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FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS*Ver.04.29.93*END* + + + + + +Sidney Lanier +by Edwin Mims [American (Southern U.S.) Scholar; 1872-1959.] + + +[Note on text: Italicized words or phrases are capitalized. +Some obvious errors have been corrected (see notes).] + + + + + +Sidney Lanier + +by Edwin Mims + + + + +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 undue 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 intentionally 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 Professor W. M. Baskervill, and the volume of letters published +by Messrs. Charles Scribner's Sons. For new material, I am indebted, +first of all, to Mrs. Sidney Lanier, who has put me in possession, +not of the most intimate correspondence of the poet, +but of many letters written by him to his father and friends, +as well as unpublished fragments and essays.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 volume. 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 Gilman, 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 Sidney Lanier Gibson, and Miss Sophie Kirk, for placing in my hands +unpublished letters of Lanier.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 helpful: Dr. James Woodrow, +Professor Gildersleeve, 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 for permission +to quote from the letters and collected writings of Lanier; +Messrs. Doubleday, 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 obligations 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 College Library, Mr. Philip R. 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 + + + +Introduction +Chapter I. Ancestry and Boyhood +Chapter II. College Days +Chapter III. A Confederate Soldier +Chapter IV. Seeking a Vocation +Chapter V. Lawyer and Traveler +Chapter VI. A Musician in Baltimore +Chapter VII. The Beginning of a Literary Career +Chapter VIII. Student and Teacher of English Literature +Chapter IX. Lecturer at Johns Hopkins University +Chapter X. The New South +Chapter XI. Characteristics and Ideas +Chapter XII. The Last Year +Chapter XIII. The Achievement in Criticism and in Poetry + + + + + + Sidney Lanier + ------------- + + + + + +Introduction + + + +The author of the introduction to the first complete edition +of Sidney Lanier's poems -- published three years after the poet's death -- +predicted with confidence that Lanier would "take his final rank +with the first princes of American song." Anticipating the appearance +of this volume, 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 histories of American literature has increased +from ten or twelve lines to as many pages -- an indication at once +of popular interest and of an increasing number of scholars and critics +who have recognized the value of his work. His growing fame +found a notable expression when his picture 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 balanced +by the indifference of some English critics and the sarcasm of others. +Mme. Blanc's article in the "Revue 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 achievement +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 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 remembered 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 simply 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 enduring 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-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 suffering and poverty, +the appeals made by admirers in behalf of the poet's family, +a few letters written 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 buoyancy of his nature. He would +have resented the expression "poor Lanier", with as much emphasis +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 the midst of its grip upon him +he maintained his composure, cheerfulness, and unfailing good humor. +He had remarkable powers of recuperation. 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 mentally 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 poverty, 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 irresponsiveness of the public to his work, +but not so much as did his friends, to whom he was constantly +speaking or writing words of encouragement and hope. Criticism taught him +"to lift his heart absolutely above all expectation save that +which finds its fulfillment in the large consciousness of faithful devotion +to the highest 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 intellectual 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, he 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 Gilman 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 always 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 resources, confident of ultimate triumph." +The student at Johns Hopkins University who knew him best said: +"No strain of physical wear or suffering, no pressure of worldly fret, +no amount of dealing with what are called `the hard facts of experience', +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 Lanier, +says that he would not publish some 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 research; +and in addition thereto displayed a spiritual attitude to literature +that is rare. The professional musician sees in him +one of the advance guard of native-born Americans who have achieved success +in some one field of musical endeavor, while a constantly increasing public, +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 temperament, and in whose tremendous upheaval +he bore a heroic part, the cosmopolitanism and modernness of his mind +should be a constant protest against those things that have +hindered her in the past and an incentive in that brilliant future +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 Lanier was born in Macon, Ga., February 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 Laniers +to southern France and England. Lanier became very much interested +in the study of his genealogy. He was convinced by evidence +gathered 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 movement from place to place during two hundred years, +he found it difficult to make out a complete family history. +He was not, nor have his relatives and later investigators been, +able to 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 Lanier'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 enjoyed 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, 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, Jerome, Clement, Andrewe, and John -- +were charter members of an organization of musicians established by the king +"to exert their authority for the improvement of the science +and the interest of its professors." It was a great pleasure 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 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 himself +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 century at Manakin-town, +some twenty miles from Richmond. Some of these Huguenots, +notably the Moncures, the Maurys, the Latanes, and the Flournoys, +became connected with historic families of Virginia. There was a tradition +in the Lanier family as well as in the Washington family, +that Thomas Lanier married an aunt of George Washington, +but this has been proved to be untrue.* The Laniers were related by marriage +to the Washingtons of Surry County. They established themselves +in the middle of the eighteenth 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 famous of these was Mr. J. F. D. Lanier, who played a prominent part +in the development of the railroad system of the West, +and at the time of the Civil War had become one of the leading bankers +in New York city. He was a financial adviser of President Lincoln, +and represented the government abroad in some important transactions. +He was of genuine help to 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. + +-- +* `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). +-- + +The branch of the Lanier family with which Sidney was connected, +moved from Virginia into Rockingham County, N.C. Sampson Lanier +was a well-to-do farmer -- a country gentleman, "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 considerable 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 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 Washington 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 profound and able reasoner, +thoroughly versed and grounded in the knowledge of the common law, +well prepared with a knowledge of current decisions 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 exhibited toward those who met him +an unbroken front of courtesy, gentleness, and refinement."* + +-- +* `Report of the 11th Annual Meeting of the Georgia Bar Association', + Atlanta, 1894. +-- + +He was just such a lawyer as Lanier would have become had he remained +in that profession; 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 Walter Scott, +having the literary taste of the gentlemen 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 musical or poetic career, but more than two hundred letters +written by son to father and many from father to son prove +that their relations during the entire career of the poet +were unusually close and sympathetic. In the earlier years, +Lanier sent his poems to his father, and valued highly his criticism, +and in later years he received 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 inherited on his mother's side Scotch-Irish blood, +an element in Southern life which has been often underestimated. +She proved to be a hard-working woman, caring little for social life, +but thoroughly 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 afterwards, 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, I know not what groans of sorrowful regret +would arise in my behalf." + +The seriousness of this life was broken, however, on week days. +Southern Puritanism differed from the early New England Puritanism +in a certain affectionateness and sociability. The mother could +play well on the piano, and frequently sang with the children +hymns and popular melodies. Between the two brothers there was from the first +the most beautiful relation, as throughout the rest of their lives: +comrades in 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, plovers, snipes, or rabbits."* +Sometimes they enjoyed 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 perfectly 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." + +-- +* Clifford Lanier, `The Chautauquan', July, 1895. +-- + +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 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 Baltimore. The climate was agreeable. Describing this section, +Lanier said: "Surely, along that ample stretch of generous soil, +where the Appalachian ruggednesses calm themselves into pleasant hills +before dying quite away in the seaboard levels, a man can find +such temperances of heaven and 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."* + +-- +* `Music and Poetry', p. 134. +-- + +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 mansions 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,* +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 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 language. + +-- +* 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. + [Despite this statement by Mr. Mims, if these numbers are correct, + it would appear that Macon had a significantly higher percentage of slaves + than most areas of the South. -- A. L., 1998.] +-- + +In Macon hospitality was regarded as an indispensable, 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 Lanier, +speaking of some weeks he spent there during a college vacation, +says, "Oh, the boundless hospitality of those times -- +a continual round of entertainments, musicales, and evening parties, . . . +horseback rides and boat rides during the day and piano-playing, singing, +fluting, and impromptu cotillions and Virginia reels in the evening!"* +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. +In 1851 President Fillmore and his Secretary of the Navy, +John P. Kennedy, visited Macon and were entertained at this hotel. +Macon was not without its cultivated people. Young ladies +studied music in New York and brought into the private life of the city +an atmosphere of musical culture. 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 refinement and cordiality +characteristic of the old regime. + +-- +* `The Autobiography of Joseph Le Conte'. +-- + +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 Methodist and Baptist churches +dominated the life of the community. Revivals that recall +the Great Awakening in New England in the time of Jonathan Edwards +were frequent. The most popular preacher in Macon -- George F. Pierce, +afterwards 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 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 foundation +for a better civilization in a stern and righteous social life +which flowered in the next generation. "The only burning issues +were sprinkling versus immersion, freewill versus predestination," +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 welfare 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, `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 chucking nuts from the tops of the tall trees, +sympathizing with the dainty half-angel, half-animal flying squirrels, +and drinking deep draughts of the love of nature from the cool, +solacing oaks."* + +-- +* Article by Clifford Lanier, in `Gulf States Historical Magazine', + July, 1903. +-- + +Lanier was undoubtedly 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 +extemporized 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 receiving his first initiation into +the joy of literature. He would frequently retire from playing +with his brother and other companions to the library of his father, +where he followed with absorbing interest the stories of Sir Walter Scott, +the romances of Froissart, the adventures of Gil Blas, 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 Midway, 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 college +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 Presbyterian 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 cultivation of a strong religious faith in the minds 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 history of Southern life has not been fully appreciated. +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 graduate of Princeton and a tutor there for three years. +He was a warm personal friend of Alexander H. Stephens, +and was known throughout Georgia as a preacher of much power, +"foremost 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 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."* +Dr. Woodrow maintained that the science of theology, as a science, +is equally human and uninspired with the science of geology. +He cited 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 reverent 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 succeeding 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 eventually to his trial and condemnation +by the Southern Presbyterian Church. Throughout the whole controversy +he maintained a calm and moderate temper and never abated in the least +his acceptance 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 direction +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. + +-- +* `An Examination of Certain Recent Assaults on Physical Science'. + By James Woodrow. Columbia, 1873. +-- + +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 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 schoolhouses, 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 listening 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 student and intensely conscientious. +At one time having violated one of his father's regulations, that he was not +under any circumstances to borrow money from his college mates, he wrote: +"My father, I have sinned. With what intensity of thought, +with what deep and earnest reflection 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, +ascends to the great mercy seat." At another time he writes +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. Contemplating 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 benefit from that, +than any one of my collegiate studies. We meet together in a nice room, +read compositions, declaim, and debate upon interesting 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 forget," +says one of his companions, "those moonlight 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 English literature, sharing his tastes +with some of his companions who with him lived in "an atmosphere +of ardent and loyal friendship." "I can recall," says Mr. T. F. Newell, +his classmate and room-mate,* "those Attic nights, for they +are among the dearest and tenderest recollections of my life, +when with a few chosen companions we would read from some treasured volume, +it may have been Tennyson or Carlyle or Christopher North's +`Noctes Ambrosianae', or we would make the hours vocal with music and 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 +`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." + +-- +* Quoted from Baskervill's `Southern Writers', p. 149. +-- + +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 delighted in +the quaint and curious of our old literature. I remember that it was he +who introduced me to that rare old book, Burton's `Anatomy 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 `Endymion', +and `Chatterton', the `marvelous boy who perished in his pride.' +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 `The Ettrick Shepherd' of `How Kilmeny +Came Hame', and a whole sweet host and noble company, `rare and complete'. +Yes, Tennyson, with his `Locksley Hall' and his `In Memoriam' and his `Maud', +which last we almost knew by heart. And then old Carlyle, +with his `Sartor Resartus', `Hero-Worship', `Past and Present', +and his wonderful book of essays, especially 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, 1860.