twenty-five pages, and the last ten, to suit
the impatience of the modern magazine man.

Aside from these two points, — and they can
both be easily remedied, — the story strikes me
as exquisitely funny, and your reproduction of
the modes of thought and of speech among the
rural Georgians is really wonderful. The peculiar
turns and odd angles, described by the minds of
these people in the course of ratiocination (Good
Heavens, what would Sammy Wiggins think of
such a sentence as this !), are presented here with
a delicacy of art that gives me a great deal of en
joyment. The whole picture of old-time Georgia
is admirable, and I find myself regretting that its
full merit can be appreciated only by that limited
number who, from personal experience, can com
pare it with the original.

Purely with a view to conciliating the editor
of the magazine, I strongly advise you to hasten
the movement of the beginning and of the cata
strophe : that is, from about p. 1 to p. 34, and
from p. 57 to p. 67. The middle, i. e., from p. 34

THE NEW SOUTH 297

top. 57, should not be touched : it is good enough
for me.

I would not dare to make these suggestions
if I thought that you would regard them other
wise than as pure evidences of my interest in the
success of the story.

Your friend,

SIDNEY L.

But Lanier's service to the South and to
Southern literature is greater than the recogni
tion of any one writer or the encouragement
given to any one of them. All of them were
cheered in their work by his heroic life ; not
one but looked to him as a leader. His life,
which in a large sense belongs to the nation, be
longs in a peculiar sense to the South. He was
Southern by birth, temperament, and experience.
He knew the South, — he had traveled from San
Antonio to Jacksonville, and from Baltimore to
Mobile Bay. Its scenery was the background of
his poetry, — the marsh, the mountain, the sea
shore, the forest, the birds and flowers of the
South stirred his imagination. He knew person
ally many of the leaders of the Confederacy, as
well as the men who made possible the New
South. He was heir to all the life of the past.
His chivalry, his fine grace of manners, his gen
erosity and his enthusiasm were all Southern

298 SIDNEY LANIER

traits ; and the work that he has left is in a
peculiar sense the product of a genius influenced
by that civilization. All these things render him
singularly precious to Southerners of the present
generation.

He had qualities of mind and ideals of life,
however, which have been too rare in his native
section. He was a severe critic of some phases
of its life. From this standpoint his career and
his personality should never lose their influence
in the South. There had been men and women
who had loved music ; but Lanier was the first
Southerner to appreciate adequately its signifi
cance in the modern world, and to feel the in
spiration of the most recent composers. There
had been some fine things done in literature;
but he was the first to realize the transcendent
dignity and worth of the poet and his work.
Literature had been a pastime, a source of re
creation for men ; to him the study of it was a
passion, and the creation of it the highest voca
tion of man. Compared with other writers of the
New South, Lanier was a man of broader culture
and of finer scholarship. He did not have the
power to create character as some of the writers
of fiction, but he was a far better representative
of the man of letters. The key to his intellectual
life may be found in the fact that he read Words
worth and Keats rather than Scott, George Eliot

THE NEW SOUTH 299

rather than Thackeray, German literature as
well as French. He was national rather than
provincial, open-minded not prejudiced, modern
and not mediaeval. His characteristics — to be
still further noted in the succeeding chapter —
are all in direct contrast with those of the con
servative Southerner. There have been other
Southerners — far more than some men have
thought — who have had his spirit, and have
worked with heroism towards the accomplish
ment of enduring results. There have been none,
however, who have wrought out in their lives
and expressed in their writings higher ideals.
He therefore makes his appeal to every man who
is to-day working for the betterment of industrial,
educational, and literary conditions in the South.
There will never be a time when such men will
not look to him as the man of letters who, after
the war, struck out along lines which meant most
in the intellectual awakening of this section. He
was a pioneer worker in building up what he
liked to speak of as the New South : —

The South whose gaze is cast

No more upon the past,

But whose bright eyes the skies of promise sweep,
Whose feet in paths of progress swiftly leap ;
And whose fresh thoughts, like cheerful rivers, run
Through odorous ways to meet the morning sun !

CHAPTER XI

CHARACTERISTICS AND IDEAS

PERHAPS the best single description of Lamer is
that by his friend H. Clay Wysham : " His eye,
of bluish gray, was more spiritual than dreamy
— except when he was suddenly aroused, and
then it assumed a hawk-like fierceness. The trans
parent delicacy of his skin and complexion pleased
the eye, and his fine-textured hair, which was soft
and almost straight and of a light-brown color,
was combed behind the ear in Southern style.
His long beard, which was wavy and pointed, had
even at an early age begun to show signs of turn
ing gray. His nose was aquiline, his bearing was
distinguished, and his manners were stamped with
a high breeding that befitted the ' Cavalier '
lineage. His hands were delicate and white,
by no means thin, and the fingers tapering. His
gestures were not many, but swift, graceful, and
expressive ; the tone of his voice was low ; his fig
ure was willowy and lithe ; and in stature he
seemed tall, but in reality he was a little below six
feet — withal there was a native knightly grace
which marked his every movement." l If to this

] Independent, November 18, 1897.

CHARACTERISTICS AND IDEAS 301

be added the words of Dr. Gilman as to the im
pression he produced on people, the picture may
be complete : " The appearance of Lanier was
striking. There was nothing eccentric or odd
about him, but his words, manners, ways of speech,
were distinguished. I have heard a lady say that
if he took his place in a crowded horse-car, an
exhilarating atmosphere seemed to be introduced
by his breezy ways." l

He was mindful of the conventionalities of life.
He had nothing of the Bohemian in his looks,
his manners, or his temperament. Poor though
he was, he was scrupulous with regard to dress.
He was a hard worker, but when his health per
mitted, he was thoroughly mindful of duties that
devolved upon him as a member of society. He
wrote to Charlotte Cushman : " For I am surely
going to find you, at one place or t' other, — pro
vided heaven shall send me so much fortune in the
selling of a poem or two as will make the price of
a new dress coat. Alas, with what unspeakable
tender care I would have brushed this present
garment of mine in days gone by, if I had dreamed
that the time would come when so great a thing
as a visit to you might hang upon the little length
of its nap ! Behold, it is not only in man's breast
that pathos lies, and the very coat lapel that cov
ers it may be a tragedy." Professor Gilder sleeve
1 South Atlantic Quarterly, April, 1905.

302 SIDNEY LANIER

gives a characteristic incident : " I remember he
came to a dinner given in his honor, fresh from
a lecture at the Peabody, in a morning suit and
with chalk on his fingers. Came thus, not because
he was unmindful of conventionalities. He was
as mindful of them as Browning, — came thus
because he had to come thus. There was no time
to dress. The poor chalk-fingered poet was mis
erable the whole evening, hardly roused himself
when the talk fell on Blake, and when we took
a walk together the next day he made his moan
to me about it. A seraph with chalk on his fin
gers. Somehow, that little incident seems to me
an epitome of his life, though I have mentioned
it only to show how busy he was." l

He was a welcome guest in many homes. " He
had the most gentle, refined, sweet, lovely man
ners, I think I may say, of any man I ever met,"
says Charles Heber Clarke. A letter from the
daughter of the late John Foster Kirk, former
editor of " Lippincott's Magazine," gives an im
pression of Lanier in the homes of his friends : —

" My first sight of Lanier was when he came
into the room with my father at dusk one even
ing (they had been walking through the Wissa-
hickon woods and came back to tea), and his
presence seemed something beautiful in the room,
even more from his manner than from his appear-

1 Letter to the author.

CHARACTERISTICS AND IDEAS 303

ance, gracious and fine as that was. He always
seemed to me to stand for chivalry as well as
poetry, and his goodness was something you felt
at once and never forgot. He was at our house one
day with his flute. He and my father were going
to Mr. Robert P. Morton's, in Germantown, to
play together. We happened to speak of the fact
that my sister, then a little girl, though abso
lutely without ear for music, had a curious de
light in listening to it. Mr. Lanier said he would
like to play to her ; we called her in from the
yard where she was playing, and he played some
of his own music, explaining to her first what he
thought of when he wrote it, describing to her
the brook in its course, and other things in na
ture. He could easily have found a more appre
ciative listener, but not a happier one.

" I remember his eagerness about all forms of
knowledge and expression. We went with him
to the Centennial, where we were full of excite
ment about pictures, though none of us knew
much about them. I remember the pleasure
Mr. Lanier had in the sense of color and splen
dor given him by the big Hans Makart (4 Cate-
rina Cornaro') and discussions of that and the
English and Spanish pictures. Intellectually he
seemed to me not so much to have arrived as to
be on the way, — with a beautiful fervor and
eagerness about things, as if he had never had

304 SIDNEY LANIER

all that he longed for in books and study and
thought." l

Lanier had remarkable power for making and
keeping friends. This has already been seen in
his relations to the Peacocks, Charlotte Cushman,
and Bayard Taylor. In the large circle of friends
among whom he moved in Baltimore may be seen
further attestation of this point. People did not
pity him, nor did they dole out charity to him.
They did not reverence him merely because he
was a poet, a teacher, or a musician of note ; they
were drawn to him by strong personal ties — he
had magnetism. The little informal notes that
he wrote to them, or the longer letters he wrote
in absence, or the conversations that he had with
them, sometimes till far into the night, are cher
ished as among the most sacred memories of their
lives. He knew how to endure human weakness
and to inspire human efforts. One of the friends
who knew him best has recorded in a tender
poem what Lanier meant to those who were in
timate with him : —

That love of man for man,

That joyed in all sweet possibilities : that faith
Which hallowed love and life. . . .
So he, Heaven-taught in his large-heartedness,
Smiled with his spirit's eyes athwart the veil
That human loves too oft keep closely drawn. . . .
So hearts leaped up to breathe his freer atmosphere,

1 Letter to the author.

CHARACTERISTICS AND IDEAS 305

And eyes smiled truer for his radiance clear,
And souls grew loftier where his teachings fell,
And all gave love. . . .

Aye, the patience and the smile
Which glossed his pain; the courtesy;
The sweet quaint thoughts which gave his poems birth."1

She speaks, too, of " his winning tenderness
with souls perplexed ; " " his eagerness for lofty
converse ; " " his oneness with all master-minds ; "
" his thirst for lore ; " " his gratitude for that the
Lord had made the earth so good ! "

In the house of this same friend, Mme. Blanc
(Th. Bentzon) first realized the dead poet's per
sonality ; she there caught something of the after
glow of his presence : —

" The morning that I spent with Mrs. Turn-
bull was almost as interesting as an interview with
Sidney Lanier himself would have been, so fully
does his memory live in that most aesthetic in
terior, where poetry and music are held in per
petual honor, and where domestic life has all the
beauty of a work of art. The hero of Mrs. Turn-
bull's novel, 'A Catholic Man,' is none other
than Sidney Lanier, and that scrupulously faith
ful presentment of a ' universal man ' was of
the greatest assistance to me.

" The beautiful mansion on Park Avenue
has almost the character of a temple, where

1 Poem by Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull, read at the presentation
of the Lanier bust to Johns Hopkins University.

306 SIDNEY LANIER

nothing profane or vulgar is allowed admission.
Passing through the reception rooms, I was in
troduced into a private parlor out of which
opened a music-room, from whose threshold I
recognized the man whom I had come to seek, —
the poet himself, as he was represented in his
latest years, by the German sculptor, Ephraim
Keyser. . . . By way of contrast, Mrs. Turnbull
exhibits a glorified Lanier, crowned with his
ultimate immortality. He appears in a symbolic
picture, ordered by this American art patroness,
from the Italian painter Gatti, where are grouped
all the great geniuses of the past, present, and
future, — the latter emerging vaguely from the
mists of the distance, and including a large
number of women. This innumerable multitude
of the elite of all ages encircles a mountain which
is dominated by Jesus Christ; and from this
figure of the Christ emanates the light which
Mrs. Turnbull has caused to be shed upon the
figures of the picture, with more or less brilliancy
according to her own preferences. Designating
a tall, draped figure who walks in the front rank
of the poets, the lady said to me : 4 This is
Sidney Lanier ; ' and when I, despite my admira
tion for the poet of the marshes, ventured to offer
a few modest suggestions, she went on to develop
the thesis, that what exalts a man is less what
he has done than what he has aspired to do."

CHARACTERISTICS AND IDEAS 307

" Mrs. Turnbull had too much tact to multiply
her personal anecdotes of Sidney Lanier, but she
pictured him to me as he loved to sit by the fire
side, where he had always his own special place ;
coming, of an evening, unannounced, into the
room where we then were, rising like a phantom
beside her husband and herself, in the hour be
tween daylight and dark, and pouring forth those
profound, unexpected, and delightful things
which seem to belong to him alone, which char
acterize his correspondence also, and all his
literary remains." l

The quality of affection in Lanier reached its
climax in his home life. There he was seen and
known at his best. An early aspiration of his
was " to show that the artist-life is not necessa
rily a Bohemian life, but that it may coincide
with and be the home-life." Such poems as
" Baby Charley " and " Hard Times in Elfland,"
and the story of " Bob " reveal the playful and
affectionate father, while " My Springs," " In
Absence," " Laus Mariae " and many published
and unpublished letters are but variations of the
oft-recurring theme : —

When life 's all love, 't is life : aught else, 't is naught.

1 Revue des Deux Mondes, 1898. Translated for LitteWs Liv
ing Age, May 14 and May 21, 1898.

308 SIDNEY LANIER

A letter written to his wife will serve to give the
spirit which prevailed in the home : —

January 1, 1875.

A thousand-fold Happy New Year to thee, and
I would that thy whole year may be as full of
sweetness as my heart is full of thee.

All day I dwell with my dear ones there with
thee. I do so long for one hearty rornp with my
boys again ! Kiss them most fervently for me,
and say over their heads my New Year's prayer,
that whether God may color their lives bright or
black, they may continually grow in a large and
hearty manhood, compounded of strength and
love.

Let us try and teach them, dear wife, that it
is only the smaU soul that ever cherishes bitter
ness ; for the climate of a large and loving heart
is too warm for that frigid plant. Let us lead
them to love everything in the world, above the
world, and under the world adequately ; that is
the sum and substance of a perfect life. And so
God's divine rest be upon every head under the
roof that covers thine this night, prayeth thy

HUSBAND.

Sweetness of disposition, depth of emotion,
and absolute purity of life are frequently re
garded as feminine traits. These Lanier had,

CHARACTERISTICS AND IDEAS 309

but they were fused with the qualities of a virile
and healthy manhood. He attracted strong and
intellectual men as well as refined and cultivated
women. The bravery manifested during the Civil
War and the fortitude that he displayed after the
war became elemental qualities in his character.
His admiration of the heroic deeds of the age of
chivalry arose from a certain inherent knightli-
ness in his own character. He had the combina
tion of tenderness and strength to which he called
attention in Sir Philip Sidney. His admiration
for old English poetry was due to the " ruddiness
in its cheek and the red corpuscles in its veins."
QDhere is in his later prose the " send and drive "
of a vigorous soul. )lt was this elemental man
hood that attracted him to Whitman, despite all
his protests against the latter' s carelessness of
form and lack of grace. " Reading him," he says,
"is like getting the salt sea spray into one's
face."

He had some of the Southerner's resistance
to anything like insult. A story is frequently
told in Baltimore of the way in which Lanier re
sented the conductor's words to a young lady at

a rehearsal of the Peabody Orchestra. " ,

irritated in his undisciplined musician's nerves,
vented that irritation in a rude outburst towards
a timid young woman who was playing the piano,
either with orchestra or voice or in solo. In an

310 SIDNEY LANIER

instant Lanier's tall, straight figure shot up from
his seat and, taking the chair he occupied in his

hand, he said : ' Mr. , you must retract every

word you have uttered and apologize to that
young lady before you beat another bar.' There
was no mistake of his resoluteness and determi
nation, and Mr. retracted and apologized ;

the orchestra went on only after the same had
been done."

Another element that contributed to the ad
mirable symmetry of Lanier's character was that
of humor. One would misjudge him entirely if
he took into account only the highly wrought let
ters on music or the great majority of his poems.
From one standpoint he seems a burning flame.
As a matter of fact, however, his enthusiasm for
anything that was fine and the ecstatic rapture
into which he passed under the spell of great mu
sic or nature or poetry, were balanced by humor
that was playful and delicate and at times irre
sistible. His pranks as a college boy and as a
soldier have already been noted. His enjoyment
of the negro and of the Georgia " Cracker " may
be seen in his dialect poems, " A Florida Ghost,"
" Uncle Jim's Baptist Kevival Hymn," " Jones's
Private Argument," and others. With his chil
dren his spirit of fun-making knew no bounds.
The point may still further be seen by any one
who reads his lectures, and especially those letters

CHARACTERISTICS AND IDEAS 311

to his friends in which he constantly indulged in
playful conceits and fine humor. He even laughed
at his poverty, and got off many a jest in the very
face of death. In this respect, as in others, he
was strikingly like Robert Louis Stevenson.

Lanier's moderiiness of mind has already been
illustrated in his attitude to music and to scholar
ship. Asked one time what age he preferred, he
said, " the Present,'.' and the answer was typical
of his whole attitude to things. He did not rail at
his age. He was a close student of current events.
He spoke strongly sometimes, as did Wordsworth
and Ruskin, against the materialism of the nine
teenth century ; he delivered his protest against
it in many of his poems ; and yet he never lost his
faith that all material progress would eventually
contribute to the moral and artistic needs of man.
" It is often asserted," he said, " that ours is a
materialistic age, and that romance is dead ; but
this is marvelously untrue, and it may be counter-
asserted with perfect confidence that there was
never an age of the world when art was enthroned
by so many hearthstones and intimate in so many
common houses as now." He accepted the facts
of his time, and sought to make them subservient
to the healthy idealism that reigned in his soul.

Furthermore, he was an absolutely open-
minded man, eager for any new world which he
might enter. He had nothing of the provincialism

312 SIDNEY LANIER

of the parish or of the period. One of the most
striking illustrations of this quality of mind is
seen in comparing him with Poe, who was irri
table and prejudiced. Poe shared the ante-bellum
Southerner's prejudice against New England and
all her writers. There is nowhere in Lanier any
indication that such a spirit found lodgment in
his mind. Emerson — the transcendentalist —
was one of his " wise masters."

Another striking illustration of his breadth of
view was his profound reverence for science. That
he had this so early was due, as has been already
seen, to the influence of Professor Woodrow at
college. In " Tiger Lilies " he said, in comment
ing on Macaulay's idea of poetry declining as
science grows : " How long a time intervened
between Humboldt and Goethe; how long be
tween Agassiz and Tennyson ? One can scarcely
tell whether Humboldt and Agassiz were not as
good poets as Goethe and Tennyson were cer
tainly good philosophers." " The astonishing
effect of the stimulus which has been given to
investigation into material nature by the rise of
geology and the prosperity of chemistry " is seen
in the literary development of the day. " To
day's science bears not only fruit, but flowers also !
Poems, as well as steam engines, crown its growth
in these times." The passage closes with these
significant words : " Poetry will never fail, nor

CHARACTERISTICS AND IDEAS 313

science, nor the poetry of science." This view
remained with him till the end of his life. He
hailed the scientific progress of the nineteenth
century as one of its greatest achievements, and
constantly related it to the rise of landscape
painting, modern nature poetry, modern music,
and the English novel. His attitude thereto
is made all the more notable by the fact that
throughout the country, and especially in the
South, there prevailed the utmost distrust of
scientific investigations and hypotheses. Dur
ing the seventies the criticism of the invitation
extended to Huxley to deliver the principal ad
dress at the opening of Johns Hopkins Univer
sity, and the controversy arising out of President
White's enunciation of the principles that would
dominate the newly created Cornell University,
all tended to make the controversy between
science and religion especially acute. American
poets, notably Poe and Lowell, had expressed
their distrust of modern scientific methods and
conclusions. But Lanier saw no danger either
to religion or to poetry in science. He constantly
referred to Tyndall, Huxley, and Darwin, in a
way which suggested his familiarity with their
writings. I have seen a copy of the " Origin
of Species " owned by Lanier, — the marks and
annotations indicating the most careful and
thoughtful reading thereof. In his lectures on

314 SIDNEY LANIER

the English Novel, in contrasting ancient science
with modern science, he says : " In short, I find
that early thought everywhere, whether dealing
with physical fact or metaphysical problems, is
lacking in what I may call the intellectual con
science, — the conscience which makes Mr. Dar
win spend long and patient years in investigating
small facts before daring to reason upon them,
and which makes him state the facts adverse to
his theory with as much care as the facts which
make for it." Again he refers to him as " our
own grave and patient Charles Darwin."

He did not write about science at second-hand,
either, — he studied it. Mrs. Sophie Bledsoe
Herrick, Lowell's Baltimore friend, tells of La
mer^ interest in microscopic work : " Mrs.Lanier
and family were not with him then, and he was
busy writing some articles on the science of com
position. Evening after evening he would bring
the manuscript of these articles and read them,
and talk them over.

" I was at that time intensely interested in
microscopic work. It was curious and interest
ing to see how Mr. Lanier kindled to the subject,
so foreign to his ordinary literary interests. I
was too busy with editorial work to go on with
my microscopic work then, and it was a great
pleasure to leave my instrument and books on the
subject with him for some months. He plunged

CHARACTERISTICS AND IDEAS 315

in with all the ardor of a naturalist, not using the
microscope as a mere toy, but doing good hard
work with it. I think I can detect in his work
after this time, — as well as in his letters, —
many little touches which show the influence this
study of nature had upon his mind." *

So he had little patience with " those timor
ous souls who believe that science, in explaining
everything, — as they singularly fancy, — will
destroy the possibility of poetry, of the novel,
in short of all works of the imagination : the idea
seeming to be that the imagination always re
quires the hall of life to be darkened before it
displays its magic, like the modern spiritualistic
seance-givers who can do nothing with the rope-
tying and the guitars unless the lights are put
out." 2 And again : " Here are thousands upon
thousands of acute and patient men to-day who
are devoutly gazing into the great mysteries of
Nature and faithfully reporting what they see.
These men have not destroyed the fairies: they
have preserved them in more truthful and solid
shape."

But while he estimated at its proper value the
development of modern physical science, he saw
it in its proper relation to music, poetry, and
religion. " The scientific man," he says in his
"Legend of St. Leonor," " is merely the minister
1 Letter to the author. 2 The English Novel, p. 28.

316 SIDNEY LANIER

of poetry. He is cutting down the Western
Woods of Time ; presently poetry will come there
and make a city and gardens. This is always so.
The man of affairs works for the behoof and the
use of poetry. Scientific facts have never reached
their proper function until they emerge into new
poetic relations established between man and
man, between man and God, or between man
and nature."

Lanier's view of the theory of evolution is
interesting. " I have been studying science, bi
ology, chemistry, evolution, and all," he writes to
J. F. Kirk, June 15, 1880. " It pieces on, per
fectly, to those dreams which one has when one
is a boy and wanders alone by a strong running
river, on a day when the wind is high but the
sky clear. These enormous modern generaliza
tions fill me with such dreams again.

" But it is precisely at the beginning of that
phenomenon which is the underlying subject
of this poem, c Individuality,' that the largest of
such generalizations must begin, and the doc
trine of evolution when pushed beyond this point
appears to me, after the most careful examination
of the evidence, to fail. It is pushed beyond this
point in its current application to the genesis of
species, and I think Mr. Huxley's last sweeping
declaration is clearly parallel to that of an enthu
siastic dissecter who, forgetting that his obser-

CHARACTERISTICS AND IDEAS 317

vations are upon dead bodies, should build a
physiological conclusion upon purely anatomical
facts.

"For whatever can be proved to have been
evolved, evolution seems to me a noble and beau
tiful and true theory. But a careful search has
not shown me a single instance in which such
proof as would stand the first shot of a boy lawyer
in a moot court, has been brought forward in
support of an actual case of species differentia
tion.

" A cloud (see the poem) may be evolved ; but
not an artist ; and I find, in looking over my
poem, that it has made itself into a passionate re-
affirmation of the artist's autonomy, threatened
alike from the direction of the scientific fanatic
and the pantheistic devotee."

With all of Lanier's development — whether
in science and scholarship, or in music and litera
ture — he retained a vital faith in the Christian
religion. He reacted against the Calvinism of
his youth to almost as great a degree as did some
of the New England poets. He at times felt
keenly the narrowness and bigotry of the church

the warring of the sects over the unessential

points.1 In his thinking he found no place for

the rigid and severe creed which dominated his

youth. He gave up the forms, not the spirit, of

1 See especially the poem " Remonstrance."

318 SIDNEY LANIER

worship. He lived the abundant life, and all
of the roads which he traveled led to God. His
faith was as broad as " the liberal marshes of
Glynn." In the spirit of St. Francis he said :

I am one with all the kinsmen things
That e'er my Father fathered.

Notwithstanding his vivid realization of the
evil of dogma and of sect, he maintained through
out his life a reverent faith; he could distin
guish, as Browning said Shelley could not, be
tween churchdom and Christianity. Not only in
the " Crystal" and « A BaUad of Trees and the
Master," and in the spirit of nearly all of his
poems, is this evident; but throughout his lec
tures, essays, and letters he never missed an op
portunity to relate knowledge to faith. " He was
the most Christlike man I ever knew," said one
of his intimate friends, and those who have
looked upon his bust at Johns Hopkins have
involuntarily found the resemblance of physical
form. Certainly there has been no tenderer poem
written about the Master than the lines written
during Lanier's last year : —

Into the woods my Master went,

Clean forspent, forspent.

Into the woods my Master came,

Forspent with love and shame.

But the olives they were not blind to Him,

The little gray leaves were kind to Him :

CHARACTERISTICS AND IDEAS 319

The thorn-tree had a mind to Him
When into the woods He came.

Out of the woods my Master went,

And He was well content.

Out of the woods my Master came,

Content with death and shame.

When Death and Shame would woo Him last,

From under the trees they drew Him last :

'Twas on a tree they slew Him — last

When out of the woods He came.

CHAPTER XII

THE LAST YEAR

ONE of the pieces of advice that Lanier gave to
consumptives who went to Florida for their health
was, " Set out to get well, with the thorough as
surance that consumption is curable." He had
literally followed his own advice, and had fought
death off for seven years. By the spring of 1880
he had won his fight over every obstacle that had
been in his way. He had a position which, sup
plemented by literary work, could sustain him
and his family. By prodigious work he had over
come, to a large extent, his lack of training in
both music and scholarship. The years 1878 and
1879 were his most productive. By the " Science
of English Verse " and the " Marshes of Glynn "
he had won the admiration of many who had at
first been doubtful about his ability. From an
obscure man of the provinces out of touch with
artists or musicians, he had become the idol of a
large circle of friends and admirers.

During all these years he had had to fight the
disease which he inherited from both sides of his
family and which was accentuated by hardships

THE LAST YEAR 321

during the war and the habits of a bent student.
His flute-playing had helped to mitigate the dis
ease. Finally, however, in the summer of 1880,
he entered upon the last fight with his old enemy.
Lanier had laughed in the face of death, and
each new acquisition in the realms of music and
poetry had been a challenge to the enemy. In
1876 he almost succumbed, but in the mean time
three years of hard work had intervened. What
he had suffered from disease, even when he was
at his best, may be divined by one of imagina
tion. He once referred to consumptives as " be
yond all measure the keenest sufferers of all the
stricken of this world," and he knew what he was
talking about. He wrote to Hayne, November 19,
1880 : " For six months past a ghastly fever has
been taking possession of me each day at about
twelve M., and holding my head under the sur
face of indescribable distress for the next twenty
hours, subsiding only enough each morning to let
me get on my working-harness, but never inter
mitting. A number of tests show it not to be the
4 hectic ' so well known in consumption ; and to
this day it has baffled all the skill I could find
in New York, in Philadelphia, and here. I have
myself been disposed to think it arose purely
from the bitterness of having to spend my time
in making academic lectures and boy's books —
pot-boilers all — when a thousand songs are sing-

322 SIDNEY LANIER

ing in my heart that will certainly kill me if I
do not utter them soon. But I don't think this
diagnosis has found favor with any practical phy
sician ; and meantime I work day after day in
such suffering as is piteous to see." 1 With his
fever at 104 degrees he wrote " Sunrise," which,
though considered by many his best poem, shows
an unmistakable weakness when compared with
the " Marshes of Glynn." There is a letting down
of the robust imagination. He delivered his lec
tures on the English Novel under circumstances
too harrowing to describe. His audience did not
know whether he could finish any one of them.

And yet the story of his life shall not close
with a pathetic account of those last sad months.
Even during the last year he maintained his
cheerfulness, his playfulness, his good humor, and
also his buoyancy. In August, a fourth son, Rob
ert Sampson Lanier, was born at West Chester,
and the father writes letters to his friends, an
nouncing his joy thereat. One is to his old friend,
Richard Malcolm Johnston.

WEST CHESTER, PA., August 28, 1880.
MY DEAR AND SWEET RlCHARD, It has just

occurred to me that you were obliged to be as
sweet as you are, in order to redeem your name ;
for the other three Richards in history were very

1 Letters, p. 244.

THE LAST YEAR 323

far from being satisfactory persons, and some
thing had to be done. Richard I, though a man
of muscle, was but a loose sort of a swashbuckler
after all ; and Richard II, though handsome in
person, was " redeless," and ministered much
occasion to Wat Tyler and his gross following ;
while Richard III, though a wise man, allowed
his wisdom to ferment into cunning and applied
the same unto villainy.