* +His oration was on the ambitious subject, "The Philosophy of History". +One of the most important events in his early life was the vacation +following his graduation. His grandfather had bought +in the mountains of East Tennessee, at Montvale Springs, a large estate, +on which had been built a beautiful hotel. During the summer +his children and grandchildren -- some twenty-five in all -- visited him. +Here they enjoyed the pleasures of hunting, fishing, and social life. +There were many visitors from the Southern States to this +"Saratoga 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 seeing 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: "Nothing 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 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 perfect 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 illuminated only by the unfavorable glare +of accidentally associated emotions in which no man can see clearly."** + +-- +* He was out of college the year 1858-9, being clerk in the Macon post-office. + The college records show that he received 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. +** `Florida: Its Scenery, Climate, and History', p. 232. +-- + +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 dominating 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 autobiographical. 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 immature romance quote from Emerson, Carlyle, +and Richter. As they talk upon the theme so dear 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 beautiful." +He describes a moonlight night on the mountains: "All this time +the grace of moonlight 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 toward the stars, +and a mighty company of leaf-chapleted followers, with silent reverence, +joined this most pathetic prayer of these dumb ministers of the hills." + +After this enchanting and inspiring experience, he returned to Oglethorpe +as tutor: it 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 underweight, 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 during the remainder of his life, +but which remained 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 Byronesque, 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 empyrean." His mind at this time +turned more especially 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 ascertaining +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, natural bent (which I have checked, though) of my nature is to music, +and for that I have the greatest 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, +because 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 itself in Lanier's mind +was that of study in a German university, as preliminary to a professorship +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 circumstances 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 companionship 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 number of years, conducting a boys' academy +in the shadow of Oglethorpe, there was between us a bond of sympathy +which led to a friendship interrupted only by the Civil War and broken only +by his untimely death. Many a stroll and talk we had together +among the moaning pines, beguiled by the song of the mocking-bird. +Together 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 together, +and together dreamed day-dreams which were never to be realized. +Contemporary testimony to my joy in his companionship is borne +in frequent references thereto in my private correspondence 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 intellectual 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 anticipate +much pleasure in his company.' As to his plans for the future: +`The tutor -- Lanier -- is studying for a professorship; +is going to remain here about two years, then go to Heidelberg, 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 ambitions. + +"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, `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. Description is inadequate.'"* + +-- +* "Recollections and Letters of Sidney Lanier", by Milton H. Northrup. + `Lippincott's Magazine', March, 1905. +-- + +Before he was twenty years old, then, the master passions of Lanier's soul +-- scholarship, music, and to a less degree poetry -- had asserted themselves. +He had a right to look forward to a brilliant future. + + + + +Chapter III. A Confederate Soldier + + + +From his dreams of music and poetry and from the ideal he had formed +of study at Heidelberg, 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 secession, +for, from November to January, the conflict 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 December 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.* When on January 16 the Georgia convention +voted to secede from the Union, Milledgeville was in "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." + +-- +* Butler's `History of Macon'. +-- + +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 guidance in the matter. +It sighed in the half-breathed words of sweethearts, +conditioning impatient lovers 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 conventions, 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 unknown to soldier or sailor before, but whose every flap and flutter +made the blood bound in our veins. . . . It arrayed the sanctity +of a righteous cause in the brilliant trappings of military display. . . . +It offered tests to all allegiances and loyalties, -- of church, of state; +of private loves, of public devotion; of personal consanguinity, +of social ties."* + +-- +* `Tiger Lilies', p. 119. +-- + +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 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 afterwards 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 himself 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 America 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." +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 surrounding 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 anathemas against the man +that didn't believe we could do it; our old men said at the street corners, +if they were young they could do it, and by the Eternal, they believed +they could do it anyhow (whereat great applause and `Hurrah for ole Harris!'); +the young men said they'd be blanked if they couldn't do it, +and the young ladies said they wouldn't marry a man who couldn't do it. +This arrogant perpetual invitation to draw and come on, +this idea which possessed the whole section, which originated +no one knows when, grew no one knows how, was a devil's own bombshell, +the fuse of which sparkled when Mr. Brooks struck Mr. Sumner upon the head +with a cane. + +"Of course we laugh at it NOW, -- laugh in the hope that our neighbors +will attribute the redness 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 bombshell, +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,* he volunteered 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 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." + +-- +* The faculty and students almost to a man enlisted in the army; + and the college buildings were afterwards used for barracks and hospitals. + President Talmage lost his mind by reason of the conflict between + his affection for his native and for his adopted section. +-- + +In the main, however, they played "Marsh-Divers and Meadow-Crakes", +their principal duties being to picket the beach, and their +"pleasures 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."* +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 brilliant, 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' 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 attention +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 evenings with us, +where the `alarums of war' were lost in the soft notes of their flutes, +for Lanier was an excellent musician."** 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. + +-- +* 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 History of Two Wars', by Samuel G. French. +-- + +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 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 sensibility 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 solitude, stately in society; stately in form, in soul, +in character, and in action." Fortunately he had the chance to see him +under specially interesting circumstances. He afterwards related the incident +to the Confederate veterans in Macon: "The last time that I saw +with mortal 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 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, +collected about him. In a few moments, General Lee appeared +with his camp chair, and sat down. The services began. +That terrible battery, Number 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 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 contrast 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 calamities 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 summons to join her husband in Richmond. +She writes, in recalling those days: "Spring was in its precious beauty. +Gardens glowed with brilliant blossoms. Thousands of fragrant odors mingled +in the air, the voices of myriad birds sang about the foliaged avenues."* +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 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. + +-- +* `A Belle of the Fifties', p. 194. +-- + +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 throughout the country. She had heard and met +in social circles Charlotte Cushman, Jenny Lind, Thackeray, 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, `full of all sparkling 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 +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."* + +-- +* `A Belle of the Fifties', p. 200. +-- + +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 +unusually 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. +Notwithstanding the dangers and hardships, he looked upon the period of life +at Fort Boykin on Burwell'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 beautiful women, the serenades, +the moonlight dashes on the beach of fair Burwell's Bay, +and the spirited brushes of our little force with the enemy."* + +-- +* Letter to Northrup, June 11, 1866. +-- + +This is the period of his life which he describes 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 inseparable; slender, gray-eyed youths, full of enthusiasm, +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 +`in the aurora of a sunrise which was to put out all the stars.'"* + +-- +* `Southern Bivouac', May, 1887. +-- + +This period of his army life is important also from the fact +that here at Fort Boykin he definitely began to contemplate +a literary life as his probable vocation. He was studying hard, +reading English poetry, and writing to his father to "seize at any price" +editions of the German 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 writing, 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, -- deficiencies 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 metaphor, +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 birthday. 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", writing 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 fourteen 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 afterwards 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 account 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. +(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 impress 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 prove the truth of Sir Galahad's words, `My strength is as +the strength of ten, because my heart is pure.'" + +Lanier secured his release from prison through some gold +which a friend of his had smuggled into the prison in his mouth. +He came out "emaciated to a skeleton, down-hearted for want of news from home, +down-headed for weariness." On his voyage to Fortress Monroe +an incident occurred which, although told in somewhat overwrought language, +is a fitting climax to his career as a soldier. + +The story of his rescue from death, says Baskervill, is graphically told +by the lady herself who was the good Samaritan on this occasion. +"She was an old friend from Montgomery, Ala., returning from New York +to Richmond; and her little daughter, who had learned to call him Brother Sid, +chanced to hear that he was down in the hold of the vessel dying. +On application to the colonel in command permission was promptly given to her +to minister to his necessity, and she made haste to go below. +`Now my friends in New York,' continued she, `had given me +a supply of medicines, for we had few such things in Dixie, +and among the remedies were quinine and brandy. I hastily took +a flask of brandy, and we went below, where we were led to the rude stalls +provided for cattle, but now crowded with poor human wretches. +There in that horrible place dear Sidney Lanier lay wrapped in an old quilt, +his thin hands tightly clenched, his face drawn and pinched, +his eyes fixed and staring, his poor body shivering now and then +in a spasm of pain. Lilla fell at his side, kissing him and calling: +`Brother Sid, don't you know me? Don't you know your little sister?' +But no recognition or response came from the sunken eyes. +I poured some brandy into a spoon and gave it to him. +It gurgled down his throat at first with no effort from him to swallow it. +I repeated the stimulant several times before he finally revived. +At last he turned his eyes slowly about until he saw Lilla, +and murmured: `Am I dead? Is this Lilla? Is this heaven?' . . . +To make a long story short, the colonel assisted us +to get him above to our cabin. I can see his fellow prisoners now +as they crouched and assisted to pass him along over their heads, +for they were so packed that they could not make room to carry him through. +Along over their heads they tenderly passed the poor, emaciated body, +so shrunken with prison life and benumbed with cold. We got him +into clean blankets, but at first he could not endure the pain from the fire, +he was so nearly frozen. We gave him some hot soup and more brandy, +and he lay quiet till after midnight. Then he asked for his flute +and began 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."* + +-- +* `Southern Writers', p. 169. +-- + +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.* One scarcely knows which to admire most, -- +the soldier, brave and knightly, the poet, preparing his wings for a flight, +or the musician, inspiriting his fellow-soldiers in camp and in prison. + +-- +* 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. + [Photograph not included in this ASCII edition. -- A. L.] +-- + + + + +Chapter IV. Seeking a Vocation + + + +Lanier reached Macon March 15, after a long and painful journey +through the Carolinas. Immediately upon his arrival, losing the stimulus +which had kept him going so long, he fell dangerously ill, +and remained so for nearly two months. Early in May, +just as he was convalescing, 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 Wilmington, 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 conviction, 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 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 "tear 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 Exchange 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 bewilderment, -- the immense distance between +the beginning and the end of the war: -- + +"So wild and high are the big war-waves dashing between '61 and '66, +as between two shores, that, looking across their `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 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 ineffable May afternoon +under that old oak at Whittaker's and `talk it all over'."* + +-- +* This and the following letter were printed in `Lippincott's Magazine', + March, 1905. A few changes are made to conform to the original copies. +-- + +In another letter (June 29, 1866) he encloses a photograph and comments on +the life in Montgomery: -- + +"The cadaverous enclosed is supposed to represent 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 mortal stagnation which paralyzes +all business here. On our streets, Monday is very like Sunday: +they show no life, save late in the afternoon, when the girls come out, +one by one, and shine and move, just as the stars do an hour later. +I don't think there's a man in town who could be induced +to go into his neighbor's store and ask him how's trade; +for he would have to atone for such an insult with his life. +Everything is dreamy, and drowsy, and drone-y. The trees stand like statues; +and even when a breeze comes, the leaves flutter and dangle idly about, +as if with a languid protest against all disturbance of their perfect rest. +The mocking-birds absolutely refuse to sing before twelve o'clock at night, +when the air is somewhat cooled: and the fireflies flicker more slowly +than I ever saw them before. Our whole world here yawns, +in a vast and sultry spell of laziness. An `exposition of sleep' +is come over us, as over Sweet Bully Bottom; we won't wake till winter. +Himmel, my dear Boy, you are all so alive up there, and we are all +so dead down here! I begin to have serious thoughts of emigrating +to your country, so that I may live a little. There's not enough +attrition of mind on mind here, to bring out any sparks from a man." + +Into this strange new world -- "the unfamiliar avenue of a new era" -- +Lanier passed with unfaltering courage. He was to show that +"fortitude is more manly than bravery, for noble and long endurance +wins the shining love of God; whereas brilliant bravery is momentary, +is easy to the enthusiastic, and only dazzles the admiration +of the weak-eyed." Did any young man ever have to begin life +under more disadvantageous circumstances? Cherishing in his heart +the ideal long since formed of the scholar's or the artist's life, +he looked around on the blankest world one could imagine. +It is perhaps in a later letter to Bayard Taylor that Lanier came nearest +to expressing the situation that confronted him at the end of the war. +"Perhaps you know that with us of the younger generation of the South, +since the war, pretty much the whole of life has been merely not dying." + +Added to his own poverty and sickness, was that of his family. +His grandfather had been compelled to leave his estate in East Tennessee +in 1863, and was now in old age deprived of his negroes and much of +his land and money. His father, weighed down with sorrow, had to take up +the practice of law from the start. Some members of his family, +"who used to roll in wealth, are every day," he writes, "with their own hands +plowing the little patch of ground which the war has left them, +while their wives do their cooking and washing." + +Moreover, the entire South -- and to those who had shared +the hopes of a Southern republic it was still the land they loved -- +was in a state of despair. Middle Georgia had lost through Sherman's +march to the sea $100,000,000.* In the wake of Sherman's armies +Richard Malcom Johnston had lost his estate of $50,000, +Maurice Thompson's home was in ashes, and Joel Chandler Harris, +who had begun life on the old Turner 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 realize 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 statistics given, -- it was the loss of libraries +like those of Simms and Hayne, the burning of institutions of learning +like the University of Alabama, the closing of colleges, +like Lanier's own alma mater. It was the passing away of a civilization +which, with all its faults, had many attractive 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. + +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 purpose +of awakening in any mind bitter memories, but that some idea may be given +of the tremendous obstacles that confronted a young man like Lanier. + +-- +* Rhodes's `History of the United States', v, 22. +-- + +It is no wonder that under these circumstances 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.* +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 battlefield. 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 disadvantages under which +the South began her work. + +-- +* See the `Life and Letters of R. L. Dabney', for a plan in which + many Virginians were interested. +-- + +The work of those men who remained in the South and set about +to inaugurate a new era cannot 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 restraint +in modern political life: "At the close of that war, three armies +which had been fighting 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 was sparsely settled, +the country roads were intricate, 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. +Serious apprehensions had long been entertained by the Southern citizens +that in the event of a disastrous termination of the war, +the whole army would be frenzied to convert itself, after disintegration, +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 vengeances, the arsons, the rapine, the murders, +the outrages, the insults? They WERE, not anywhere. With great calmness +the soldier cast behind him the memory of all wrongs and hardships +and reckless habits of the war, embraced his wife, patched his cabin-roof, +and proceeded to mingle the dust of recent battles yet lingering on his feet +with the peaceful clods of his 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 support 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 convulsion."* + +-- +* `Retrospects and Prospects', p. 29. +-- + +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 the remote hope of resurrection, forever and forever, +no matter in whose granary they are cherished!"* + +-- +* `Tiger Lilies', p. 116. +-- + +In this spirit Lanier began his work in Montgomery, Ala. As has been seen, +he had extended the hand of fellowship to his Northern friend, +thus laying the basis for the spirit of reconciliation +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 prosperous times before the war +traveled much in the North, and had graced the brilliant scenes +of the opening of the Confederate Congress in Montgomery, +becoming the intimate friend of Jefferson 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 Montgomery 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 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 Presbyterian 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 revolutionize 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 become 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, however, 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 finished his novel, "Thorn-Fruit", and Sidney +was at work on "Tiger Lilies", the novel begun at Burwell's Bay in 1863 +and retouched at different times since then. They were planning, too, +a volume of poems, although with the exception of their father +they had not been able "to find a single individual who sympathized +in such a pursuit enough to warrant them in showing 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 hapless publisher."* + +-- +* Letters to Northrup. +-- + +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 instincts of America." +Moncure D. Conway was at that time writing letters of much interest +from England and Justin Winsor from Cambridge, while Howells, Aldrich, +Stedman, and Stoddard were regular contributors. The reviews of books +were thoroughly cosmopolitan, and the editorials setting forth +the interpretation of contemporary events were characterized +by sanity and breadth. + +In addition to the fact that Lanier's first poems were published +in this journal,* 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 magnanimous 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 punish? . . . +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 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 previously announced policy of the paper: +"The Rebellion extinguished, the next duty is to extinguish +the sectional spirit, and to seek to create fraternal feeling +among all the States of the Union." + +-- +* "In the Foam", "Barnacles", "The Tournament", "Resurrection", + "Laughter in the Senate" (not in his collected poems), "A Birthday Song", + "Tyranny", and "Life and Song" were published in the `Round Table' + during 1867 and 1868. + ["Laughter in the Senate" is in later editions of his collected poems, + including the edition published by Project Gutenberg. -- A. L., 1998.] +-- + +In discussing literary questions the "Round Table" showed the same +national spirit, manifesting a healthy interest in those few Southern writers +who were left after the deluge. The words found in two editorials, +calling for a more vigorous and original class of writers, +must have appealed 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 better literature. . . . If ever there was a time +when a magnificent field opened to young aspirants 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 "Tiger Lilies".* He was there for more +than a month, finally arranging for its publication with Hurd & Houghton, +the predecessors of the present firm of Houghton, Mifflin & 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 wouldn't let them bend so blue over here." In a letter +to his father, April 16, he describes the view of 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. + +-- +* 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. +-- + +"`Poor fellow!' says little Katie, `and how did the rebels treat you?' + +"`Rebels,' said I, `I am a rebel myself, Kate!' + +"`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. `A live Reb!' + +"This phrase in Katie's nursery had taken the time-honored place of bugaboos, +and hobgoblins, and men under the bed. She could not 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, `I 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 September we find him reading the proof of the same. +The novel appeared in October and was reviewed somewhat at length +in the "Round Table".* The review refers to Lanier as +"the author of some quaint and graceful verses published from time to time +in the `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 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 objects to long abstract disquisitions +on metaphysics and music. He commends it, however, for being "unmarred +by the bad taste of its contemporaries in fanning a senseless and profitless +sectional rancor." + +-- +* `Round Table', December 14, 1867. +-- + +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 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 characteristic. He professes +"a love, strong as it is humble, for what is beautiful +in God's Nature and in man's Art." He utters a plea against +"the horrible 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 region 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 virtuous 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 background of the first book is, +as has been seen, the mountain scenery of East Tennessee. +A party of hunters -- including Philip Sterling and Paul Ruebetsahl, +two young transcendentalists -- 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 living in the mountains +with his father John Sterling and his sister Felix -- +their home a veritable palace of art. Ruebetsahl 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 violin." 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 character and his brother, who turns out to be a villain, +Lanier anticipated some of the sketches by Charles Egbert Craddock. +The merry party of hunters retire to Sterling's house, where they enjoy +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 merriment and good humor, Cranston and Ruebetsahl +fight a duel -- both of them being in love with Felix Sterling, +each knowing the other's history at Frankfort. In the mean time +Ottilie with her maid comes from Germany to Chilhowee. +She was formerly the lover of Ruebetsahl, and was betrayed by Cranston. +She becomes identified with the Sterling family, she herself being a musician, +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 Burwell'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 striking 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.* "We was poor. +We 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'll be green and pisenous. +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 buffore. 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 cain'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'." + +-- +* Part ii, chapter vi. +-- + +The coming of gunboats up the river scatters the party in all directions, +some to prison and others to the final scenes around Richmond, +with the burning of which the story closes, not, however, +before the palace in the mountains -- where John Sterling and his wife, +Felix and Ottilie, have spent the intervening time -- is set fire to +by Gorm Smallin. The story is scarcely significant 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 laying the scene +in Germany, which he had never seen and yet yearned for, +Lanier brings Germany to America. There are long disquisitions +on the place of music and science in the modern world, many crude fancies, +some striking descriptions 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 flowers, 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 sedge, or dart from behind the next tree, +and confront you?"* + +-- +* `Tiger Lilies', p. 28. +-- + +Two passages may be cited to show the author'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 forever 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 Commonplace 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."* + +-- +* `Tiger Lilies', p. 41. +-- + +"Nature has no politics. She'll 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 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?"* + +-- +* `Tiger Lilies', p. 178. +-- + +When "Tiger Lilies" appeared it was very favorably 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."* 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 his "Living Writers of the South", which appeared +in 1869, and his name was sought by ambitious editors of mushroom magazines +that sprang up in abundance after the war. + +-- +* There was never a second edition, however. +-- + +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 politics in his romance, +and that was his manly utterance in behalf of Jefferson Davis, +who was then confined in prison under rather disagreeable circumstances +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 Rebellion, +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 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 Lincoln 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 reconstruction was something more than excessive taxation, +grinding and unjust as that was, something more than +the fear of black domination, as unthinkable 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 influence in deciding its fate. It was the closing +of institutions of learning, or running them under such circumstances +that the better element of 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 Northrup 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 presiding +over eighty-six scholars, in a large Academy at Prattville, Ala., +having two assistants under me; 't is terrible work, +and the labor difficulties, with the recent poor price of cotton, +conspire 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 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 playfulness 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 +inspired to speech, and who had kept silent under the suffering of the days +after the war, now gave expression to his disgust and his indignation. +It is not great poetry, for Lanier was not adapted to that kind of poetry, +and consequently neither he nor his wife ever collected all the poems. +"Laughter in the Senate", published in the "Round Table", +is typical of 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? + + 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 multiplicity, +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."* + +-- +* `Retrospects and Prospects', p. 31. +-- + +He recognized the need of some great man. + + A pilot, God, a pilot! for the helm is left awry. + +Years later, when the end of the reconstruction 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 Abraham 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 situation +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 indignations +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."* + +-- +* Letter to Judge Logan E. Bleckley, Nov. 15, 1874. +-- + +This state of affairs here set forth in Lanier's words +caused many to leave the South in absolute despair of its future. +It drove Maurice Thompson 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, Mississippi, +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 heroism 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 magazines 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 desired 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 "Retrospects 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 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 drudgeries +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 appeal, +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 appreciation 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 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, +altogether great and beautiful as it is, does not appear, +save by one or two brief glimpses, in the early poetry of our ancestors."