But now comes Richard IV, to wit, you, — and,
by means of gentle loveliness and a story or two,
subdues a realm which I foresee will be far more
intelligent than that of Richard I, far less turbu
lent than that of Richard II, and far more legiti
mate than that of Richard III, while it will own
more, and more true loving subjects than all of
those three put together.

I suppose my thoughts have been carried into
these details of nomenclature by your reference
to my own young Samson, who, I devoutly trust
with you, shall yet give many a shrewd buffet
and upsetting to the Philistines. Is it not won
derful how quickly these young fledgelings im
press us with a sense of their individuality? This
fellow is two weeks old to-day, and every one of
us, from mother to nurse, appears to have a per
fectly clear conception of his character. This
conception is simply enchanting. In fact, the
young man has already made himself absolutely

324 SIDNEY LANIER

indispensable to us, and my comrade and I won
der how we ever got along with only three boys.

I rejoice that the editor of " Harper's " has
discrimination enough to see the quality of your
stories, and I long to see these two appear, so that
you may quickly follow them with a volume.
When that appears, it shall have a review that
will draw three souls out of one weaver — if this
pen have not lost her cunning.

I 'm sorry I can't send a very satisfactory an
swer to your health inquiries, as far as regards
myself. The mean, pusillanimous fever which
took under-hold of me two months ago is still
there, as impregnably fixed as a cockle-burr in a
sheep's tail. I have tried idleness, but (naturally)
it won't work. I do no labor except works of
necessity — such as kissing Mary, who is a more
ravishing angel than ever — and works of mercy
— such as letting off the world from any more
of my poetry for a while. But it 's all one to my
master the fever. I get up every day and drag
around in a pitiful kind of shambling existence.
1 fancy it has come to be purely a go-as-you-please
match between me and the disease, to see which
will wear out first, and I think I will manage to
take the belt, yet.

Give my love to the chestnut trees l and all
the rest of your family.

1 It is said that he wrote the Marshes of Glynn under one
of these.

THE LAST YEAR 325

Your letter gave us great delight. God bless
you for it, my best and only Richard, as well as
for all your other benefactions to

Your faithful friend,

S. L.

A few days before, he had written a more se
rious letter to his friend, Mrs. Isabelle Dobbin,
of Baltimore. The concluding words show his
realization of the deeper meaning of childhood.

•x.

WEST CHESTER, August 18, 1880.

Here is come a young man so lovely in his
person, and so gentle and high-born in his man
ners, that in the course of some three days he has
managed to make himself as necessary to our
world as the sun, moon, and stars ; at any rate,
these would seem quite obscured without him.
It just so happens that he is very vividly asso
ciated with you ; for among the few treasures we
allowed ourselves to bring away from home is the
photograph you gave us, and this stands in the
most honorable coign of vantage in Mary's room.

You '11 be glad to know that my dear Com
rade is doing well. . . . We have reason to ex
pect a speedy sight of our dear invalid moving
about her accustomed ways again. If you could
see the Boy asleep by her side ! The tranquillity

326 SIDNEY LANIER

of his slumber, and the shine of his mother's eyes
thereover, seem to melt up and mysteriously ab
sorb the great debates of the agnostics, and of
science and politics, and to dissolve them into the
pellucid Faith long ago reaffirmed by the Son of
Man. Looking upon the child, this term seems
to acquire a new meaning, as if Christ were in
some sort reproduced in every infant.

In the fall he was busy again with his books
for boys, — books, it may be said, that had their
origin in the stories he told his own boys.1 The
spirit in which he worked on these "pot-boilers"
is seen in a letter to his publisher, Mr. Charles
Scribner : —

435 N. CALVERT ST., BALTIMORE, MD.,
November 12, 1880.

MY DEAR MK. SCRIBNER, — You have cer
tainly made a beautiful book of the " King
Arthur," and I heartily congratulate you on
achieving what seems to me a real marvel of
bookmaking art. The binding seems even richer
than that of the " Froissart ; " and the type and
printing leave a new impression of graciousness
upon the eye with each reading.

I suspect there are few books in our language

1 Of these The Boy's Froissart was published in 1878, The
Boy's King Arthur in 1880. The Boy's Mabinogion in 1881, and
The Boy's Percy in 1882.

THE LAST YEAR 327

which lead a reader — whether young or old —
on from one paragraph to another with such
strong and yet quiet seduction as this. Familiar
as I am with it after having digested the whole
work before editing it and again reading it in
proof — some parts twice over — I yet cannot
open at any page of your volume without read
ing on for a while ; and I have observed the same
effect with other grown persons who have opened
the book in my library since your package came
a couple of days ago. It seems difficult to be
lieve otherwise than that you have only to make
the book well known in order to secure it a great
sale, not only for the present year but' for several
years to come. Perhaps I may be of service in
reminding you — of what the rush of winter busi
ness might cause you to overlook — that it would
seem wise to make a much more extensive outlay
in the way of special advertisement, here, than was
necessary with the "Froissart." It is probably
quite safe to say that a thousand persons are fa
miliar with at least the name of Froissart to one
who ever heard of Malory; and the facts (1)
that this book is an English classic written in the
fifteenth century; (2) that it is the very first piece
of melodious English prose ever written, though
melodious English poetry had been common for
seven hundred years before, — a fact which seems
astonishing to those who are not familiar with

328 SIDNEY LANIER

the circumstance that all nations appear to have
produced good poetry a long time before good
prose, usually a long time before any prose; (3)
that it arrays a number of the most splendid ideals
of energetic manhood in all literature ; and (4)
that the stories which it brings together and ar
ranges, for the first time, have furnished themes
for the thought, the talk, the poems, the operas
of the most civilized peoples of the earth during
more than seven hundred years, — ought to be
diligently circulated. I regretted exceedingly that
I could not, with appropriateness to youthful
readers, bring out in the introduction the strange
melody of Malory's sentences, by reducing their
movement to musical notation. No one who has
not heard it would believe the effect of some of
his passages upon the ear when read by any one
who has through sympathetic study learned the
rhythm in which he thought his phrases. . . .
Sincerely yours,

SIDNEY LANIER,

In January, he began his lectures at Johns
Hopkins. Who would have thought that a dying
man could give expression to such vigorous ideas
in such rhythmic and virile prose as are some
of the passages in the " English Novel "? There
is not the intellectual strength in this book
that there is in the " Science of English Verse."

THE LAST YEAR 329

There is more of a tendency to go off in digres
sions, "to talk away across country," and the
whole lacks in unity and in scientific precision.
But there are passages in it that men will not
willingly let die. His discussion of the growth of
personality, of the relations of Science, Art, Re
ligion, and Life, of Walt Whitman and Zola, and
above all, of George Eliot, are worthy of Lanier
at his best. These passages and the still more
important one on the relation of art to morals
are too well known to be quoted ; they will be
considered in another chapter dealing with La-
nier's work as critic. They are mentioned here
only to show the range of Lanier's interest and
the alertness of his mind when his body was fast
failing.

Frances E. Willard heard these lectures, and
her words descriptive of them indicate that even
in those days of intense suffering Lanier impressed
her favorably. " It was refreshing," she says, " to
listen to a professor of literature who was some
thing more than a raconteur and something dif
ferent from a bibliophile, who had, indeed, risen
to the level of generalization and employed the
method of a philosopher. . . . [His] face [was]
very pale and delicate, with finely chiseled fea
tures, dark, clustering hair, parted in the middle,
and beard after the manner of the Italian school
of art. . . . He sits not very reposefully in his

330 SIDNEY LANIER

professorial armchair, and reads from dainty slips
of MS. in a clear, penetrating voice full of sub
tlest comprehension, but painfully and often in
terrupted by a cough. ... As we met for a
moment, when the lecture was over, he spoke
kindly of my work, evincing that sympathy of
the scholar with the work of progressive philan
thropy. i We are all striving for one end,' said
Lanier, with genial, hopeful smile, ' and that is
to develop and ennoble the humanity of which we
form a part.' " 1

Just after finishing his lectures, which were
reduced from twenty to twelve out of considera
tion for his health, Lanier went to New York to
consult his publishers about future work. The im
pression made by him on one of his old students
is seen in this passage : " One day I had a star
tling letter from Mrs. Lanier, saying that he was
coming to New York on business, though he was
in no condition for such an effort, and begging
me, as one whom he loved, to meet him and to
watch over him as best I could. I found him at
the St. Denis, and we had dinner together. I now
know how completely he deceived me as to his
condition. With the intensity and exaltation
often characteristic of the consumptive, he led
me to think that he was only slightly ailing, was
gay and versatile as ever, insisted on going some-

1 Independent, Sept. 1, 1881.

THE LAST YEAR 331

where for the evening c to hear some music,' and
absolutely demanded to exercise through the
evening the rights of host in a way that baffled
my inexperience completely. Only just as I left
him did he let fall a single remark that I later
saw showed how severe and unfortunate, prob
ably, was the strain of it all."

Brave as he was, however, and eager to keep
at his work, he finally submitted to the inevita
ble, and in May started with his brother to the
mountains of western North Carolina. His final
interview with Dr. Oilman is thus related by the
latter : —

"The last time that I saw Lanier was in the
spring of 1881, when after a winter of severe
illness he came to make arrangements for his
lectures in the next winter and to say good-bye
for the summer. His emaciated form could
scarcely walk across the yard from the carriage
to the door. ' I am going to Asheville, N. C.,'
he said, ' and I am going to write an account of
that region as a railroad guide. It seems as if
the good Lord always took care of me. Just as
the doctors had said that I must go to that
mountain region, the publishers gave me a
commission to prepare a book.' ; Good-bye,' he
added, and I supported his tottering steps to the
carriage door, never to see his face again." ]

1 South Atlantic Quarterly, April, 1905.

332 SIDNEY LANIER

The last months of Lanier's career seem to bring
together all the threads of his life. He was in
the mountains which had first stimulated his love
of nature and were the background of his early
romance. He was lovingly attended by father,
brother, and wife, and took constant delight in
the little boy who had come to cheer his last days
of weariness and sickness. He named the tent
Camp Kobin, after his youngest son, and from
that camp sent his last message to the boys of
America. They are the words of the preface
to "The Boy's Mabinogion," or "Knightly Le
gends of Wales : " "In now leaving this beauti
ful book with my young countrymen, I find my
self so sure of its charm as to feel no hesitation
in taking authority to unite the earnest expres
sion of their gratitude with that of my own to
Lady Charlotte Guest, whose talents and schol
arship have made these delights possible ; and I
can wish my young readers few pleasures of finer
quality than that surprised sense of a whole new
world of possession which came with my first
reading of these Mabinogion, and made me re
member Keats's

watcher of the skies
When a new planet swims into his ken."

A letter to President Gilman indicates his con
tinued interest in scientific investigation : —

THE LAST YEAR 333

ASHEVILLE, N. C., June 5, 1881.

DEAR MR. GILMAN, — Can you help me —
or tell me how I can help myself — in the follow
ing matter? A few weeks from now I wish to
study the so-called no-frost belt on the side of
Tryon Mountain ; and in order to test the popu
lar account I propose to carry on two simultane
ous series of meteorological observations during
a fortnight or longer, — the one conducted by
myself in the middle of the belt, the other by a
friend stationed well outside its limits. For this
purpose I need two small self -registering ther
mometers, two aneroid thermometers, and two
hygrometers of any make. It has occurred to
me that since these observations will be con
ducted during the University recess I might —
always provided, of course, that there is any au
thority or precedent for such action — procure
this apparatus from the University collection, es
pecially as no instrument is included which could
not easily be replaced. Of course I would cheer
fully deposit a sum sufficient to cover the value
of the whole outfit.

Should this arrangement be possible, I merely
ask that you turn this letter over to Dr. Hast
ings, with the request that he will have this ap
paratus packed at my expense and shipped by
express to me at this point immediately.

Yours very sincerely, SIDNEY LANIER.

334 SIDNEY LANIER

The impulse to poetry was with him, too. He
jotted down or dictated to his wife outlines and
suggestions of poems which he hoped to write.
Of these one has been printed : —

I was the earliest bird awake,

It was a while before dawn, I believe,

But somehow I saw round the world,

And the eastern mountain top did not hinder me.

And I knew of the dawn by my heart, not by mine eyes.

One agrees with " Father " Tabb that no utter
ance of the poet ever betrayed more of his na
ture, — " feeble and dying, but still a ' bird,'
awake to every emotion of love, of beauty, of
faith, of star-like hope, keeping the dawn in his
heart to sing, when the mountain-tops hindered
it from his eyes."

On August 4 the party started across the
mountains to Lynn, Polk County, North Caro
lina. On the way they stopped with a friend in
whose house Lanier gave one more exhibition of
his love of music. " It was in this house," says
Miss Spann, " the meeting-place of all sweet
nobility with nature and with the human spirit,
that he uttered his last music on earth. At the
close of the day Lanier came in and passed down
the long drawing-room until he reached a western
window. In the distance were the far-reaching
Alleghany hills, with Mt. Pisgah supreme among
them, and the intervening valley bathed in sun-

THE LAST YEAR 335

set beauty. Absorbed away from those around
him, he watched the sunset glow deepen into
twilight, then sat down to the piano, facing the
window. Sorrow and joy and pain and hope and
triumph his soul poured forth. They felt that in
that twilight hour he had risen to an angel's
song." i

Lynn is in a sheltered valley among the moun
tains of Polk County, whose " climate is tempered
by a curious current of warm air along the slope
of Tryon Mountain, its northern boundary, a
sort of ethereal Gulf Stream." Here death came
sooner than was anticipated by the brother, who
had gone back to Montgomery, preceded already
by his father. Mrs. Lanier's own words tell the
story of the end in simplicity and love : " We
are left alone (August 29) with one another.
On the last night of the summer comes a change.
His love and immortal will hold off the destroyer
of our summer yet one more week, until the fore
noon of September 7, and then falls the frost,
and that unfaltering will renders its supreme
submission to the adored will of God." His
death before the open window was a realiza
tion of Matthew Arnold's wish with regard to
dying : —

Let me be,
While all around in silence lies,

1 Independent, June 28, 1894.

336 SIDNEY LANIER

Moved to the window near, and see
Once more, before my dying eyes, —

Bathed in the sacred dews of morn
The wide aerial landscape spread,
The world which was ere I was born,
The world which lasts when I am dead."

The closing lines of " Sunrise " express better
than anything else Lanier's own confident faith
as he passed behind the veil : —

And ever my heart through the night shall with know
ledge abide thee,

And ever by day shall my spirit, as one that hath tried
thee,

Labor, at leisure, in art — till yonder beside thee

My soul shall float, friend Sun,

The day being done.