* +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. + +-- +* `Shakspere and his Forerunners', i, 99. +-- + + + + +Chapter V. Lawyer and Traveler + + + +Unable to secure a position in a Southern college or to make a living +by literary work, Lanier 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 incubating: +let us go to Brunswick. We know something 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 immediately 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 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 Germany: -- + +"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;* and the same must have +his tiring-woman or nurse, mark you, and his laces and embroideries +and small carriage, 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 Southern 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 incontinently betook me to studying Law: +wherein I am now well advanced, and, D.V., will be admitted to the Bar +in May next. My advantages 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. + +-- +* Charles Day Lanier. See poem, "Baby Charley". +-- + +"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 business +with which I have to support myself while I am studying law."* + +-- +* `Lippincott's Magazine', March, 1905. +-- + +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 +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 Wendell Holmes calls `that cemetery of dead transactions', +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 department 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 fitted him. +To find that the poet spent many laborious days in such uninspiring labor +was as great an anomaly as it would be to see a fountain +spring from a bed of sawdust and `shake its loosened silver in the sun'."* + +-- +* Letter to the author. +-- + +While engaged in the practice of law, Lanier now and then +made public addresses. The most important of these +was the Confederate Memorial Address, April 26, 1870.* +The spirit and the language of it are equally admirable. +He who had suffered all that any man could suffer during the Civil War +and during the reconstruction period shows that he has risen above +all bitterness 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 +during 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 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 +singing 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 human 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 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." + +-- +* `Retrospects and Prospects', p. 94. +-- + +The most significant passage, however, is his appeal to the men and women +of the South to rise to the plane of tranquillity and magnanimity: -- + +"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 inspirations of calm strength for this great emergency +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, genial 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 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 tranquil 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 harmony 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 disturb 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 encouraged at this time by a sympathetic correspondence +with Paul Hamilton Hayne, who, after the Civil War, had settled +in a little cottage near Augusta. His beautiful home in Charleston +had been burned to the ground and his large, handsome 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 encouragement 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 encouragement +which your cheering words used to bring me when I was even more obscure +than I 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 dialect poem which was printed +in the Georgia dailies and attracted attention by its humor and its insight +into contemporary life, and occasionally 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 sorrowful 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, +believing that you love Art with too genuine affection to trifle with her +by bringing to her service, through mere politeness, an unworthy worker."* + +-- +* `Letters', passim. +-- + +Hayne was impressed with Lanier's intimate knowledge of Elizabethan +and older English literature, as displayed in his letters of this period. +He says: -- + +"He had steeped his imagination from boyhood in the writings of the earlier +English annalists and poets, -- Geoffrey of Monmouth, Sir Thomas Malory, +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 unusually thorough knowledge of Chaucer, +for example, whose couplets flowed as trippingly from his pen +as if `The Canterbury Tales' and `The Romaunt of the Rose' +were his daily mental food, but to find him quoting as naturally and easily +from `Piers Plowman' and scores of the half-obsolete ballads +of the English and Scottish borders. + +"He gloried in antiquarian lore and antiquarian literature. +Hardly `Old Monkbarns' himself 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 chroniclers display themselves +more effectively -- not only in the illustrations, but through +the innermost warp and woof of the texture of his ideas and his style -- +than in some of his familiar epistles."* + +-- +* `Letters', p. 220. +-- + +That Lanier kept in touch, too, with contemporary 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 endowments, 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 tortuous 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, +inextricably 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' +are altogether the most doleful reading, in point either of idea or of music, +in the English language; and yet the monologue of Giuseppe Caponsacchi, +that of Pompilia Comparini, and the two of Guido Franceschini, +are unapproachable, in their kind, by any living or dead poet, `me judice'. +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 ingenuity of sarcasm."* + +-- +* `Letters', p. 206; letter to Hayne, April 13, 1870. +-- + +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 summers. +In all of these places he reveled in the beauty and grandeur of the scenery. +His letters 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 afterwards to play +such an important part in his poetry. In fact, the letters themselves, +when published, as they will be some time, show artistic 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 occasionally 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 surprised the Father in his tender, sportive, +and loving moments. + +"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 consciousness 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 monotone 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 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 surprises; +surrounded by a world of enchantments which, so far from being elusive, +are the most substantial of realties, -- thou knowest that nature +is kind to me." + +He went to New York in 1869, 1870, and 1871, now on business +and now to consult medical 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 Southerners 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, -- "teas, dinners, calls, +visits, business" consume his time. He visits the superb villa of his cousin +on the Hudson near Poughkeepsie. 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 isn't a good day for thieves," he says. +"Wouldn't it be a curious and refreshing phenomenon if Tweed, Hall, +Bullock,* and that ilk should all continue in the service of the State -- +only changing the scene of their labors from the office to the penitentiary?" + +-- +* Governor of Georgia during reconstruction days. +-- + +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 `Tannhaeuser'. 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 Triumphs +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!"* + +-- +* `Letters', p. 68. +-- + +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 orchestra, 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 glistening 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 utterly bent and prostrate."* + +-- +* `Letters', p. 70. +-- + +In November, 1872, Lanier went to San Antonio 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 detached 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 morning and afternoon, +far and wide, ever tempted onward by the delicious buoyant balm in the air +and pleasantly surprised in finding what a distance I could accomplish +without over fatigue." 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 managed 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 "History of France" which "gives him the essence of an old book +which he had despaired of ever seeing, but which is the only authority extant, +-- save Froissart and a few others equally unreliable; +it is the chronicle of the `Continuator of Guillaume 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,* afterwards 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 aspects in which a thoughtful mind may view a city," +he says in a typical passage, "it bristles with striking idiosyncrasies +and bizarre contrasts. Its history, 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 quarter, +yet has grown to a pretty vigorous youth in a quarter of a century; +its inhabitants are so varied that the `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 austere 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 materials; 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, 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. + +-- +* `Retrospects and Prospects', p. 34. +-- + +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-playing with enthusiastic applause. + + + San Antonio, Tex., January 30, 1873. + +Last night at eight o'clock came Mr. Scheidemantel, +a genuine lover of music and a fine pianist, 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, +formerly mayor of the city, -- rapped his tuning-fork vigorously, +gave the chords by rapid arpeggios 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 confidence 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 applause, Herr Thielepape arose +and ran to me and grasped my hand, and declared that he hat never heert +de flude accompany itself pefore! 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.* + +-- +* `Letters', p. 71. +-- + + +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 `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."* +Two weeks later he wrote: "I have writ the most beautiful piece, +`Field-larks and Blackbirds', wherein I have mirrored +Mr. Field-lark's pretty eloquence so that I doubt he would know the difference +betwixt the flute and his own voice."** + +-- +* `Letters', p. 73. +** `Letters', p. 47. +-- + +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 purpose to give the remainder of his life to music and poetry. +The resolution is all the more significant 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 deflected 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 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 struggling lawyer +for the balance of my little life, as long as there is a certainty +almost absolute 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 possible 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 exacting business life, through all the discouragement +of being wholly unacquainted with literary people 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 me, +that I begin to have the right to enroll myself among the devotees +of these two sublime arts, after having followed them so long and so humbly, +and through so much bitterness?"* + +-- +* Quoted by William Hayes Ward in his Introduction to Lanier's `Poems'. +-- + +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 indicate. He wrote it +in the first flush of enthusiasm at finding himself among artists. +But it is misleading. 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 temperament and their civilization, -- and his indebtedness +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 -- ready to seize with avidity every opportunity +that presented itself. + +Furthermore, the very struggle he had to maintain 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 participation +in the war and in the stirring events of reconstruction. +After the fortitude and endurance 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 welcomed, +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 Hamlet 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 +something of the storm and stress of religious and philosophic doubt. +With the beginning of his 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 reconstruction 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, O 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 becoming the musical and literary centre of the country. +For three months and more he gave himself 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 compositions, +"Swamp Robin" and "Blackbirds"; and there were some who did not hesitate +to prophesy 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 his course must be one of "straightforward behavior +and hard work and steady improvement." He would be satisfied +only with the judgment of Thomas or Dr. Leopold Damrosch, +then conductor 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 Peabody 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 prospective 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 religion, +and the art that we love -- and I could write my books and be the man +I wish to be."* 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 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 difficult parts." +And so throughout the winter there is contemporary evidence +that this "raw provincial, without practice and guiltless of instruction," +was holding his own with the finely trained Germans and Danes +of Hamerik's Orchestra. + +-- +* `Letters', p. 75. +-- + +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 Buelow, +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 irresistible that he should turn with those poetical feelings +which transcend language to the penetrating gentleness of the flute, +or the infinite passion of the violin; for there was an agreement, +a spiritual correspondence between his nature 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 unspeakable 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 intuitive 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 reasoning. His playing appealed alike +to the musically 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 Peabody symphony concert, in 1878, -- +his tall, handsome, manly presence, his flute breathing noble sorrows, +noble joys, the orchestra softly responding. The audience was spellbound. +Such distinction, such refinement! He stood, the master, the genius!"* + +-- +* Quoted in Ward's Introduction to `Poems'. +-- + +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 `Danse 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, 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 -I- like it; +but I know not if others will, I have not played it for anybody."* + +-- +* `Letters', p. 98. +-- + +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 artist, 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 +the temptation of flute soloists, he once said: "They have rarely been able +to resist the fatal facility of the instrument, and have usually +addressed themselves to winning the applause of concert 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 marvelous ability +to bring new results from it, he looked forward to the time +when it would have a far more important place therein. + +-- +* `Music and Poetry', p. 38. +-- + +Lanier played not only for the Peabody Orchestra, but for +the Germania Maennerchor 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 private 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 Rossini's and a teacher +in the Conservatory of Music, "a woman who plays Beethoven +with the large conception of a man, and yet nurses her children all day +with a noble simplicity of devotion such as I have rarely seen," +said Lanier. Outside of musical circles he had access +to the homes of the most prominent people of Baltimore, +in which he frequently played the flute or piano, while members of the family +accompanied him. "Memory pictures," says one of his admirers, +"that frail, slender figure at the piano, touching with white, shapely hands +the chords of Chopin's `Nocturne'." "He was a frequent visitor to our house," +says another, "and would often play for us on his beautiful silver flute. +The image of him standing in his rapt passion, while he poured forth +the entrancing sound, I remember most distinctly." + +And while he grew in his mastery of the flute he grew, too, in discriminating +study of the orchestra. His first interpretations of orchestral music +are rather impulsive -- he goes off into raptures without restraint, +even when the occasion is not really of the highest sort. +It is altogether unfair to him to confuse his earlier with his later letters. +As in every other respect, Lanier was growing in intellectual power. +"I am beginning," he writes, "in the midst of the stormy glories +of the orchestra, to feel my heart sure, and my soul discriminating. +Not less do I thrill to ride upon the great surges; but I am growing +calm enough to see the star that should light the musician, and presently +my hand will be firm enough to hold the helm and guide the ship that way. +NOW I am very quiet; I am waiting."* And again, after he has heard +Thomas's Orchestra; "I can preserve my internal dignity in great measure, +free from the dreadful distractions of solicitude, and thus my soul revels +in the midst of the heaven of these great symphonic works +with almost unobstructed freedom."** + +-- +* `Letters', p. 91. +** `Letters', p. 110. +-- + +One of the plans proposed by Lanier for helping people to understand better +the meaning of orchestral music should be mentioned in this connection. +He was always anxious to take every one with him into his kingdom of beauty. +He proposed that, for people living in cities of from three +to twenty thousand inhabitants, there should be organized "a Nonette Club, +consisting of himself for flute, oboe, clarionet, bassoon, and French horn, +and a string quartette. This club would travel through the smaller cities, +performing original compositions as well as excerpts from +the greatest symphonic orchestral works, and thus educating the masses +to an understanding of orchestral tonal color, and the relations, +in an analytical form, which the wood wind instruments +bore to the stringed family. . . . It was his purpose, +after each movement of a composition, to lecture on the same, +with special reference to the function performed by each instrument, +and in the formation of harmonious tonal color."* + +-- +* Letter from Mr. F. H. Gottlieb to the author. +-- + +While Lanier was giving his time to the perfection of his flute-playing and to +the study of the orchestra, he became interested in the science 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 instrument."* +Some of these investigations he afterwards used to good effect +in his "Science of English Verse". + +-- +* `Music and Poetry', p. 50. +-- + +Furthermore, Lanier became interested in the history of music. +In his valuable monograph on "Music in Shakespeare's Time"* +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 appreciation 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 singing 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. + +-- +* `Shakspere and His Forerunners', vol. ii, p. 1. +-- + +Lanier was most of all interested, however, in the development +of modern music, and especially in orchestral music. He underrated +some of the classical composers, notably Mozart. He was familiar +with the biographies of Chopin, Beethoven, 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 +almost without looking at it, he seeth everybody, heareth everything, +warneth every man, encourageth every instrument, quietly, firmly, marvelously. +Not the slightest shade of nonsense, not the faintest spark of affectation, +not the minutest grain of EFFECT is in him. He taketh the orchestra +in his hand as if it were a pen, -- and writeth with it."* + +-- +* `Letters', p. 92. +-- + +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 generations. Through the reminiscences of college mates, +of soldiers and of frequenters of the Peabody 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 modern world. To him music was a culture study +as much as the study of literature. It was an education 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 musical 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 `Stradella' and I am full of gondellieds, of serenades, +of balconies with white arms leaning over the balustrades thereof, +of gleaming waters, of lithe figures in black velvet, +of stinging sweet coquetries, of diamonds, daggers, and desperadoes. . . . +I cannot tell the intense delight which these lovely conceptions of Flotow +gave me. The man has put Venice, lovely, romantic, wicked-sweet Venice, +into music, and the melodies breathe out an eloquence that is at once +sentimental and powerful, at once languid and thrilling."* + +-- +* `Letters', p. 98. +-- + +A description of the "Hunt of Henry IV" shows how Lanier +associated nature, music, and poetry with each other. He was +an ardent advocate 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 `Hunt of Henry IV'! . . . It openeth 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 replying 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 cartridge +for the occasion, the revolver that hath lain so many nights under my head), +fired by `Tympani' (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 overcame with the savage hunter's instinct, fired; +the fawn leaped convulsively a few yards, I ran to it, found it lying +on its side, and received into my agonized and remorseful 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, +recalled me to my work, and I came through brilliantly."* + +-- +* `Letters', p. 85. +-- + +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 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 expert 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, interesting men +in the biographies of great musicians, and interpreting for them +the mysteries of orchestra 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 Beethoven'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 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 religion. He could not understand +the indifference of some leaders of orchestras, who could be satisfied +with appealing to the aesthetic emotions of an audience, +while they might "set the hearts of fifteen hundred people afire." +The final meaning of music to him was that it created within man +"a great, pure, unanalyzable yearning after God." + +Holding this exalted view of music, he believed 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 Beethoven and Bach to men." +And again: "All the signs of the times seem to point to this country as +the scene of the future development of music. . . . It only needs direction, +artistic atmosphere, 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, delicate, 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 day become far higher in nobility than the ignoble +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 `business' which is now paramount in esteem; +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 freedom, the exaltation, +the whisperings of sorrow unto sorrow, the messages of God +which these immortal and yet unmeasured compositions embody,"* +then will America give to music the place it deserves. +Music will be one of the redeemers of the people from crass commercialism. + +-- +* An uncollected essay by Lanier, "Mazzini on Music", `The Independent', + June 27, 1878. +-- + +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 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 Bohemianism of the men who played with him, +and with the loose moral life of many more eminent musicians. +"Ah, these heathenish Germans!" he exclaims, as he sees some of the orchestra +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, prejudice, +and beer."* + +-- +* `Letters', p. 88. +-- + +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: -- + + + New York, Sunday, October 18, 1874. + +I have been in my room all day; and have just concluded +a half-dozen delicious hours, during which I have been devouring, +with a hungry ferocity of rapture which I know not how to express, +"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 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 understanding. This is, indeed, the fault of all German 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, unprejudiced, and unenvious, +Schumann soars far above his brother Germans; he valiantly defended +our dear Chopin, and other young musicians 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 just as much greater to high emotions as to low ones; +and whilst it subjects to stronger temptations, 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 genius -- +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.* + +-- +* `Letters', p. 103. +-- + + + + +Chapter VII. The Beginning of a Literary Career + + + +During the winter of 1873-74, the first winter 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 engagement +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 the writing of more important poems +than those he had heretofore written. While visiting at Sunnyside, Georgia, +some sixty miles from Macon, he was struck at once with +the beauty of cornfields and the pathos of deserted farms. +Hence arose his first poem that attracted attention 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 encouraging 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 desperate 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. + +I inclose the manuscript of a poem in which I have endeavored to carry some +very prosaic matters 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 counties 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 accurately describes it +that his words may be quoted 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 vegetable 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 inanimate, +and contemplate its possible beneficence in the distant future."* + +-- +* Quoted in Callaway's `Select Poems of Lanier', p. 61. +-- + +The poem was published in "Lippincott's Magazine", February, 1875, and at once +attracted the attention of some discriminating readers of magazines, +notably Mr. Gibson Peacock, the editor of the Philadelphia "Evening Bulletin", +who reviewed it in a most sympathetic 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 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 heaven 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 conditions, 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 prophet, +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 + 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 countrymen, 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 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 `The Jacquerie'. It was the first time +that the big hungers of THE PEOPLE appear in our modern civilization; +and it is full of significance. The peasants learned +from the merchant 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 Chivalry. Trade has now had possession of the civilized world +for four hundred years: it controls all things, it interprets the Bible, +it guides our national 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 reversals 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 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 cunning 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."* + +-- +* Quoted in part in Callaway's `Select Poems of Lanier', p. 65. +-- + +Lanier never finished this poem, but he was soon hard at work on another +which was based on the same idea, "The Symphony". Writing to +his newly acquired friend, Mr. Peacock, 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 `The Symphony': I personify 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 Magazine", 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 copied in full in Dwight's "Journal of Music". + +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 factory 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 justice to Lanier that, in combating the evils +of industrial 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, variegated, +intense practical energy, the demand for facts, even the business materialism, +of the current age. . . . I perceive clearly that the extreme business energy +and this almost maniacal appetite for wealth prevalent in the United States +are parts of a melioration and progress, indispensably needed to prepare +the very results I demand." + +Lanier's poem is more applicable to the conditions 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 instruments 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: -- + + 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: + 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 collection 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 number 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 +desires 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 +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 hack work. +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 number 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 possible 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 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 descriptions 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 slanting +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 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", emphasis was laid upon +Lanier's national point of view. The opportunity soon came to him +of giving expression 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 especially for poetry as an art, +but for Poetry to assert herself as a power."* To this letter Lanier replied: +"If it were a cantata upon your goodness, . . . I am willing to wager +I could write a stirring one and a grateful withal. + +-- +* `Letters', p. 136. +-- + +"Of course I will accept -- when 't is offered. I only write a hasty line now +to say how deeply I am touched by the friendly forethought of your letter."* + +-- +* `Letters', p. 137. +-- + +He announces the fact to his wife in a jubilant 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 +inviting 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.* 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. + +-- +* Whittier wrote this hymn and Bayard Taylor wrote the Ode + for the Fourth of July celebration. +-- + +"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 months; but God is great. +Remember, thou and Cliff, that this is not yet to be spoken of at all."* + +-- +* Quoted in Baskervill's `Southern Writers', p. 200. +-- + +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 published.* Writing to Mr. Dudley Buck, +January 15, 1876, he said: -- + +-- +* See `Letters', passim. +-- + + +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 outline of the tones +characterizing each change of idea. One movement is placed on each page. + +Mr. Thomas was kind enough to express himself 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 substantial 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 will 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 simple 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 in 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 criticism +which I fear my poem will provoke, -- not because I think it unworthy, +but because I have purposely made it absolutely free +from all melodramatic 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 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 represent 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 medium, failing in all the ordinary laws of sense and sound, +melody and prosody." It urged the commissioners to "save American letters +from the humiliation of presenting to the assembled world such a farrago +as this." For several weeks Lanier could not pick up a newspaper +without seeing his name held up to ridicule, the Southern papers alone, +out of purely sectional pride and with "no understanding +of the PRINCIPLES involved," coming to his rescue. The spirit in which +he received this criticism may be seen in a letter written to his brother: -- + + +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, +before I had recovered from my amazement at finding 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 highest 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 content 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 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 opposition. . . . + +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 denied. 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.* 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 suggest +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 heard Von Buelow conduct the Peabody Orchestra 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. + +-- +* `Music and Poetry', p. 80. +-- + +That the Cantata was a success is borne out by contemporary evidence. +The very paper which had criticised Lanier most severely said, in giving +an account of the opening exercises, "The rendering of Lanier's Cantata +was exquisite, and Whitney's bass solo deserves to the full all the praise +that has been heaped upon it." Ex-President Gilman 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 `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, 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 `to 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 orchestra, to music +especially 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 President of the United States, +the Emperor of Brazil, the governors of States, the judges +of the highest 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 exercises awakened no sentiment of reverence. +At 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 concluded loud applause rang through the air. +A noble conception had been nobly rendered. Words and music, +voices and instruments, produced an impression as remarkable as +the rendering 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."* + +-- +* `South Atlantic Quarterly', April, 1905. +-- + +The most important thing, however, about the writing of the Cantata +was that it gave expression 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 misunderstandings +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. + +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 D. 