His body was taken to Baltimore, where it
rests in Greenmount Cemetery in the lot of his
friends, the Turnbulls, close by the son whose
memory they have perpetuated by the endow
ment of a permanent lectureship on poetry in
Johns Hopkins University. The grave is un
marked — even by a slab. It divides the interest
of visitors to Baltimore with the grave of Poe,
which, however, is in another part of the city.
So these two poets, whose lives and whose char
acters were so strikingly unlike, sleep in their
adopted city.

Shortly after Lanier's death memorial services

THE LAST YEAR 337

were held at Johns Hopkins University, at which
time beautiful tributes were paid to him by his
colleagues and friends. A committee of the citi
zens of Baltimore was appointed to raise a fund
for the sustenance and education of the poet's
family. They were aided in this by admirers of
Lanier and public-spirited citizens throughout
the country. Meantime his fame was growing,
the publication of his poems in 1884 giving
fresh impetus thereto.

Seven years after his death a bust of the poet
was presented to the University by Mr. Charles
Lanier of New York.1 "The haU was filled,"
says ex-President Oilman, " with a company of
those who knew and admired him. On the ped
estal which supported the bust hung his flute
and a roll of his music ; a garland of laurels
crowned his brow, and the sweetest of flowers
were strewn at his feet. Letters came from Low
ell, Holmes, Gilder, Stedman ; young men who
never saw him, but who had come under his in
fluence, read their tributes in verse ; a former
student of the University made a critical esti
mate of the 4 Science of Verse ; ' a lady read
several of Lanier's own poems ; another lady sang
one of his musical compositions adapted to words
of Tennyson, and another song, one of his to

1 For a full record of the exercises see A Memorial of Sid
ney Lanier, Baltimore, 1888.

338 SIDNEY LANIER

which some one else wrote the music ; a college
president of New Jersey held up Lanier as a
teacher of ethics ; but the most striking figure
was the trim, gaunt form of a Catholic priest,
who referred to the day when they, two Confede
rate soldiers (the Huguenot and the Catholic) ,
were confined in the Union prison, and with tears
in his eyes said, his love for Lanier was like that
of David for Jonathan. The sweetest of all the
testimonials came at the very last moment, un
solicited and unexpected, from that charming
poetess, Edith Thomas. She heard of the me
morial assembly, and on the spur of the moment
wrote the well-known lines, suggested by one of
Lanier's own verses : —

On the Paradise side of the river of death."

The aftermath of Lanier's home life is all
pleasant to contemplate. His wife, although still
an invalid, has, by her readings from her hus
band's letters and poems, and by her sympa
thetic help for all those who have cared to know
more about him, done more than any other per
son to extend his fame. With tremendous ob
stacles in her way, she has reared to manhood
the four sons, three of whom are now actively
identified with publishing houses in New York
city, and one of whom, bearing the name of his
father, is now living upon a farm in Georgia.

THE LAST YEAR 339

Charles Day Lanier is president of the Eeview
of Reviews Company, and is associated with his
youngest brother, Robert Sampson Lanier, in
editing "The Country Calendar." Henry Wy-
sham Lanier is a member of the firm of Double-
day, Page & Company, and editor of " Country
Life in America." They all inherit their father's
love of music and poetry, and through their maga
zines are doing much to foster among Americans
a taste for country life. By a striking coinci
dence — entirely unpremeditated on their part

three of the sons and their mother live at Green
wich, Connecticut. It will be remembered that
the home of the English Laniers was at Green
wich, — and so the story of the Lanier family
begins and ends with this name, — one in the
Old World and one in the New.

CHAPTER XIII

THE ACHIEVEMENT IN CRITICISM AND IN
POETRY

SPECULATIONS as to what Lanier might have
done with fewer limitations and with a longer
span of years inevitably arise in the mind of
any one who studies his life. If, like the late
Theodore Thomas, he had at an early age been
able to develop his talent for music in the musi
cal circles of New York ; if, like Longfellow, he
had gone from a small college to a German uni
versity, or, like Mr. Howells, from the provinces
to Cambridge, where he would have come in
contact with a group of men of letters ; if, after
the Civil War, he had, like Hayne, retired to
a cabin and there devoted himself entirely to
literary work; if, like Lowell, he could have
given attention to literary subjects and lectured
in a university without teaching classes of im
mature students or without resorting to " pot
boilers," " nothings that do mar the artist's
hand ; " if, like Poe, he could have struck some
one vein and worked it for all it was worth, —
if, in a word, the varied activity of his life
could have given way to a certain definiteness of

CRITICISM AND POETRY 341

purpose and concentration of effort, what might
have been the difference ! Music and poetry
strove for the mastery of his soul. Swinburne,
speaking of those who attempt success in two
realms of art, says, " On neither course can the
runner of a double race attain the goal, but must
needs in both races alike be caught up and resign
his torch to a runner with a single aim." And
yet one feels that if Lanier had had time and
health to work out all these diverse interests
and all his varied experiences into a unity, if
scholarship and music and poetry could have
been developed simultaneously over a long stretch
of time, there would have resulted, perhaps, a
more many-sided man and a finer poetry than we
have yet had in America.

So at last the speculation reduces itself to one
of time. Lycidas was dead ere his prime. From
1876 till the fatal illness took hold of him he
made great strides in poetry. Up to the very
last he was making plans for the future. His
letters to friends outlining the volumes that he
hoped to publish, — work demanding decades in
stead of years, — the memoranda jotted down on
bits of paper or backs of envelopes as the rough
drafts of essays or poems, would be pathetic, if
one did not believe with Lanier that death is a
mere incident in an eternal life, or with Brown
ing, that what a man would do exalts him. The

342 SIDNEY LANIER

lines of Robert Browning's poems in which he
sets forth the glory of the life of aspiration — as
piration independent of any achievement — ring
in one's ears, as he reads the story of Lanier's life.

This low man seeks a little thing to do,

Sees it and does it;
This high man, with a great thing to pursue,

Dies ere he knows it.

The imperfect poems, the unfinished poems, the
sheaves unharvested, not like Coleridge's for
lack of will, but for lack of time, are suggestive
of one of the finest aspects of romantic art. " I
would rather fail at some things I wot of than
succeed at others," said Lanier. There are moods
when the imperfection of Lanier pleases more
than the perfection of Poe — even from the ar
tistic standpoint. What he aspired to be enters
into one's whole thought about his life and his
art. The vista of his grave opens up into the
unseen world.

On earth the broken arcs; in the heaven a perfect round.

But the time comes when none of these con
siderations — neither admiration for the man,
nor speculations as to what he might have done
under different circumstances, nor thoughts as
to what he may be doing in larger, other worlds
than ours — should interfere with a judicial
estimate of what he really achieved. It would

CRITICISM AND POETRY 343

have been the miracle of history if with all his
obstacles he had not had limitations as a writer ;
and yet many who have insisted most on his suf
ferings, have resented any criticism passed upon
his work. One has the authority of Lanier's
writings about other men and his letters about
his own poems for judging him only by the
highest standards. Did he in aiming at a million
miss a unit ? Was he blinded by the very excess
of light ? How will he fare in that race with time
of which a contemporary essayist has written?
" When the admiration of his friends no longer
counts, when his friends and admirers are them
selves gathered to the same silent throng," will
there be enough inherent worth in his work to
keep his fame alive ? These are questions that
one has a right to ask.

And, first, as to Lanier's prose work. He has
suffered from the fact that so many of his un-
revised works have been published ; these have
their excuse for being in the light they throw
on his life ; but otherwise some of them are dis
appointing. If, instead of ten volumes of prose,
there could be selected his best work from all
of them, there would still be a residue of writ
ing that would establish Lanier's place among
the prose writers of America. There is no better
illustration of his development than that seen
in comparing his early prose — the war letters

344 SIDNEY LANIER

and " Tiger Lilies," for instance, or such essays
as " Retrospects and Prospects " — with that of
his maturer years. I doubt if justice has been
done to Lanier's best style, its clearness, flu
ency, and eloquence. It may be claimed without
dispute that he was a rare good letter-writer;
perhaps only Lowell's letters are more inter
esting. The faults of his poetry are not always
seen in his best letters. In them there is a play
fulness, a richness of humor, an exuberance of
spirits, animated talk about himself and his work,
and withal a distinct style, that ought to keep
them alive. There might be selected, too, a
volume of essays, including " From Bacon to
Beethoven," " The Orchestra of To-Day," " San
Antonio de Bexar," " The Confederate Memo
rial Address," " The New South," and others.

A volume of American Criticism, edited by
Mr. William Morton Payne, includes Lanier
among the dozen best American critics, giving
a selection from the " English Novel " as a typi
cal passage. Has he a right to be in such a book ?
His work as a scholar has been discussed in a
previous chapter ; his rank as a critic is a very
different matter. It goes without saying that
Lanier was not a great critic. He did not have
the learning requisite for one. One might turn
the words of his criticism of Poe and say that he
needed to know more. He knew but little of the

CRITICISM AND POETRY 345

classics beyond what he studied in college ; while
he read French and German literature to some
extent, he did not go into them as Lowell did.
Homer, Dante, and Goethe were but little more
than names to him. Furthermore, his criticism
is often marked by a tendency to indulge in
hasty generalizations, due to the fact that he had
not sufficient facts to draw upon. An illustration
is his preference of the Elizabethan sonnets to
the English sonnets written on the Italian model,
or his discussion of personality as found in the
Greek drama. His generalizations are often
either patently obvious or far-fetched. He was
too eager to " bring together people and books
that never dreamed of being side by side." His
tendency to fancy, so marked in his poetry, is
seen also in his criticism, as for instance, his com
parison of a sonnet to a little drama, or his state
ment that every poem has a plot, a crisis, and a
hero. He had De Quincey's habit of digressing
from the main theme, — what he himself called
in speaking of an Elizabethan poet, the " con
stant temptation, to the vigorous and springy
mind of the poet, to bound off wherever his
momentary fancy may lead him." This is es
pecially seen in his lectures on the English
Novel, where he is often carried far afield from
the general theme. In his lectures on " Shak-
spere and His Forerunners," he was so often

346 SIDNEY LANIER

troubled with an embarrassment of riches that he
did not endeavor to follow a rigidly formed plan.

A more serious defect, however, was his lack
of catholicity of judgment. He had all of Carlyle's
distaste for the eighteenth century ; his dislike of
Pope was often expressed, and he went so far as
to wish that the novels of Fielding and Rich
ardson might be " blotted from the face of the
earth." His characterization of Thackeray as a
" low-pitched artist " is wide of the mark. As
Lanier had his dislikes in literature and ex
pressed them vigorously, so he over-praised many
men. When he says, for instance, that Bartholo
mew Griffin " will yet obtain a high and immor
tal place in English literature," or that William
Drummond of Hawthornden is one of " the chief
glories of the English tongue," or that Gavin
Douglas is " one of the greatest poets of our lan
guage," one wonders to what extent the " pleas
ant peril of enthusiasm " will carry a man.
One may be an admirer of George Eliot and yet
feel that Lanier has overstated her merits as
compared with other English novelists, and that
his praise of " Daniel Deronda " is excessive.

Such defects as are here suggested should not,
however, blind the reader to some of Lanier's
better work. The history of criticism, especially
of romantic criticism, is full of just such un
balanced judgments. It is often true in criticism

CRITICISM AND POETRY 347

that a man " should like what he does like ; and
his likings are facts in criticism for him." With
out very great learning and with strong preju
dices in some directions, Lanier yet had re
markable insight into literature. Lowell's say
ing that he was " a man of genius with a rare
gift for the happy word " is especially true of
some of his critical writing. Examples are his
well-known characterizations of great men in
" The Crystal : " -

Buddha, beautiful! I pardon thee
That all the All thou hadst for needy man
Was Nothing, and thy Best of being was
But not to be.

Langley, that with but a touch
Of art had sung Piers Plowman to the top
Of English song, whereof 't is dearest, now
And most adorable.

Emerson,

Most wise, that yet, in finding Wisdom, lost
Thy Self, sometimes.

Tennyson, largest voice
Since Milton, yet some register of wit
Wanting.

There are scattered throughout his prose works
criticisms of writers that are at once penetrating
and subtle. The one on Browning has already
been quoted. The best known of these criticisms
is that on Walt Whitman, but it is too long for

348 SIDNEY LANIER

insertion here. There is a sentence in one of his
letters to Bayard Taylor, however, that hits the
mark better than the longer criticism, perhaps :
" Upon a sober comparison, I think Walt Whit
man's 4 Leaves of Grass ' worth at least a million
of ' Among my Books ' and 4 Atalanta in Caly-
don.' In the two latter I could not find anything
which has not been much better said before;
but 4 Leaves of Grass ' was real refreshing to me
— like rude salt spray in your face — in spite
of its enormous fundamental error that a thing
is good because it is natural, and in spite of the
world-wide difference between my own concep
tions of art and the author's." Another good
one is that on Shelley : " In truth, Shelley ap
pears always to have labored under an essential
immaturity: it is very possible that if he had
lived a hundred years he would never have be
come a man; he was penetrated with modern
ideas, but penetrated as a boy would be, crudely,
overmuch, and with a constant tendency to the
extravagant and illogical; so that I call him
the modern boy."

Lanier writes of the songs of the twelfth and
thirteenth centuries as " short and unstudied lit
tle songs, as many of them are, songs which come
upon us out of that obscure period like brief
little bird-calls from a thick-leaved wood." He
speaks of Chaucer's works as " full of cunning

CRITICISM AND POETRY 349

hints and twinkle-eyed suggestions which peep
between the lines like the comely faces of country
children between the fence bars as one rides by."
He draws a fine comparison between William
Morris and Chaucer : " How does the spire of
hope spring and upbound into the infinite in
Chaucer ; while, on the other hand, how blank,
world-bound, and wearying is the stone facade
of hopelessness which rears itself uncompro
misingly behind the gayest pictures of William
Morris ! . . . Again, how openly joyful is Chau
cer, how secretly melancholy is Morris ! Both,
it is true, are full of sunshine ; but Chaucer's
is spring sunshine, Morris's is autumn. . . .
Chaucer rejoices as only those can who know
the bound of good red blood through unob
structed veins, and the thrilling tingle of nerve
and sinew at amity ; and who can transport this
healthy animalism into their unburdened minds,
and spiritualize it so that the mere drawing of
breath is at once a keen delight and an inwardly
felt practical act of praise to the God of a strong
and beautiful world. Morris too has his sensuous
element, but it is utterly unlike Chaucer's ; it is
dilettante, it is amateur sensualism ; it is not
strong, though sometimes excessive, and it is
nervously afraid of that satiety which is at once
its chief temptation and its most awful doom.
" Again, Chaucer lives, Morris dreams. . . .