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 published 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. + +The poem as a whole is a musical rhapsody rather than a self-contained +work of art. Although there are fancies and obscurities, +the general 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 freedom, 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 Columbus, 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. + 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 triumphant 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 Centennial 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 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 brotherhood." +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 Whitman, did the national spirit prevail. + +Lanier came forward, therefore, at a critical time to express +his passionate faith in the future 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 Centennial 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 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 responded to the invitation to write +the Centennial poems. He had fought with valor in the Confederate 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 culture 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.* +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 himself 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 Baltimore, when, +as he wrote Hayne, he was "as homeless as the ghost of Judas Iscariot." +Mrs. Peacock -- a good linguist, a highly skilled musician, +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, +Portuguese minister to this country. In their home were entertained +all the first-rate artistic people 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 of "Lippincott's Magazine", +Charles Heber Clarke -- "big, heartsome, `Max Adeler'" -- and others. + +-- +* See `Letters'. +-- + +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 friendships 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 which +transcended suffering. Her words are paralleled by many of Lanier's: +"I know my enemy; he is ever before me and he must conquer, +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 chivalry 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; 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, +behold, 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 Symphony" has met with favor. +The "Power of 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 Farmer" +-- 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 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 Stebbin'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 engaged in hard labor +for a month, namely, in finishing 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 judgment on this poem; but not the least idea +how to compass that end. Can you make me any suggestion 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 September, +and I will send you then some organized 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 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 perhaps you might know somebody +who knew somebody 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 isn'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. + +And I do SO long to see you and Miss Stebbins! + +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 overflowing +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 afternoons" with Lowell and Longfellow. +Of this visit Lowell afterwards wrote President Gilman: +"He was not only a man of genius with a rare gift for the happy word, +but had in him qualities 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." + +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 +considerate regard for his friends, which expressed itself in many +delicate ways, especially on anniversaries 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 together; 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. + + +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 encouraging 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 quotation: -- + +"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 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 surround one's self with a companionship less awful, +and would rather have a friend than a god."* + +-- +* `Letters', p. 171. +-- + +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 delicately 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 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 showing 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 friendship which began +as a literary friendship soon developed on Taylor's part, +as well as Lanier's, into one of deep personal regard. Taylor recognized, +as did every other man who came in personal touch with Lanier, +the charm and the fineness of his personality. + +By the summer of 1876 Lanier had thus established himself +as a promising man of letters. He had not only written poetry that +had attracted 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 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 Baltimore 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 extracts are given:* -- + +-- +* `Letters', passim. +-- + +"I have found a shaggy gray mare upon whose back I thrid +the great pine forests daily, much to my delight. Nothing seems +so restorative 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 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, because 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 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", +"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 Chattahoochee", +and "An Evening Song". He was in a fair way to realize his ambition +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 new". + + + + +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 librarian's position in the Peabody Library, +and a place in some of the departments of the government 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 clerkship in any department. +The days of civil service reform and the time when a commissioner +of civil service would urge the application for government 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 appointment; +and furthermore I could not see it to be delicate, on general principles, +for me to 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 position, +"seventy-five dollars a month and the like," in any department in Washington. + +-- +* `Letters', p. 43. +-- + +Under these circumstances he wrote what are perhaps the most pathetic words +in all his letters. "Altogether," he says, "it seems as if +there wasn'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."* +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 his ability +to get the most out of everything than his letter to Gibson Peacock: -- + +-- +* `Letters', p. 46. +-- + + + 33 Denmead St., Baltimore, Md., + January 6, 1878. + +The painters, the whitewashers, 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, bargained with, +reproached for bad jobs, and finally paid off: I have also coaxed my landlord +into all manner of outlays for damp walls, cold bathrooms, +and other like matters: I have furthermore 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 generally 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 accomplished at least +a hundred thousand miscellaneous necessary nothings, -- and have NOT, +in consequence of the aforesaid, sent to you and my dear 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 +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.* + +-- +* `Letters', p. 49. +-- + + +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 unusually 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 systematic and more scholarly way. +A distinct advance 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 department 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 ordinarily 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. Morison, had in the selection of the library +consulted specialists in the leading universities of the country. +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 Elizabethan 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 books 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 presentation of the anonymous poems in the early collections +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 morning, occupying the same seat at the end of the table, +where he worked until lunch time, so absorbed 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 frequently his wife +would come to the library to do the copying for him."* + +-- +* Letter of Mr. John Park to the author. +-- + +This library was Lanier's university. While other Southerners +were finding their way to German 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."* +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 welcomed him to her home when he first came to Baltimore. +These lectures on Elizabethan poetry were attended by +many of the most prominent 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: -- + +-- +* `Letters', p. 214. +-- + + + 180 St. Paul St., Baltimore, Md., + November 5, 1878. + +I have been "allowing" -- as the Southern negroes say -- +that I would write you, for the last two weeks; but I had a good deal to say, +and haven'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 decisive aim. The lectures which I was invited to 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 receiving 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 Biology 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 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 organized means of any sort, by which people engaged in ordinary avocations +can accomplish such an aim. + +Here, then, seems to be, first, a universal admission +of the usefulness of organized intellectual pursuit for business people; +secondly, an underlying desire for it by many of the people themselves; +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 Baltimore. +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 writers and conditions +of a particular epoch (for instance) than in reading any amount of commentary +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 presentation of the whole SCIENCE of poetry as preparatory +to a serious and profitable study of some of the greatest singers +in our language.* + +-- +* `Letters', p. 53. +-- + + +In accordance with this idea he drew up a scheme for +four independent series of class lectures, 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 Literature, (2) the Household, (3) Natural Science, +and (4) Art. Thirty lectures were to be given in each school, +he to give those on English Literature. He hoped that he would be able +to arrange for such series in Washington, Philadelphia, 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 Extension lectures since established +at the University of Chicago, the University of Pennsylvania, +and other American universities. + +The only part of the scheme that took shape was the Shakespeare course +planned for the Peabody Institute. In addition to twenty-four lectures +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 lectures 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 Baltimore. +Published as they have been recently,* 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 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 lectures, 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 naive 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. + +-- +* `Shakspere and His Forerunners'. Doubleday, Page & Co., 1903. +-- + +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 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 lectures at Lowell Institute, said: "Then I was at +the period in life when thoughts rose in covies, . . . a period of life +when it doesn't seem as if everything has been said; when a man +overestimates the value of what specially interests himself, . . . +when he conceives himself a missionary, and is persuaded +that he is saving his fellows from the perdition of their souls +if he convert them from belief in some aesthetic 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 lectures. +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 single note of weariness; +there is always the freshness and exuberance of youth, the joy of discovery, +of interpretation, of illuminating comment. + +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, +presenting some specially striking scenes therefrom in a translation +that in rhythm and substance preserves 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", -- especially when accompanied by admirable translations? + +"To our old ancestors there were many times 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 consumes him. . . . + +"And so, as I said, there is to me an indescribable 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 Nature, traces of a time +when Nature was still a savage Mother of Grendel, tearing and devouring +the sons of men."* + +-- +* `Shakspere and His Forerunners', vol. i, p. 55. +-- + +Lanier believed strongly that the early English poems +ought to be taught in schools and colleges. 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 remarking the outcrop of Anglo-Saxon blood +in our modern physical achievements, there is certainly little +in our present art of words to show a literary 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 inclusive and amateur vagueness +removing it out of the rank of facts which involve grave and important duties. +We can neither deny the fact nor the strangeness of it, +that the English poetry written between the time of Aldhelm and Caedmon +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 English 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 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 recorded 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 Beowulf and the Grendel? Why does not the serious education +of every English-speaking boy commence, as a matter of course, +with the Anglo-Saxon grammar?"* + +-- +* `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. +-- + +There would come from such study a strengthening of English prose +and a deepening of culture. 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 immeasurable 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 become 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 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 colony. +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 Zuetphen 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 questions; 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 relation of their globe to the solar system. +To all this ferment the desperate conflict of the Catholic religion +with the new form of faith now coming in adds an element of stern strength; +men are pondering not only the physical relation of the earth to the heavens, +but the spiritual relation of the soul to heaven and hell. +This is no dandy period."* + +-- +* `Shakspere and His Forerunners', vol. i, p. 168. +-- + +"And if any one should say there is not time to read these poets," +he says in a strain of excessive 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 adorable heights of worship, and by that act +have so immeasurably uplifted the whole plane upon which society moves; +they have given to all earnest 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 faithful and generous affection; that -- I speak it with reverence -- +they have made another religion of loyal love and have given us +a second Bible of womanhood."* + +-- +* `Shakspere and His Forerunners', vol. i, p. 7. +-- + +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 Shakespeare'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 somewhat fanciful way +the boyhood of Shakespeare in Stratford and his early manhood in London. +The most important part of the lectures, however, is his discussion +of the growth of Shakespeare's mind and art, a study made possible +by recent publications of the New Shakespeare Society. +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 conception of the moral height +attained by Shakespeare as compared with contemporary dramatists: -- + +"The keenest scholarship, the freest discussion, 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;* +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. . . . + +-- +* The `Midsummer Night's Dream', `Hamlet', and `The Tempest'. +-- + +"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 nothing 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 remembers the time in his own life, somewhere from near thirty +to forty, when the actual oppositions of life came out before him +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 humility, by love, by the fatherly care of a Prospero +for his daughter Miranda, by the human tenderness 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, paralyzing 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, 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."* + +-- +* `Shakspere and His Forerunners', vol. ii, p. 260. +-- + +"Surely the genius which in the heat and struggle of ideal creation +has the enormous control and temperance to arrange and adjust +in harmonious proportions all these aesthetic antagonisms 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 technic 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 Shakspere, mind you, does not forget the real; +he will not be a beggar nor a starveling; we have documents +which show how he made money, how he bought land at Stratford; +we have Richard Quincy's letter to `my lovveinge good frend and contreyman +Mr. Wm. Shakspere, deliver thees,' asking the loan of thirty pounds +`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."* + +-- +* `Shakspere and His Forerunners', vol. ii, p. 324. +-- + +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 indicate +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 mystic influence of Nature on our human personality +grows more intense and individual. Who can walk alone +in your beautiful Druid Hill Park, among those dear and companionable oaks, +without 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?"* + +-- +* `Shakspere and His Forerunners', vol. i, p. 72. +-- + +"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 conversation of trees, the talk of birds, do we not 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 commonplace, 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 consummation of culture? For to him who rightly understands 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 +`Midsummer Night's Dream', to smile at -- he is ever in sight of the morning +and in hand-reach of God."* + +-- +* `Shakspere and His Forerunners', vol. i, p. 73. +-- + +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 surely combine +into some greater form or purpose 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 purposes +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 philosophy 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 Prospero's 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."* + +-- +* `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. +-- + +One of the things which enabled Lanier to produce the effect that he did +in teaching literature 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 following account +by one of his hearers, written a short time after his death, +gives the effect produced by his readings: -- + +"Mr. Lanier did not lay claim to any extraordinary 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, however, 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 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 appreciation +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 before the mental vision. +In theatrical representation, 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 `Pericles' in which Cerimon restores +Thaisa's apparently lifeless body to animation, a large audience +listened with breathless attention. His graphic comments +caused the whole rapidly moving scene to engrave itself on the memory."* + +-- +* Letter of Mrs. Arthur W. Machen to the author. +-- + +Such readings and lectures are treasured in the minds of those who heard them. +In addition 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 Baltimore. He shared in all the advantages made possible +by the philanthropy of George Peabody and Johns Hopkins, +and in such aesthetic influences as the Allston Art Association +and the Walters collection of French and Spanish pictures. 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 beloved. 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!' + + + + +Chapter IX. Lecturer 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 identifying him with the University. +Lanier had then talked with him about the advisability of establishing +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 suggesting the matter to him before +by his "ignorance as to whether I had pursued any special course of study +in life." Dr. Gilman recommended to the trustees that Lanier +be appointed 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. Gilman, -- From a published report 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 Mineralogy, +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 development 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 awarded it. President Gilman 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. Finally, the trustees, convinced of +Lanier's scholarship, and conscious of his growing influence in Baltimore, +agreed to his appointment as lecturer in English literature, +and Dr. Gilman 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 appointment 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 consideration of the poet's welfare manifested by Dr. Gilman. +He has his place in that inner circle of Lanier's friends +who meant much to him in opening 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 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 indicates the great love that he had +for the institution: -- + + 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 influence 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 American educational system. Her sister institutions have in later days +gone far beyond Johns Hopkins in equipment and in opportunities +for research, 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 unusually strong men, +they were fortunate in securing the services of Daniel Coit Gilman, +whose experience in educational matters had commended itself +to the judgment of the four leading university presidents of the country +to such an extent 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 universities, a graduate school with high standards. +American professors had studied in German universities +and distinguished European scholars had been called to chairs +in American universities, 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 education +in America upon a new phase in its development." "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 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;" accomplished Martin, +who "brought to this country new methods of physiological inquiry;" +Rowland, "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.* +These men did much original work themselves, and put before the public +in popular articles and scientific journals the ideals of +their several departments. 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 Library, 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 minute accretions, the realm of knowledge; +how to cooperate with other men in the prosecution of inquiry." +Reviewing the work done by the faculty and students of the University, +the leading scientific journal of England said, July 12, 1883: +"We should like to see such an account of original work done and to be done +issuing each year from the laboratories of Oxford and Cambridge." + +-- +* The account of the first faculty is based largely on + ex-President Gilman's article, "The Launching of a University", + in `Scribner's Magazine', March, 1902. +-- + +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 universities. +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, +Freeman, Bryce, Von Holst, Edmund Gosse, William 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." + + 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 corner +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 acquaintances +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 investigations in his special line of work, +-- he knew the value of scholarship. The Peabody Library enabled him +to have at hand the most recent 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 Verse" and in the Shakespeare lectures indicate +that he had a knowledge of the bibliography of any subject he touched. +Furthermore, 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."* When the book +was finished, 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. +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 offered by him. +Pray let me know if you think this worth while." 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. + +-- +* Letter to the author. +-- + +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 accuracy 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 inestimable 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 science. +Here the minutest accuracy in observing and the utmost faithfulness +in reporting have been found in the outset to be absolutely essential, +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 "wonderful 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 recent autobiography, +tells of a friend of his who had the making of a great scientist. +He met him at Flat Rock 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 didn'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 remarkable than the wide reading, the deep reflection, +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 development of scholarship in some one direction. +He restates, for instance, with remarkable insight and conciseness, +the investigations of Fleay, Edward Dowden, and other members +of the New Shakespeare Society, as to the metrical development +seen in Shakespeare's plays. But he adds to their investigations a suggestion +as to the greater freedom with which Shakespeare shifted the accent +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 monotonous regularity of the regular system +with the charm of those subtle rhythms which we employ +in familiar discourse, so that the habit of such freedom might grow +with the greatest uniformity upon a poet, and might thus present 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 Shakspere." + +Lanier not only made these investigations himself, 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 comprehensive 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 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 occurred 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 would in no long time collect material +for a thorough and systematic view of the growth of English words +for the last thousand years. The most interesting questions concerning +the wonderful and subtle laws of word-change might then be solved."* + +-- +* `Shakspere and His Forerunners', vol. i, p. 134. +-- + +In his zeal for publishing and editing books he conceived of +a rather quixotic plan for starting 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 together 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 popular 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! Indeed, if we could be a firm together! +I have many times thought that `Lanier Brothers, Publishers', +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 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 Lanier'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 literature, +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 German 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 discerned, +we shall more and more clearly see that his metre, his words, +his grammar and syntax, 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 business of the present, +the second school of Victorian 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 Swinburne'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 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 eloquence +the growth of Shakespeare's mind and art. To Lanier a metrical test or a date +is no insignificant 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 human race has yet evolved +hangs essentially upon dates." Lanier's reverence for exact scholarship +and his application of seemingly technical standards do not interfere at all +with his deeper appreciation of Shakespeare's plays. While he overstated +the autobiographical value of a chronological 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 Lanier's scholarly work are easy +to cite. His plan for the publication of a book of Elizabethan sonnets, +while not realized by him, has been carried out during the past year +in a far more extensive 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 scholarly ideals. If not a great scholar himself, +he wanted to be one, and he had the finest appreciation 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. President Gilman realized this +when he wrote to Lanier: "I think your scheme (of winter lectures) 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 subjects 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 English words and phrases, +(2) a stock of illustrative 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 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 consolation and refreshment of literature +when the day's work is over, the delight of sitting with +a favorite 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 repose 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."* + +-- +* `The Independent', March 18, 1886. +-- + +In another letter he wrote still further of his plans, clearly distinguishing +between the popular lectures and the more technical work +of the University class-room. It is a long letter, but gives so well +Lanier's idea of his work in the University 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 distribute 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 scholastic year. +I beg you to read these with some care: I 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 student'. 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 and will +-- if properly carried out -- constitute a genuine contribution +to modern literary scholarship; + +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 Shakspere* therein named, +it really takes these for texts, and involves, 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 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 permanent lectureship +covering the field above indicated. It is my fervent belief that +to take classes of young men and to preach them the gospel according-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 sympathy +and -- what is even worse -- an unsymmetric development of faculty, +both intellectual and moral, from a too exclusive devotion to Science +which Science itself would be the first to condemn. + +-- +* `Midsummer Night's Dream', `Hamlet', and `The Tempest'. +-- + +As to the first six class lectures on "The Physics 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 continue through the whole course, inasmuch as I regard +a mastery of the principles set forth in those lectures as vitally important +to all systematic progress in the understanding and enjoyment 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 appointment, 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 herewith, +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 relations +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 different method of study from that mischievous one +which has generally arisen from a wholly mistaken use of the numerous +"Manuals" of English 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 +founded upon the physical relations of sound; (2) "From Caedmon to Chaucer", +in which I present 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 English poetry is to be approached; and (3) my "Chaucer", +which I render immediately enjoyable, without preliminary preparation, +by an interlined 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 working on them for two months; in two more they will be finished; +and by the middle of November 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 Elizabethan Song-Writers", +and (6) "The Minor Elizabethan Dramatists"; the steady aim of the whole being +to furnish a working set of books 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.* + +-- +* Published in `South Atlantic Quarterly', April, 1905. +-- + + +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, therefore, 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 before the holidays -- and should be given +in January and February, instead of the course mentioned 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 Calvert Street, + Saturday evening. + + +Lanier's public lectures were largely attended. What has been said +of the Peabody lectures applies 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 Hopkins University, where I was then a Fellow. My field of work +was Aesthetics and the History of Art, and as I was eagerly searching +for chances to broaden and deepen my ideas, I enrolled myself 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 remarks, +often setting aside the reading altogether. 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 exaltation of the instincts of taste +that I have since learned were more precious than any +precise increments 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 inspiration. My life-work was still unchosen, +but I was conscious of an intense drawing toward artistic topics -- +not much with the creative impulse of the artist, but rather with +the analytic and rational desire of the student. I was beginning to have +a profound sense of the interrelations 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, and my inconsequent remarks often +led Mr. Lanier to speak somewhat freely, too, of his speculations and fancies. +I now recall with wonder 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 native Southern courtesy +that clothed him always in all his dealings with every one, +and the essential youthfulness 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 genuine capacity for love +in the most noble sense, for he was ready to identify himself +with the interests of another, to etherealize 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 absolute freshness of heart and spirit seems to me to have been +one of the highest notes of Mr. Lanier's genius. Here he was clearly allied +to many a more famous poet or painter or musician."