350 SIDNEY LANIER

4 The Canterbury Tales ' is simply a drama with
somewhat more of stage direction than, is com
mon ; but the 4 Earthly Paradise ' is a reverie,
which would hate nothing so much as to be
broken by any collision with that rude actual life
which Chaucer portrays.

" And, finally, note the faith that shines in
Chaucer and the doubt that darkens in Morris.
Has there been any man since St. John so lova
ble as the 4 Persoune ' ? or any sermon since
that on the Mount so keenly analytical, ... as
' The Persoune's Tale ' ? . . . A true Hindu life-
weariness (to use one of Novalis' marvelous
phrases) is really the atmosphere which pro
duces the exquisite haze of Morris's pictures.
. . . Can any poet shoot his soul's arrow to its
best height, when at once bow and string and
muscle and nerve are slackened in this vaporous
and relaxing air, that conies up out of the old
dreams of fate that were false and of passions
that were not pure ? " l

Lanier's enthusiasm for Chaucer is typical of
much of his critical writing. He was a generous
praiser of the best literature, and generally his
praise was right. " Lyrics of criticism " would
be a good title for many of his passages. There
was nothing of indifferentism in him. In a letter
to Gibson Peacock he wrote of a certain type of

1 Music and Poetry, p. 198.

CRITICISM AND POETRY 351

criticism which, it may be said, has been widely
prevalent in recent years : " In the very short
time that I have been in the hands of the critics,
nothing has amazed me more than the timid

O

solicitudes with which they rarefy in one line
any enthusiasm they may have condensed in an
other — .a process curiously analogous to those
irregular condensations and rarefactions of air
which physicists have shown to be the conditions
of producing an indeterminate sound. Many of
my critics have seemed — if I may change the
figure — to be forever conciliating the yet-unrisen
ghosts of possible mistakes." Enough quotations
have already been given from his lectures in
Baltimore to show his enthusiasm for many of
the periods and many of the authors of English
literature. It is a distinction for him as a critic
that he has set forth in so many passages his
conception of the mission of poetry, — passages
that are in the line of succession of defenses of
poetry by Sidney, Hazlitt, and Shelley.

There is enough good criticism in the Shake
speare lectures and in the " English Novel," in
the prefaces of the boy's books and in his letters,
to make a volume of interest and importance.
Suppose we cease to think of the first two as
formal treatises on the subjects they discuss, and
rather select from them such passages as the
discussion of personality, the relation of music,

352 SIDNEY LANIER

science, and the novel, the criticism of Whitman's
theory of art, the discussion of the relation of
morals to art, the best passages on Anglo-Saxon
poetry and the Elizabethan sonneteers, and the
finer passages on Shakespeare's growth as a man
and as a dramatist. Such a volume would, I
believe, confirm one in the opinion that Lanier
belongs by right among the best American critics.
Certainly, the " Science of English Verse " en
titles him to that distinction.

About 1875 Lanier became interested in the
formal side of poetry and projected a work on a
scientific basis. It was natural that one who
had so much reverence for science and who had
studied the " physics. of music," should apply the
scientific method to the study of poetry. He
knew that the science of versification was not
the most important phase of poetry : in the pre
face, as in the epilogue, to the " Science of Eng
lish Yerse," he makes clear that " for the artist
in verse there is no law : the perception and love
of beauty constitute the whole outfit." In many
other passages in his writings may be seen his
view of the moral significance of poetry. He
desired, however, to formulate for himself and
for students certain metrical laws. What differ
entiates poetry from prose ? How does a writer
produce certain effects with certain rhythms
and vowel and consonant arrangements? The

CRITICISM AND POETRY 353

student wishes to know why the forms are fair
and hear how the tale is told. By the study of
rhythm, tune, and color, Lanier believed that
one might receive " a whole new world of possi
ble delight." He believed with Sylvester that
" versification has a technical side quite as well
capable of being reduced to rules as that of
painting or any other fine art." His book was
intended to furnish students with such an outfit
of facts and principles as would serve for pursu
ing further researches.

The time was ripe for such a study. Lanier
wrote to Mr. Stedman that " in all directions
the poetic art was suffering from the shameful
circumstance that criticism was without a scien
tific basis." The book at once received com
mendation from competent critics. Edward Row
land Sill wrote Dr. Gilman that it was " the
only thing extant on that subject that is of any
earthly value. I wonder that so few seem to
have discovered its great merit," — an opinion
afterwards repeated by him in the " Atlantic
Monthly." The late Richard Hovey, in a series
of articles in the " Independent " on the technic
of poetry, said that Lanier had begun such a
scientific study with " great soundness and com
mon sense ; " the book is " accurate, scientific,
sus^estive." The editor of the " Dial " referred

OO

to it as " the most striking and thoughtful ex-

354 SIDNEY LANIER

position yet published on the technics of English
poetry." Within the past ten years books on
English verse have multiplied fast. In Germany,
in England, and in America, the discussion of
metrics has gone on. While dissenting from
some of Lanier's conclusions, few of the writers
have failed to recognize his work as of great im
portance.1 One man rarely sees all round any
great subject like this, — each man sees some
one special point and states it in an individual
way, and finally, in the course of time, the truth
is evolved.

There is little objection to Parts II and III of
the " Science of English Verse." They are gen
erally recognized as strikingly suggestive and
helpful. It is with the main thesis of the first
part that many disagree — the author's insist-
( ence that the laws of music and of verse are
identical. ^According to Lanier, verse is in all
respects a phenomenon of sound. From time
immemorial the relation of music and of poetry
has been spoken of in figurative terms, as in
Carlyle's discussion' of the subject in the essay
on the " Hero as Poet." Lanier, however, was
the first to work the idea out in a thorough-going
fashion. He was especially qualified to do so

1 See, for instance. Winchester's Principles of Literary
Criticism, Alden's English Verse, Paul Elmer Here's Shelburne
Essays, and Omond's English Metrists.

CRITICISM AND POETRY 355

because of his knowledge of the two arts. His
general conclusion was the same as that reached
by Professor Gummere in his searching discussion
of " Rhythm as the Essential Fact of Poetry." *
Both of them saw that the origin of poetry was
in the dance and the march, and later the song.
In modern times the two arts had become dis
tinct. Lanier believed that, in accordance with
its origin and the practice of the best poets, the
basis of rhythm is time and not accent. Every
line is made up of bars of equal time value.
" If this equality of time were taken away, no
possibility of rhythm would remain." " The
accent serves only to mark for the ear these
equal intervals of time, which are the units of
poetic measurement." Lanier 's theory of quan
tity, however, is different from the rigid laws of
classic quantity, for he allows for variations from
the regular type of verse that may prevail in a
certain poem or line, thus providing for " an es
cape out of the rigidities of the type into the in
finite field of those subtle rhythms which pervade
familiar utterance." He separates himself there
fore from such writers as Abbott and Guest, who
applied the rule of thumb to English verse. To
such men " Shakspere's verse has often seemed
a mass of 'license,' of 'irregularity,' and of
lawless anomaly to commentators ; while, ap-

1 The Beginnings of Poetry, chapter 2.

356 SIDNEY LANIER

preached from the direction of that great rhyth
mic sense of humanity displayed in music, in all
manner of folk-songs, and in common talk, it is
perfect music."

Lanier's theory is a good one in so far as it
applies to the ideal rhythm, for the melody of
verse does approximate that of music. If one
considers actual rhythm, however, he is forced to
come to the conclusion that no such mathemati
cal relation exists between the syllables of a foot
of verse as that existing between the notes of a
musical bar. In poetry another element enters
in to interfere with the ideal rhythm of music,
and that is what Mr. More has called " the
normal unrhythmical enunciation of the lan
guage." The result is a compromise shifting to
ward one extreme or. another. Lanier's theory
would apply to the earliest folk-songs. He illus
trated his point by referring to the negro melo
dies, which, says Joel Chandler Harris, " depend
for their melody and rhythm upon the musical
quality of the time, and not upon long or short,
accented or unaccented syllables." His citation
of Japanese poetry was also a case in point.
Unquestionably, the lyrics and choruses of the
Greek drama were thoroughly musical ; Sopho
cles and ^Eschylus were both teachers of the
chorus. Many of the lyrics of the Elizabethan
age were written especially for music, and more

CRITICISM AND POETRY 357

than one collector of these lyrics has bemoaned
the fact that in later times there has been such
a divorce between the two arts. Who will say
that Coleridge's " Christabel" and " Kubla
Khan " are not disembodied music ? Lamb said
that Coleridge repeated the latter poem " so en-
chantingly that it irradiates and brings heaven
and elysian bowers into any parlor when he says
or sings it to me." Mr. Arthur Symons has re
cently said: " < Christabel ' is composed like music;
you might set at the side of each section, espe
cially of the opening, largo vivacissimo, and as
the general expressive signature, tempo rubato."
Tennyson realized the musical effect of " Paradise
Lost " when he spoke of Milton as " England's
God-gifted organ-voice ; " and he himself in such
lyrics as those in the " Princess " and the eighty-
sixth canto of " In Memoriam " wrought musical
effects with verse. Mr. Theodore Watts-Dunton
says of Poe's " Ulalume " that, if properly in
toned, " it would produce something like the
same effect upon a listener knowing no word of
English that it produces upon us.' ' It needs to be
said, in parenthesis, that in all these cases, while
there is the musical effect from the standpoint
of time and tone-color, there is still the perfec
tion of speech. The theory will not hold, how
ever, in much dramatic verse, or in meditative
blank verse, as used by Wordsworth. Much of

358 SIDNEY LANIER

the poetry of Byron, Browning, Keats, and
Shakespeare, while supremely great from the
standpoint of color, or dramatic power, or pictur-
esqueness, or thought, is not musical. To bring
some poems within the limit of musical notation
would be impossible.

While then one must modify Lanier's theory,
the book emphasizes a point that needs con
stantly to be emphasized, both by poets and by
students of poetry. Followed too closely by minor
poets, it will tend to develop artisans rather than
artists. Followed by the greater poets, — con
sciously or unconsciously, — it may prove to be
one of the surest signs of poetry. This phase
of poetical work needed to be emphasized in
America, where poetry, with the exception of
Poe's, has been deficient in this very element.
Whatever else one may say of Emerson, Bryant,
Whit tier, or Longfellow, he must find that their
poetry as a whole is singularly lacking in melod}^
Moreover, the poet who was the most domi
nant figure in American literature at the time
when Lanier was writing, prided himself on
violating every law of form, using rhythm, if
at all, in a certain elementary or oriental sense.
" I tried to read a beautifully printed and schol
arly volume on the theory of poetry received by
mail this morning from England," said Whit
man, " but gave it up at last as a bad job." One

CRITICISM AND POETRY 359

may be thoroughly just to Whitman and grant
the worth of his work in American literature,
and yet see the value of Lanier's contention that
the study of the formal element in poetry will
lead to a much finer poetry than we have yet
had in this country. Other books will supplant
the " Science of English Verse " as text-books,
and few may ever read it understandingly ; but
the author's name will always be thought of in
any discussion of the relations of music and
poetry. It is not only a scientific monograph,
but a philosophical treatise on a subject that
will be discussed with increasing interest.

While Lanier thus stated his conception of the
formal element in poetry, he has, in many other
places, given his ideas of the poet's character and
his work in the world. If on the one hand he
criticised Whitman for lack of form, on the other
he blamed Swinburne for lack of substance.
Seemingly a follower of Poe, he yet would have
incurred the displeasure of that poet for adopting
the " heresy of the didactic." He had an exalted
sense of what poetry means in the redemption
of mankind. He had little patience with the
cry, " Art for art's sake," or with the justifica
tion so often made for the immorality of the
artist's life. Milton himself did not believe more
ardently that a poet's life ought to be a true

360 SIDNEY LANIER

poem. In the poems " Individuality," " Clover,"
" Life and Song," and the " Psalm of the West,"
Lanier expresses his view of the responsibility
of the artist. In the first he says : —

Awful is Art because 't is free ;
The artist trembles o'er his plan
Where men his Self must see,

In the " English Novel " he says : " For, in
deed, we may say that he who has not yet per
ceived how artistic beauty and moral beauty are
convergent lines which run back into a common
ideal origin, and who is therefore not afire with
moral beauty just as with artistic beauty ; that
he, in short, who has not come to that stage of
quiet and eternal frenzy in which the beauty
of holiness and the holiness of beauty mean one
thing, burn as one fire, shine as one light within
him, he is not yet the great artist."

Lanier believed that he was, or would be, a
great poet. While for a time he considered
music as his special field of work and " poetry as
a mere tangent," after 1875 his aspiration took
the direction of poetry. Criticism of his work
only strengthened his conviction that it was of a
high order. Letters to his father and to his wife
indicate his positive conviction that he was meet
ing with the misunderstanding that every great
artist has met since the world began : " Let my

CRITICISM AND POETRY 361

name perish, — the poetry is good poetry and the
music is good music, and beauty dieth not, and
the heart that needs it will find it." " I know,
through the fiercest tests of life, that I am in soul,
and shall be in life and utterance, a great poet,"
he said again.

Accordingly he hoped that he would accomplish
something different from the popular poetry of
the period. Time and again he spoke of " the
feeble magazine lyrics " of his time. " This is
the kind of poetry that is technically called cul
ture poetry, yet it is in reality the product of a
want of culture. If these gentlemen and ladies
would read the old English poetry . . . they
could never be content to put forth these little
diffuse prettinessess and dandy kickshaws of
verse." And again : " In looking around at the
publications of the younger American poets, I
am struck with the circumstance that none of
them even attempt anything great. . . . Hence
the endless multiplications of those little feeble
magazine lyrics which we all know: consisting
of one minute idea each, which is put in the
last line of the fourth verse, the other three
verses and three lines being mere surplusage."
His characterizations of contemporary poetry are
strikingly like those of Walt Whitman. Dif
ferent as they were in nearly every respect, the
two poets were yet alike in their idea that there

362 SIDNEY LANIER

should be a reaction against the conventional
and artificial poetry of their time, — the differ
ence being, that Whitman's reaction took the
direction of formlessness, while Lanier's was con
cerned about the extension and revival of poetic
forms. In both poets there is a range and sweep,
both of conception and of utterance, that sharply
differentiates them from all other poets since the
Civil War.

The question then is, whether Lanier, with his
lofty conception of the poet's work, and with his
faith in himself, succeeded in writing poetry that
will stand the test of time. He undoubtedly had
some of the necessary qualities of a poet. He
had, first of all, a sense of melody that found
vent primarily in music and then in words which
moved with a certain rhythmic cadence. " A holy
tune was in my soul when I fell asleep ; it was
going when I awoke. This melody is always
moving along in the background of my spirit. If
I wish to compose, I abstract my attention from
the things which occupy the front of the stage,
the dramatis personae of the moment, and fix
myself upon the deeper scene in the rear." " All
day my soul hath been cutting swiftly into the
great space of the subtle, unspeakable deep,
driven by wind after wind of heavenly melody,"
he writes at another time. His best poems move
to the cadence of a tune. He probably heard

o

CRITICISM AND POETRY 363

them as did Milton the lines of " Paradise Lost."
Sometimes there was a lilt like the singing of a
bird, and sometimes the lyric cry, and yet again
the music of the orchestra. " He has an ear for
the distribution of instruments, and this gives
him a desire for the antiphonal, for introducing
an answer, or an echo, or a compensating note,"
says Mr. Higginson. Sometimes, as in the
"Marshes of Glynn " and in the best parts of
" Sunrise," there is a cosmic rhythm that is
like unto the rhythmic beating of the heart of
God, of which Poe and Lanier have written
eloquently.

Besides this melody that was temperamental,
Lanier had ideas. He was alive to the problems
of his age and to the beauties of nature. One
has only to think of the names of his poems to
realize how many themes occupied his attention.
He wrote of religion, social questions, science,
philosophy, nature, love. " My head and my
heart are both [so] full of poems," he says.
" So many great ideas for art are born to me
each day, I am swept into the land of All-delight
by their strenuous sweet whirlwind." " Every
leaf that I brush against breeds a poem." " A
thousand vital elements rill through my soul."
So he is in no sense a " jingle man." There is
a note of healthy mysticism in his poetry that
makes him akin to Wordsworth and Emerson. A

364 SIDNEY LANIER

series of poems might be selected that would en
title him to the praise of being " the friend and
aider of those who would live in the spirit."

With the spiritual endowment of a poet and
an unusual sense of melody, where was he lack
ing in what makes a great poet? In power of
expression. He never attained, except in a few
poems, that union of sound and sense which is
characteristic of the best poetry. The touch of
finality is not in his words ; the subtle charm of
verse outside of the melody and the meaning is
not his — he failed to get the last " touches of
vitalizing force." He did not, as Lowell said of
Keats, "rediscover the delight and wonder that
lay enchanted in the dictionary." He did not
attain to "the perfection and the precision of
the instantaneous line." Take his poem " Remon
strance," for instance. It is a strong utterance
against tyranny and intolerance and bigotry, hot
from his soul ; but the expression is not worthy
of his feeling. A few lines of Lowell's " Fable
for Critics " about freedom are better. The
same may be said of his attack on agnosticism
in "Acknowledgment." " Corn " while represent
ing an extremely poetical situation, leaves one
with the feeling of incompleteness : the ideas are
not adequately or felicitously expressed. There
is melody in the " Marsh Song at Sunset," but the
poem is not clear. Or take what many consider

CRITICISM AND POETRY 365

his masterpiece, " Sunrise." There is one of
the most imaginative situations a poet could
have, — the ecstasy of the poet's soul as he rises
from his bed to go to the forest, the silence of
the night, the mystery of the deep green woods,
the coming of " my lord, the Sun." There is
nothing in American poetry that goes beyond
the sweep and range of this conception. But
look at the words ; with the exception of the
first stanza and those that describe the dawn,
there is a nervousness of style, a strain of ex
pression. If one compare even the best parts
with the " Evening of Extraordinary Splendor
and Beauty " by Wordsworth, he sees the differ
ence in the art of expression. There is in Words
worth's poem the romantic mood, — the same
uplift of soul in the presence of the greater
phenomena of nature, — but there is a classic
restraint of form; it is "emotion recollected
in tranquillity."

What, then, is the explanation of this defect
in Lanier ? Undoubtedly lack of time to revise
his work is one cause. Speaking of one of his
poems, he said, " Being cool next day, I find
some flaws in my poem." And again, " On see
ing the poem in print, I find it faulty ; there 's
too much matter in it." Sickness, poverty, and
hard work prevented him from having that re
pose which is the proper mood of the artist. He

366 SIDNEY LANIER

had to write as long a poem as " The Sym
phony " in four days, the " Psalm of the West "
in a few weeks. " Sunrise " was dictated on his
death-bed. The revision of " Corn " and of all
other poems which I have been able to compare
with the first drafts shows conclusively that he
had the power of improving his work. With
more time he might have achieved with all of his
poems some of the results attained by such care
ful workmen as Tennyson and Poe.

But lack of time for revision will not explain
all. There were certain temperamental defects
in Lanier as poet. There was a lack of spon
taneous utterance. Writing once of Swinburne,
he used words that characterize well one phase
of his own work : " It is always the Fourth of
July with Mr. Swinburne. It is impossible in
reading this strained laborious matter not to re
member that the case of poetry is precisely that
where he who conquers, conquers without strain.
There was a certain damsel who once came to
King Arthur's court, ' gert ' (as sweet Sir Thomas
Malory hath it) ' with a sword for to find a man
of such virtue to draw it out of the scabbard.'
King Arthur, to set example to his knights, first
essayed, and pulled at it ^eagerly, but the sword
would not out. ' Sir,' said the damsel, ' ye need
not to pull half so hard, for he that shall pull it
out shall do it with little might.' " This is not

CRITICISM AND POETRY 367

to say that Lanier simulated poetic expression,
but his words are not inevitable enough. He
often lacked simplicity.

Furthermore, he suffered from a tendency to
indulge in fancies, „" sucking sweet similes out
of the most diverse objects." He was inoculated
with the " conceit virus " of the seventeenth
century. In a letter already quoted, he pointed
out this defect to his father, and he never over
came it. He did not restrain his luxuriant imag
ination. The poem " Clover " is almost spoiled
by the conceit of the ox representing the
" Course-of -things " and trampling upon the souls
(the clover-blossoms) of the poets. " Sunrise "
is marred by the figure of the bee-hive from
which the " star-fed Bee, the build-fire Bee, . . .
the great Sun-Bee," emerges in the morning.
Such examples might be easily multiplied.

Lanier was undoubtedly hampered, too, by his
theory of verse. The very poem " Special Plead
ing," in which he said that he began to work out
his theory, is a failure. Alliteration, assonance,
compound words, personifications, are greatly
overused. Some of the rhymes are as grotesque
as Browning's. Instead of the perfect union of
sound and sense, there is often a mere chanting
of words.

It is futile to deny these tendencies in Lanier.
They vitiate more than half his poems, and are

368 SIDNEY LANIEB

defects even in some of the best. Sometimes,
in his very highest flight, he seems to have been
winged by one of these arrows. But it is equally
futile to deny that he frequently rises above all
these limitations and does work that is absolutely
unique, and original, and enduring. Distinction
must be made, as in the case of every other man
who has marked qualities of style, between his
good work and his bad work. He has done
enough good work to entitle him to a place
among the genuine poets of America. No Ameri
can anthology would be complete that did not
contain some dozen or more of his poems, and
no study of American poetry would be complete
that did not take into consideration twice this
number. It is too soon yet to fix upon such
poems, but surely they may be found among the
following: such lyrics as "An Evening Song,"
" My Springs," " A Ballad of the Trees and the
Master," " Betrayal," " Night and Day," « The
Stirrup-Cup," and " Nirvana ; " such sonnets as
"The Mocking-Bird " and "The Harlequin of
Dreams ; " such nature poems as " The Song of
the Chattahoochee," " The Waving of the Corn,"
and " From the Flats ; " such poems of high
seriousness as " Individuality," " Opposition,"
" How Love looked for Hell," and " A Florida
Sunday ; " such a stirring ballad as " The Re
venge of Hamish ; " the opening lines and the

CRITICISM AND POETRY 369

Columbus sonnets of the " Psalm of the West ; "
and the longer poems, " The Symphony," " Sun
rise," and " The Marshes of Glynn."

The first may be quoted as an illustration of
Lanier's lyric quality. Those who have heard it
sung to the music of Mr. Dudley Buck can
realize to some extent Lanier's idea of the union
of music and poetry : —

Look off, dear Love, across the shallow sands,
And mark yon meeting of the sun and sea,
How long they kiss in sight of all the lands.
Ah ! longer, longer, we.

Now in the sea's red vintage melts the sun,
As Egypt's pearl dissolved in rosy wine,
And Cleopatra night drinks all. 'T is done,
Love, lay thine hand in mine.

Come forth, sweet stars, and comfort heaven's heart ;

Glimmer, ye waves, round else unlighted sands.
O night ! divorce our sun and sky apart,
Never our lips, our hands.

Throughout his poems — some of them im-\ j
perfect enough as wholes — there are lines that
come from the innermost soul of poetry : —

Lut the air and my heart and the earth are a-thrill.

The little green leaves would not let me alone in my
sleep.

Happy-valley hopes
Beyond the bend of roads.

370 SIDNEY LANIER

I lie as lies yon placid Brandywine,
Holding the hills and heavens in my heart
For contemplation.

Sweet visages of all the souls of time
Whose loving service to the world has been
In the artist's way expressed.

A perfect life in perfect labor wrought.

The artist's market is the heart of man;
The artist's price, some little good of man.

He summ'd the words in song.

The whole sweet round

Of littles that large life compound !

My brain is beating like the heart of Haste.
Where an artist plays, the sky is low.

Thou 'rt only a gray and sober dove,

But thine eye is faith and thy wing is love.

Oh, sweet, my pretty sum of history,

I leapt the breadth of Time in loving thee !

Music is love in search of a word.

His song was only living aloud,
His work, a singing with his hand !

And Science be known as the sense making love to the

All,

And Art be known as the soul making love to the All,
And Love be known as the marriage of man with the All.

CRITICISM AND POETRY 371

Indeed, if one had to rely upon one poem to
keep alive the fame of Lanier, he could single
out " The Marshes of Glynn " with assurance
that there is something so individual and origi
nal about it, and that, at the same time, there is
such a roll and range of verse in it, that it will
surely live not only in American poetry but in
English. Here the imagination has taken the
place of fancy, the effort to do great things ends
in victory, and the melody of the poem corre
sponds to the exalted thought. It has all the
strong points of " Sunrise," with but few of its
limitations. There is something of Whitman's
virile imagination and Emerson's high spiritual- //
ity combined with the haunting melody of Poe's
best work. Written in 1878, when Lanier was
in the full exercise of all his powers, it is the
best expression of his genius and one of the few
great American poems.

The background of the poem — as of " Sun
rise " — is the forest, the coast and the marshes
near Brunswick, Georgia. Early in life Lanier
had been thrilled by this wonderful natural
scenery, and later visits had the more power
fully impressed his imagination. He is the poet \f
of the marshes as surely as Bryant is of the
forests, or Wordsworth of the mountains.

The poet represents himself as having spent
the day in the forest and coming at sunset into

372 SIDNEY LANIER

full view of the length and the breadth and the
sweep of the marshes. The glooms of the live-
oaks and the emerald twilights of the " dim
sweet woods, of the dear dark woods," have been
as a refuge from the riotous noon-day sun. More
than that, in the wildwood privacies and closets
of lone desire he has known the passionate plea
sure of prayer and the joy of elevated thought.
His spirit is grown to a lordly great compass
within, — he is ready for what Wordsworth calls
a " god-like hour : " —

But now when the noon is no more, and riot is rest,
And the sun is a-wait at the ponderous gate of the West,
And the slant yellow beam down the wood-aisle doth

seem

Like a lane into heaven that leads from a dream, —
Ay, now, when my soul all day hath drunken the soul of

the oak
And my heart is at ease from men, and the wearisome

sound of the stroke

Of the scythe of time and the trowel of trade is low,
And belief overmasters doubt, and I know that I know,
And my spirit is grown to a lordly great compass

within,
That the length and the breadth and the sweep of the

marshes of Glynn
Will work me no fear like the fear they have wrought

me of yore
When length was fatigue, and when breadth was but

bitterness sore,
And when terror and shrinking and dreary unnamable

pain
Drew over me out of the merciless miles of the plain, —

CRITICISM AND POETRY 373

Oh, now, unafraid, I am fain to face

The vast sweet visage of space.
To the edge of the wood I am drawn, I am drawn,
Where the gray beach glimmering runs, as a belt of the

dawn,

For a mete and a mark
To the forest-dark: —

So:

Affable live-oak, leaning low, —
Thus — with your favor — soft, with a reverent hand
(Not lightly touching your person, Lord of the land !)
Bending your beauty aside, with a step I stand
On the firm-packed sand,

Free
By a world of marsh that borders a world of sea.

And what if behind me to westward the wall of the woods

stands high ?
The world lies east: how ample, the marsh and the sea

and the sky !
A league and a league of marsh-grass, waist-high, broad

in the blade,
Green, and all of a height, and unflecked with a light or

a shade,

Stretch leisurely off, in a pleasant plain,
To the terminal blue of the main.

Oh, what is abroad in the marsh and the terminal sea ?

Somehow my soul seems suddenly free
From the weighing of fate and the sad discussion of sin,
By the length and the breadth and the sweep of the
marshes of Glynn.

As the marsh-hen secretly builds on the watery sod,
Behold I will build me a nest on the greatness of God:

374 SIDNEY LANIER

I will fly in the greatness of God as the marsh-hen flies
In the freedom that fills all the space 'twixt the marsh

and the skies:

By so many roots as the marsh-grass sends in the sod
I will heartily lay me a-hold on the greatness of God:
Oh, like to the greatness of God is the greatness within
The range of the marshes, the liberal marshes of Glynn.

And the sea lends large, as the marsh: lo, out of his

plenty the sea

Pours fast: full soon the time of the flood-tide must be:
Look how the grace of the sea doth go
About and about through the intricate channels that flow
Here and there,

Everywhere,
Till his waters have flooded the uttermost creeks and the

low-lying lanes,

And the marsh is meshed with a million veins,
That like as with rosy and silvery essences flow
In the rose-and-silver evening glow.

Farewell, my lord Sun !

The creeks overflow: a thousand rivulets run
'Twixt the roots of the sod; the blades of the marsh-grass

stir;

Passeth a hurrying sound of wings that westward whirr;
Passeth, and all is still; and the currents cease to run;
And the sea and the marsh are one.

How still the plains of the waters be !

The tide is in his ecstasy.

The tide is at his highest height:

And it is night.

And now from the Vast of the Lord will the waters of

sleep

Roll in on the souls of men,
But who will reveal to our waking ken

CRITICISM AND POETRY 375

The forms that swim and the shapes that creep

Under the waters of sleep ?
And I would I could know what swimmeth below when

the tide comes in
On the length and the breadth of the marvelous marshes

of Glynn.

In the light of such a poem Lanier's poetry
and his life take on a new significance. The
struggles through which he passed and the vic
tory he achieved are summed up in a passage
which may well be the last word of this bio
graphy. For Sidney Lanier was

The catholic man who hath mightily won
God out of knowledge and good out of infinite pain
And sight out of blindness and purity out of a stain.

INDEX

Adams, Herbert B., 210, 236.

Agassiz, Louis, 28, 312.

Alabama, University of, 68;
Lanier seeks position in, 91.

Aldhelm, 216.

Alclrich, T. B., 75, 287.

Alleghany Springs, Virginia,
Lanier's description of, 111-
113.

Allston Art Association, 230.

America, future of music in,
145-147.

Anderson, Clifford, 18, 100.

Arber, Edward, 256.

Arnold, Matthew, 211, 335-336.

Atlanta " Constitution," 277,
293.

Atlanta University, 270.

"Atlantic Monthly," on South
ern Literature, 286, 287 ; 353.

Bach, Sebastian, 146.

Baltimore, 182, 183, 185, 195, 199-
201, 203, 206, 210, 233, 237, 245,
264,280; climate of, 124; La-
nier's first visit to, 130 ; his
popularity in, 135 ; musicians
in, 135 ; influence of Lanier on,
136, 230 ; poems written there,
173; Druid Hill Park, 225;
change in society, 230.

Baskervill, W. M., "Southern
Writers," quoted, 32, 60-62,
168, 288-289.

Beethoven, 135, 140, 144, 145, 147,
172, 200.

" Beowulf," Lanier's interpreta
tion Of, 205, 213-218.

Bird, Mrs. Edgeworth, Lanier

lectures at home of, 205, 233.
Bismarck, 200.
Blaine, James G., 265, 266.
Blake, William, 302.
Blanc, Mme. (Th. Bentzon),

estimate of Lanier, in "Kevue

des Deux Mondes," 2, 306-

307.
Bleckley, Judge Logan E., 153,

154; Lanier's letters to, 95,

153, 157-159, 163, 291.
Bledsoe, Alfred T., 280, 282.
Boston, 163, 185; Lanier's visit

to, 190-191.

Browne, Sir Thomas, 251.
Browne, William Hand, 280,

281.
Browning, Elizabeth Barrett,

56.
Browning, Robert, 302, 318, 341,

342, 347, 358, 367; Lanier's

opinion of, " The King and

the Book," 110-111.
Brunetiere, 211.
Brunswick, Ga., Lanier's visits

to and impressions of, 99, 111,

152, 195, 371.
Bryant, William Cullen, 183, 192,

371.
Buck, Dudley, 166, 167, 369;

letters of Lanier to, 168, 169,

178.

Buddha, Lanier's characteriza
tion of, 347.
Burns, Robert, 34, 186.
Burton, Robert, 34, 251.
Byron, Lord, 38, 358.

378

INDEX

Cable, George W., 45, 284, 285,
287, 288 ; Lanier's opinion of,
294.

Caedmon, 216, 256.

Calhoun, John C., 272, 288.

Callaway, " Select Poems of
Lanier," 159, note.

Carlyle, Thomas, 32, 36, 346, 354 ;
influence of, on Lanier, 34.

Centennial Exposition, Lanier's
relation to, 166-181.

Century Club, Lanier's visit to,
192.

" Century Magazine," the, 285.

Chadd's Ford, Pa., Lanier's stay
in, 194, 196.

Charles I, patron of Nicholas
Lanier, 11.

Chatterton, Thomas, 34.

Chaucer, Geoffrey, 109, 193, 202,
203, 215, 216, 238, 256 ; Lanier's
comparison of, with William
Morris, 348-350.

Child, Francis J., 237, 238, 240,
261.

Chopin, 74, 136, 140, 150.

Civil War, Lanier's interpreta
tion of the issues of, 44-47;
effect of, on the South, 45 ; Con
federate soldiers in, 105, 106.

Clarke, Charles Heber, 183, 302.

Clay, Mrs. Clement C., friend
ship for Lanier, 53, 54 ; letter
from Lanier to, 53.

Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, 4, 34,
56, 342; musical qualities of
verse, 357.

Cook, Albert S., 240.

Cooke, John Esten, 282, 285.

Cowley, Abraham, 56.

Craddock, Charles Egbert (Miss
Mary N. Murfree) 37, 83, 287,
288.

" Crescent Monthly," the, 280.

Curry, J. L. M., 278, 279.

Cushman, Charlotte, 53, 159, 182,
183 ; letters of Lanier to, 184-

191,301; Lanier asked to write
the life of, 194; Lanier visits
in Boston, 190.

Damrosch, Leopold, 130, 133.

Dante, 212, 238, 345.

Darwin, Charles, 226, 241 ; La
nier's reverence for, 313-314.

Davidson, J. Wood, "Living
Writers of the South," 88, 282.

Davis, Jefferson, 63, 73, 282 ;
Lanier's opinion of his im
prisonment, 89.

" DeBow's Review," 280.

De Quincey, Thomas, 345.

Dobbin, Mrs. Isabel L., letter of
Lanier to, 325-326.

Dobell, Sydney, 188.

Donne, John, Lanier compares
himself to, 56.

Douglas, Gavin, 346.

Drummond, William, of Haw-
thornden, Lanier's opinion of,
164, 346.

Eggleston, George Gary, 286,

292 ; Lanier's letter to, 292.
Eliot, President Charles W., 144,

233.

Eliot, George, 298, 329, 346.
Elizabethan literature, Lanier's

interest in, 109, 203-206, 218-

220, 249.
Emerson, Ralph Waldo, 36, 247,

251, 286, 312, 358, 363, 371.

Falk-Auerbach, Mme., 135.

Fielding, Henry, Lanier's opin
ion of, 346.

Florida, Lanier's visits to, 165,
187, 189, 195, 196; description
of scenery, 165.

Flotow, Stradella (music), La
nier's interpretation of, 141.

French, Major-General Samuel
G., reminiscences of Lanier,
49.

INDEX

379

Froissart, 10, 25, 109, 118.
Furnivall, F. J., 240, 246, 247.

Georgia, democracy in, before
the war, 20; secession, 42;
losses in war, 68 ; agricultural
condition in, 156, 268 ; progress
in, 269 ; leadership in the New
South, 276; Lanier's enjoy
ment of the life as portrayed
in fiction, 20, 296.

German literature, Lanier's
early reading of, 34 ; during
the war, 56, 58 ; 83, 96, 97, 232,
299, 345. See Goethe, Heine,
Herder, Schiller, Uhland.

German music, 120-122 ; defects
of, 148-150. See Beethoven,
Wagner.

German university, Lanier plans
to go to, 39, 40, 91, 100.

Gildersleeve, Basil L., 39, 56, 210,
236, 281, 282 ; reminiscences of
Lanier, 239, 302.

Gilman, Daniel Coit, president
of Johns Hopkins University,
234, 235 ; first interview with
Lanier, 231 ; what his friend
ship meant to Lanier, 233;
reminiscences of Lanier, 6,
173-175, 331, 337, 353; his esti
mate of Lanier's work at
Johns Hopkins, 250; letters
of Lanier to, 232, 250, 252-257,
337.

Godkin, E. L., on condition of
South after the war, 68 ; on
reconstruction, 90; national
spirit of, 179.

Goethe, Lanier attends celebra
tion of in New York, 192 ; 312,
345.

Gordon, John B.,277, 278.

Grady, Henry, 96, 276, 277.

Griffin, Bartholomew, Lanier's
opinion of, 346.

Grosart, Alexander B.,203, 240.

iimmere, Francis B., "Begin
nings of Poetry," 355.

Hamerik, Asger, 141 ; first meet
ing with Lanier, 130 ; account
of Lanier's playing, 131-133;
influence on Lanier, 134.

" Harper's Magazine," 285, 286,
324.

Harris, Joel Chandler, 68, 288 ;
quoted, 123, 277, 284, 356; La
nier's opinion of, 293, 294.

Harte, Bret, influence on South
ern writers, 283, 287.

Hartman, Emil, Lanier's playing
of, 132.

Hankins, V. W., reminiscences
of Lanier, 55.

Hawthorne, Nathaniel, 107.

Haygood, Atticus G., " Our Bro
ther in Black," 276-278.

Hayne, Paul Hamilton, 45, 68,
182, 202, 283, 288, 289-293, 321,
340 ; his life after the war, 106 ;
his encouragement of Lanier,
107, 108 ; letters of Lanier to,
110, 111, 164, 290, 321.

Hazlitt, William, 212, 351.

Heidelberg University, Lanier
plans to go to, 39-41.

Heine, Lanier reads and trans
lates, 56, 58.

Helmholtz, influence of his in
vestigations on Lanier, 138.

Herder, Lanier translates, 58.

Herrick, Mrs. Sophie Bledsoe,
reminiscences of Lanier, 314-
315.

Higginson, Thomas Wentworth,
363.

Hill, Walter B., 285; estimate
of Lanier as lawyer, 101-
103.

Hill, Benjamin H., 276, 277.

Holmes, Oliver Wendell, 102,
173, 337, 358.

Hovey, Richard, opinion of the

380

INDEX

"Science of English Verse,'

353.
Howells, William Dean, 286, 287

340.

Huguenots, the, early settle
ment, in Virginia, 12.
" Hunt of Henry IV.," the, La-

nier's description of, 142.
Hurd and Houghton, publish.

ers of " Tiger Lilies," 78.
Huxley, Thomas Henry, 313,

316.

" Independent," the, publication
of Lanier's poems, 286. See
Ward.

Jackson, Stonewall, Lanier's
opinion of, 104.

Johns Hopkins University, 7,
144, 203, 281, 313, 333, 336, 337 ;
Lanier appointed lecturer in,
233, 234; organization and
ideals of, 234-238 ; first faculty,
236 ; Lanier's influence on, 250,
258, 259 ; his conception of his
work in, 252-258 ; his place in
the history of, 262 ; memorial
exercises held in his honor,
336. •

Johnston, Richard Malcolm, 6,
68,210, 281, 282, 285; Lanier's
influence on, 295 ; letters from
Lanier, 295, 322.

Keats, John, 3, 34, 56, 156, 251,
298, 332, 358, 364.

Kennedy, John P., visits Macon,
22.

Keyser, Ephraim, bust of Lanier
by, 306.

Kirk, John Foster, 182,302; La
nier's letters to, 204, 316.

Kirk, Miss Sophie, reminis
cences of Lanier, 302-304.

Lamar, L. Q. C., 22, 96, 180, 265.

Lamb, Charles, 4, 212, 251, 357.

" Land we Love," the, 280.

Lane, Charles W., 27.

Langland, William, " Piers
Plowman," 109, 347.

Lanier and Anderson, Lanier
works in the firm of, 100-102,
114.

Lanier, Charles, presents bust
of Lanier to Johns Hopkins,
14, 337, 338.

Lanier, Charles Day (son), 100,
133, 307, 339.

Lanier, Clifford (brother), 7, 17,
18, 38, 53, 54, 55, 63, 73-75, 157,
331, 335 ; reminiscences, 18, 23,
24 ; Lanier's letters to, 99, 171,
172,231, 245, 246, 265-267.

Lanier, Gertrude (sister), 18, 63;
letters of Lanier to, 73, 117.

Lanier, Henry W. (son), 200, 339,

Lanier, James F.D., 10, 13; as
sists Sidney Lanier with
" Tiger Lilies," 78, 79.

Lanier, Jerome, 10.

Lanier, Sir John, 12.

Lanier, Kate, 79, 80.

Lanier, Mary Day, 52, 53, 152,
195, 199, 323-325, 330 ; marriage,
97-98; account of Lanier's
death, 335; training of her
children, 338 ; letters of Lanier
to, 112-114, 130, 141; 142, 143,
149-151, 167, 308.

Lanier, Mary J. (mother), 9, 16,
17, 63.

Lanier, Nicholas, 10, 11.

Lanier, Robert Sampson (fa
ther), 9, 14-16, 30 ; letters from
Lanier to, 5, 30, 31, 56, 67, 81,
94, 96, 97, 118, 124.

Lanier, Robert Sampson (son),
322-324, 332, 339.

Lanier, Sidney (son), 200, 338.

Lanier, Sidney, born in Macon,
Georgia, 1, 16 ; ancestry, i-u; ;
influence of early home life,

INDEX

381

16-19; life in Macon, 19-23;
early schools, 23; fondness
for music and books, 24, 25;
at Oglethorpe University, 26-
41; influence of Dr. Woodrow,
28-30 ; of comrades, 32 ; vaca
tion at Montvale Springs,
Terra., 35-37; tutor in Greek, 38;
plans to go to Heidelberg, 39 ;
catches war fever and joins
Macon Volunteers, 42-48 ; at
Norfolk, 48 ; in battles around
Richmond, 48, 49; at Peters
burg, 49 ; vacation in Macon,
52, 53; as scout at Fort Boy-
kin reads German poetry and
begins " Tiger Lilies," 54-56,
84 ; captured on blockade-run
ner at Wilmington, N. C., 57 ;
and taken to Point Lookout
Prison, 58-60; rescue from
death, 60; after illness-in Ma
con, goes to Point Clear on
Mobile Bay, 64 ; hotel clerk at
Exchange Hotel, Montgom
ery, Alabama, 64-78 ; resumes
literary work, 74; goes to
New York with "Tiger Lil
ies," 78; teaches school at
Prattville, Alabama, 91-97 ;
suffers from reconstruction
governments, 91-95; marriage,
93; practices law at Macon,
99 ; delivers Confederate
Memorial address, 103; goes
to Alleghany Springs, Virgi
nia, 112, to New York, 114, to
San Antonio, 117 ; resolves to
give the remainder of his life
to music and poetry, 120-126 ;
goes to New York to study
music, 129 ; flrst flute in Pea-
body Orchestra in Baltimore,
130; popularity in Baltimore,
135; on a visit to Georgia
writes "Corn," 153; at work
on other poems, and books,

161-165; appointed to write
a cantata for the opening
of Centennial Exposition in
Philadelphia, 166; publishes
first volume of poems, 181;
meets wider circle of literary
men and women, 181 ; visit to
Boston, 190; attends Century
Club and Goethe celebration,
192 ; moves family to Chadd's
Ford, Pa., 194 ; goes to Florida
for health, 195, 196; seeks
in vain for government
position in Washington, 198,
199 ; settles with family in
Baltimore, 200 ; at work in
Peabody Library on English
literature, 202; lectures at
the Peabody Institute, 206-
210; appointed lecturer at
Johns Hopkins University,
233; writes article on the
" New South," 264 ; last ill
ness begins, 321; birth of
fourth son at West Chester,
Pa., 322; lectures at Johns
Hopkins, 328-330; goes to
New York, 330 ; to Asheville,
N. C., 331 ; death, 335 ; burial
in Baltimore, 336; memorial
exercises at Johns Hopkins
University, 337-338.
Characteristics : physical ap
pearance, 190 (Lowell), 193
(Stedman), 300 (Wysham),
301 (Gilman ; humor, 21, 32,
33, 79, 80, 100, 200, 204, 310,
311; buoyancy of spirit,
4-7, 96, 322, 323 ; lack of Bo-
hemianism, 18, 301, 302, 307:
knightliness and chivalry, 54,
158, 309; capacity for hard
work, 129-130, 134, 163,187,211,
238 ; capacity for friendship,
302-307 ; fondness for children,
79, 80, 303, 307 ; love of nature,
18, 19, 37, 112-114, 224-226 ; pu-

382

INDEX

rity of life, 59, 60, 162 ; rever
ence for science, 28, 29, 138,
232, 312-317, 333, 334 (see also
Darwin, Oilman, Kirk) ; enthu
siasm for literature, 32-34, 108-
110, 205, 211, 212, 350 (see also
Elizabethan poetry and old
English) ; as a scholar, 7, 34,
238-250; as teacher, 258-260;
as critic, 344-366 ; as poet, 360-
375 ; as musician, 24, 31, 32, 38,
55, 58, 59, 74, 86, 115-117, 120-
123, chapter vi ; his1 national
spirit, 175-181 ; his religious
faith, 6, 17, 22, 23, 27, 28, 87, 145,
317-319, 326 ; inheritor of un
fulfilled renown, 3, 341, 342.
Works: A Birthday Song, 76;
A Florida Ghost, 310 ; A Flor
ida Sunday, 197, 368 ; Acknow
ledgment, 364; An Evening
Song, 197, 368, 369 (quoted);
Baby Charley, 100, 307 ; Ballad
of Trees and Master (quoted),
318, 368; Barnacles, 76; Be
trayal, 368 ; Bob, 307 ; Boy's
Froissart, The, 326; Boy's
King Arthur, The, 109, 326-328 ;
Boy's Mabinogion, The, 326,
332; Boy's Percy, The, 326;
Cantata, the Centennial, 166-
176, 291 ; Clover, 360, 367, 369,
370 ; Confederate Memorial
Address, 103-106, 344; Corn,
153-157, 181, 183, 268, 364, 366 ;
Crystal, The, 318, 347, 370;
English Novel, The, 294, 314,
315, 322, 328-330, 344, 351, 352,
360; Florida, 36 (note), 164-
166, 187 ; From Bacon to Bee
thoven, 140, 344; From the
Flats, 197, 368, 369 ; Hard Times
in Elfland, 307 ; Harlequin of
Dreams, The, 368 ; How Love
looked for Hell, 368; In Ab
sence, 307; In the Foam, 76
(note); India, Sketches of, 163 ;

Individuality, 360, 368; Jac-
querie,The, 38, 101, 118, 158, 159;
Laughter in the Senate, 76
(note), 92, 93 (quoted) ; Laus
Mariae, 307; Legend of St.
Leonor, The, 315 ; Life and
Song, 76, 370 ; Marsh Song
at Sunset, 364; Marshes of
Glynn, The, 3, 320, 322, 324,
363, 370-375; Mazzini on Music,
145-147; Mocking -Bird, The,
197, 368; Modern Orchestra,
The, 140; Music and Poetry,
172, 217; My Springs, 97. 98,
307, 368; Nature -Metaphors,
96 ; New South, The, 157, 264-
272, 344 ; Night and Day, 368 ;
Nirvana, 108,368 ; Ode to Johns
Hopkins University, The, 230,
234, 236, 238 ; Opposition, 128,
368 ; Orchestra of To-day, 344 ;
Power of Prayer, The, 185,
186 ; Psalm of the West, The,
176-178, 181,'360, 366, 369 ; Raven
Days, 93 ; Remonstrance, 364 ;
Retrospects and Prospects
(essay), 19, 70-72, 94, 96, 344 ;
Retrospects and Prospects
(book), 103-106, 117-122, 264-
272 ; Revenge of Hamish, The,
368; San Antonio de Bexar,
117-122, 344; Science of Eng
lish Verse, The, 3, 239, 249, 320,
329, 337, 352-359; Shakspere
and His Forerunners, 98, 210-
228, 243-245, 351, 352 ; Song of
the Chattahoochee, The, 197,
368; Special Pleading, 367;
Steel in Soft Hands, 93 ; Stir
rup-Cup, The, 197, 368 ; Sun
rise, 322, 336, 363, 365-367 ; Sym
phony, The, 158-163, 181, 185,
187, 368 ; Tampa Robins, 197 ;
Tiger Lilies, 35-37, 43, 44, 55,
57, 58, 72, 74, 78, 80-89, 143, 144,
312, 344 ; Tyranny, 76, 93 ; Un
der the Cedarcroft Chestnut,

INDEX

383

197 ; Waving of the Corn, 197,
368.

Lanier, Sterling (grandfather),
14,21,35,67.

Lanier, Thomas, 12, 13.

Le Conte, Joseph, 21, 96, 241,
282.

Lee? Robert E., 72, 90, 103, 150,
278, 282; Lanier's description
of, at Petersburg, 49-52; La
nier's tribute to, in Confeder
ate Memorial Address, 104.

Lessing, 56.

Lincoln, Abraham, 89, 90, 95,
275.

" Lippincott's Magazine," 41
(note), 65 (note), 155, 163, 176,
183, 302.

Longfellow, Henry W., Lanier's
visit to, 190 ; Lanier compared
with, 39, 86, 144, 212, 261, 286,
340, 358.

Lowell, James Kussell, visit of
Lanier to and characterization
of Lanier by, 190; compared
with Lanier, 144, 179, 181, 190,
211, 212, 237, 238, 261, 313, 337,
340, 344, 345, 364 ; referred to,
286, 347, 348.

Lucretius, Lanier's interest in,
96.

Macaulay, 12, 312.

Machen, Mrs. Arthur W., re
miniscences of Lanier, 228-
229.

Macon, Ga., 92, 115, 124, 156, 162,
195; natural beauty and cli
mate, 19; life in, 19-24; public
spirit, 20 ; slavery in, 20 (note) ;
excitement at outbreak of
war, 42, 43 ; Volunteers, 47, 48 ;
in 1863, 52 ; after the war, 63 ;
cemetery, 103.

Malory, Sir Thomas, 109, 366.

Mark Twain, influence on South
ern writers, 283.

Marlowe, 223.

Mazzini, " Essay on Music,"
Lanier's opinion of, 147.

Michelet, History of France,
118.

Milledgeville, Ga., 26, 42, 43.

Montgomery, Ala., Lanier set
tles in, 64, 73 ; life there after
the war, 65-66 ; Lanier leaves,
78.

Milton, John, 127, 162, 357,359,
363.

More, Paul Elmer, 354 (note),
356.

Morgan, Senator John P., 180,
265.

Morris, William, Lanier's opin
ion of, 348-350.

Mozart, 140.

Music in America, future of,
145-147.

Negro, the, progress of race
after the war, 270, 271 : effect
of reconstruction on, 274, 275 ;
the liberal sentiment of the
South in regard to, 270, 278.

Newell, T. F., reminiscences of
Lanier, 32-34.

New Shakespeare Society, The,
220, 242, 246, 247.

New York city, 153, 163, 183, 187,
340; Lanier's flrst visit to, in
1867, 78 ; later visits, 114-117 ;
concerts at Central Park, 116 ;
Lanier goes to in 1873, 129.

North Carolina, Lanier's ances
tors live in, 14; Lanier at
Wilmington, 48, 57; dies in
the mountains of, 334.

Norton, Charles Eliot, 237, 238*.

Northrup, Milton H., reminis
cences of Lanier, 39-41; letters
of Lanier to, 64, 66, 88, 91, 100.

Oglethorpe University, its his
tory, faculty, and students,
26-30; faculty and students

384

INDEX

go to war, 47 ; closes after
the war, 68 ; Lanier's view of,
126.

Old English, Lanier's idea of
the study of, 213-218, 243,
244.

Olmsted, Frederick Law, 118.

Page, Thomas Nelson, 285, 288.

Park, John, reminiscences of
Lanier, 205.

Payne, William Morton, opin
ion of Lanier as critic, 344.

Peabody, George, 202, 203, 230.

Peabody Institute, 130, 139, 206,
210, 229, 233, 337.

Peabody Library, 7, 10, 138, 236,
238; its value as a research
library and its influence on
Lanier, 202-205.

Peabody Orchestra, 135, 141, 152,
173, 200, 204.

Peacock, Gibson, 159, 165, 168,
182, 186; his great kindness
to Lanier, 195 ; letters from
Lanier to, 195, 198, 200, 206,
250.

Peacock, Mrs. Gibson, 182, 201.

Pepys, Samuel, account of the
music-loving Laniers, 11.

Philadelphia, 163, 182, 186, 195,
208, 209.

Poe, Edgar Allan, 2, 3, 173, 281,
292, 311, 313, 336, 340, 342, 344,
357, 358, 359, 363, 371.

Point Lookout, Md., Lanier con
fined in prison at, 58-59.

Pope, Alexander, Lanier's opin
ion of, 346,

Pratt, Waldo S., reminiscences
of Lanier as a teacher, 7, 258-
260; account of Lanier's last
visit to New York, 330.

Prattville, Ala., Lanier teaches
school at, 91 ; condition of
during reconstruction, 94.

Preston, Margaret J., 281, 285.

Price, Thomas R., 39, 261, 281.

Raleigh, Sir Walter, Lanier's
opinion of, 188, 218.

Randall, J. R., " Maryland, My
Maryland," 44, 173; 293.

Rhodes. James Ford, History
of the United States, 68
(note).

Richter, 34, 36.

"Round Table, The," 75; influ
ence on Lanier and his con
tributions thereto, 75-78; re
view of "Tiger Lilies," 80.

Ruskin, John, 160, 311.

Russell, Irwin, 285.

San Antonio, Texas, Lanier's
visit to and essay on, 5, 117-
122.

Schelling, 56.

Schiller, 56.

Schumann, Robert, 24, 140 ; La
nier's estimate of his charac
ter and his music, 148-151.

Scott, Sir Walter, 16, 24, 298.

" Scott's Monthly," 280.

Scribner, Charles, letters of La
nier to, 239. 326-328.

" Scribner's Monthly," 186, 268,
284, 285, 295.

Shakespeare, 109, 127, 150, 193,
355, 318 ; Lanier's lectures on,
206-210, 220-229 ; Lanier's view
of metrical tests as applied
to Shakespeare, 221, 222, 243 ;
the moral height of, as com
pared with other Elizabethan
dramatists, 223-224 ; the value
of studying him as a whole,
246-248.

Shelley, 3, 34, 50, 318, 351 ; La
nier's characterization of, 348.

Sidney, Sir Philip, 218, 293, 309,
351.

Sill, Edward Rowland, 78
(note) ; opinion of Lanier's
" Science of English Verse,"
353.

INDEX

385

Simms, William Gilmore, 68, 78
(note), 107, 282, 283.

South, The, Lanier's inherit
ance from the, 8, 91, 126, 297 ;
what he means to the, 8, 298-
299 ; denominational colleges
in, 26, 27 ; Lanier's view of the
social life of the Old South,
35, 36 ; war fever in, 43-47 ;
effect of war on, 45, 65-73 ; re
construction in, 89-96, 113,274,
275; in 1873, 123; in 1874,
156 ; in 1885, 279 ; Lanier's in
terest in, 264-267 ; the conser
vative leader in, 272-275; the
progressive leader in, 275-279 ;
literature in, 279-291 ; Lanier's
relation to Southern literature,
291-297 ; see also civil war,
Georgia, Macon.

" South Atlantic Quarterly,"
quoted from, 173, 301, 331.

" Southern Magazine, The," 118,
280, 289, 292; Lanier contri.
butes to, 282.

" Southern Review, The," 280.

Spann, Miss Minnie, reminis
cences of Lanier, 334-335.

Stebbins, Miss Emma, friend of
Charlotte Cushman, 183, 186,
190, 194.

Stedman, Edmund Clarence, 2,
75 ; describes Lanier, 193 ; let
ter to Dr. Gilman about La
nier, 262.

Stephens, Alexander H., 44, 73,
277, 282.

Stevenson, Robert Louis, 211,
311.

Stoddard, Richard Henry, 75,
183.

Sumner, Charles, 46; Lamar's
speech on, 180.

Swinburne, A. C., 247, 248, 341,
348, 359, 366.

Sylvester, J. J., 353; Lanier's
characterization of, 236.

Tabb, John B., letter about La
nier's life in prison, 59; La.
nier's influence on, 294; his
opinion of a fragment of La
nier's poetry, 334; his appear
ance at Johns Hopkins me
morial exercises, 338.

Tannage, Rev. Samuel K., 27.

" Tannhauser," Lanier's inter
pretation of, 116.

Taylor, Bayard, 159, 182, 192,
199 ; has Lanier appointed to
write the Centennial Cantata,
166 ; introduces him to men of
letters at Century Club and
at Goethe celebration, 192 ;
Lanier writes to, 65, 166, 167,
176, 192, 205.

Tennyson, Alfred, 33, 34, 186,
188, 251, 312, 338, 347, 357, 366.

Thackeray, W. M., 53, 224, 299 ;
Lanier's opinion of, 346.

Thomas, Edith, poem on La
nier, 338.

Thomas, Theodore, 115-117, 129,
130, 134, 137, 144, 340; offers
Lanier place in Orchestra,
133; Lanier's description of,
as conductor, 140 ; his opinion
of the Centennial poem, 166.

Thompson, Maurice, 44, 68, 96,
285, 286, 299.

Timrod, Henry, 44, 45, 107, 283 ;
Lanier's opinion of, 293.

Turnbull, Lawrence, 280, 281,
336.

Turnbull, Mrs. Lawrence, poem
on Lanier, 304; Mme. Blanc's
description of her home, 304-
307; Lanier buried on lot in
Greenmount Cemetery, 336.

Tweed. Lanier's opinion of, 115.

Uhland,56, 173.

University of Virginia, 179, 273,
281.

Von Biilow, 131, 173.

386

INDEX

Wagner, Richard ; Lanier's ap
preciation of his music, 115,
116, 140, 172.

Ward, William Hayes, author
of " Lanier Memorial," from
which quotations are made
on pages 1, 38-39, 124 126, 131-
133 ; relation to Lanier, 286.

Washington, George, the rela
tion of the Lanier family to,
13 (note).

Watt, Mrs. Jane Lanier, 19, 73.

Watts-Dunton, Theodore, 357.

Wehner, Carl, 133.

Whitman, Walt, 2, 58, 160, 179,
181, 309, 329, 347, 352, 358, 359,
361, 362, 371.

Willard, Frances E., account of
Lanier's lectures, 329-330.

Woodrow, James, 126, 312; in
fluence on Lanier, 28-30; re
miniscences of Lanier, 30.

Wordsworth, William, 251, 298,
311, 357, 363, 365, 371, 372.

Wysham, Henry, his friendship
for Lanier in Baltimore, 130 ;
description of Lanier's physi
cal appearance, 300.

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