* + +-- +* Letter to the author from Professor Waldo S. Pratt, + now of Hartford Theological Seminary. +-- + +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 Randolph-Macon College +-- afterwards of Columbia University -- have a commanding place +in the development of English teaching which has become +such a marked feature of educational progress 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 Southern 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 immemorial 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 literature rather than the works of authors themselves; +and there is now a tendency to use literature 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 Gilman: "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 associations." 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 surroundings. +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 satisfaction 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 imagination +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 interest 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 observations on Southern life and literature +are of special 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 despaired 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 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 representatives 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 hurlings 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-interference theory of government, -- all these things +have completely obscured the admitted good intentions of Morgan and Lamar +and their fellows, and have entirely alienated the feelings of men +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 politicians, +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 presence 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, consequently, +every squeak of a penny whistle is easily interpreted into a rebel yell +by the artful devices of Mr. Blaine and his crew, -- +this was simply to invade the North again as we did in '64. +And we have met precisely another Gettysburg. The whole community is uneasy +as to the silver bill and the illimitable folly of the greenbackers; +business men anxiously await the adjournment of Congress, +that they may be able to lay their plans with some sense of security +against 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 information I can get, +the country is substantially poorer now than when the war closed, +and Southern 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 understanding the changed conditions +in his native State, Lanier published in October, 1880, +an article on that subject in "Scribner's Magazine".* To one who reads it +with the expectation 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 agricultural 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 circumstance 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 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 improvement in Georgia farming: +moon-planting and other vulgar superstitions are exploding, +the intelligent 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, +instead of from the West." + +-- +* `Retrospects and Prospects', pp. 104-135. +-- + +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 remember, 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 behaviors, 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 economy 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 rehabilitation of the South's agricultural life? The present +aggressive movement in the direction of the improvement of the rural schools +is a confirmation 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 betterments and gentilities and openings out into the universe." +He saw, too, the effect on the negro of his becoming a landowner, +and the consequent 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 colored people, which is endowed by the State, the progress of the pupils, +the clearness of their recitation, their excellent behavior, +and the remarkable neatness of their schoolrooms, altogether convince +`your committee that the colored race are capable of receiving the education +usually 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 agricultural 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 surface for cotton a year or two, +then carelessly abandoned all to sedge and sassafras, and sauntered 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 accomplished, 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 Constitution of 1787. He quoted Scripture +in defense 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 deterioration under freedom. Compelled by force of circumstances +to acknowledge the supremacy of the Federal government, he was still dominated +by the ideas of separation. He saw no 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 Jacobins, abandoned wholly by its original worshipers -- +stands as Babel did of old, a melancholy monument 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 "Yankeeish and infidel", +stoutly championing the system 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 literature 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 philosophical subjects, he thought in terms +of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The watchwords 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 reconstruction governments played. +Worse even than the effect of excessive taxation, misgovernment, +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 stubborn facts which seemed to overthrow +the more liberal ideas of Lincoln and of those Southern leaders +who after the war hoped that the magnanimity of the North would be equal +to the great task ahead of the nation. The conservative leaders +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.* + +-- +* 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. +-- + +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 are recalled, -- his lack of prejudice, +his inexhaustible energy, the alertness and modernness of his mind, +his ability to find joy in constructive work, 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 applied 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 democratic people lived there, and also that +the burdens of reconstruction were less severe. Virginia gave to the nation +at the time of the foundation of the republic a group of statesmen +rarely excelled in the history of the world. South Carolina statesmen led +in the movement towards secession, and her people were the first to make +an aggressive 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 emancipation of slaves within one minute, was characteristic +of her later work. In 1866, Alexander 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 notable expression to his own ideals and those who had wrought with him +in the genuine reconstruction 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 enduring 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 admiration for Lee and in Southern hearts +an admiration for Grant, and in all an aspiration towards nationalism. + +Another Georgian, Atticus G. Haygood, -- president of Emory College +and afterwards bishop of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, -- +voiced the sentiment of the liberal South with regard to the negro, +in a book whose title, "Our Brother in Black", sufficiently indicates +the spirit in which it was written. In a Thanksgiving sermon +on the New South, delivered in 1881, he criticised 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 illiteracy +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 Confederate soldier of Georgia stock. +He became an evangelist in the crusade for public education, announcing before +State legislatures the principle 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. +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 endowments +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 activity 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 have the Southern side of the war well represented +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 restoration 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 dedicated "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 Fireside", +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 Baltimore; 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 than 1878. There was in them a continual crying out +for Southern literature which might worthily represent the Southern people. +The response came, too -- so far as quantity was concerned. +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 "Southern Literary Messenger" +before the war. While it was somewhat eclectic in its character, +-- reprinting 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 Gildersleeve, +then of the University of Virginia, Professor Thomas R. Price, +then professor of English at Randolph-Macon, James Albert Harrison, +later the biographer and editor of Poe, and Margaret J. Preston +were regular contributors. Richard Malcolm Johnston contributed +his "Dukesborough Tales" to it. One of the publishers of the magazine, +Mr. Lawrence Turnbull, visited Lanier at Macon in 1871 +and became much interested in him. To the magazine Lanier contributed +"Prospects and Retrospects" (March 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" (October, 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 significant. 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 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 begun their work, +Paul Hamilton Hayne best representing the transition from one to the other. +The younger writers either had been Confederate soldiers, +or had been intimately identified with those who were. They began to write, +not out of response 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 respective 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 superseded 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 incidents. +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 literature. +They stood, too, for the national, rather than the sectional, spirit. +"What does it matter," 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 Eastern, is not worth labeling at all." Again, he said, speaking of +the ideal Southern writer: "He must be Southern and yet cosmopolitan; +he must be intensely local in feeling, but utterly unprejudiced 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. Contrary to the idea +which had prevailed after the war that Northern people would be slow +to recognize 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 Magazine" +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 expedition, discovered George W. Cable, +whose story, "'Sieur George", appeared in "Scribner's Magazine" +in October of that year. Between that time and 1881 the magazine published, +in addition 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 Johnston, 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 republic of letters with all heartiness." +"The Century Magazine", the successor of "Scribner's", continued 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, began a series of articles +on the New South, by Edwin De Leon, and in the following year +published a series of articles by Constance F. Woolson, +giving sketches of Florida and western North Carolina. In May, 1887, +appeared an article 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 Lanier. +The editor recognized his genius while he was still alive, +after his death continued to publish his poems, and in 1884 wrote the Memorial +for the first complete edition of his poems. Maurice Thompson, +another Southern writer, became its literary editor in 1888. + +Nor was the "Atlantic Monthly", which had been identified +with the New England Renaissance, 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 editor 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 Cary Eggleston. In May, 1878, +appeared Charles Egbert Craddock's first story of the Tennessee Mountains, +"A Dancing Party at Harrison's Cove". The value of her work +was at once recognized by Mr. Howells 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 `Luck of Roaring Camp' and its audacious fellows, when they came, +while they are much more human and delicate in feeling." In January, 1885, +in an article on recent American fiction, appears the following tribute +to the work of recent Southern writers: "It is not the subjects +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, +because it is large, imaginative, and constantly responsive +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 characterizes the best Southern writing, +the large free handling, the confident imagination, +are legitimate results of the careless yet masterful and hospitable life +which has pervaded that section. We have had our laugh at the florid, +coarse-flavored 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."* + +-- +* In 1896 Mr. Walter H. Page, a native North Carolinian, + became editor of the "Atlantic". +-- + +The effect of this literature on Northern readers was altogether wholesome, +and ministered 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 impetuous orators, +while the poems of Hayne and Lanier, breathing as they did +the atmosphere of the larger modern world, and at the same time characterized +by the warmth and richness of Southern 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 beholding the roses of romance and poetry blossoming above +the ashes of defeat and humiliation, and that, too, among a people +hitherto more remarkable for the masterful deeds of warrior and statesman +than for the finer, rarer, and more artistic creations of literary genius."* + +-- +* Baskervill's `Southern Writers' is the best study that has been made + of the Southern literature of this period. A second volume was prepared + by his pupils and friends after his death. +-- + +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 review 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 literature.'" In the same magazine for June, 1874, +Paul Hamilton Hayne condemned severely the provincial literary criticism +which had prevailed, -- "indiscriminate adulations, effervescing commonplace, +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 artistic 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 aesthetical 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 redeeming 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 thousand of these books had been sold in the South! +This last damning fact ought to have been concealed at the risk of life, limb, +and fortune." Lanier himself saw the futility of such praise of his own work +by the Southern people. Referring 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 encouragement 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 rocky road of Art, +and I wish to do everything in my power to help and encourage him." +Writing to George Cary 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 entertainment. +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 writings +bear out the truth of this statement. It 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 notable 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 commonplace sentiments; +and also his diffuseness, principally 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 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 +association 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 brother, both in poetic sweetness and in honorable knighthood."* + +-- +* `Shakspere and His Forerunners', vol. i, p. 170. +-- + +He was one of the first to recognize the genius of Joel Chandler Harris, +whose Uncle Remus stories he first read in the "Atlanta Constitution". +He refers in his article on the New South to Uncle Remus +as a "famous colored philosopher of Atlanta, who is a fiction +so founded upon 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 supposititious 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 English Novel +at Johns Hopkins University, he included 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 stimulating. He was the prime cause +in inducing Richard Malcolm Johnston to offer first to the magazines, +and then to the publishers, his stories of Middle Georgia. +Johnston had published the "Dukesborough Tales" in the "Southern 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 Colonel 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 domestic duties upon me, and rendered it +quite impossible for me to make the preparations necessary +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 "Dukesborough Tale". I wish very much +that I could read it over aloud in your presence, so that I might +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 enjoyment. 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 compare 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 catastrophe: that is, from about p. 1 to p. 34, +and from p. 57 to p. 67. The middle, i.e., from p. 34 to p. 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 otherwise 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 recognition 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, +belongs 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 seashore, the forest, the birds and flowers of the South stirred +his imagination. He knew personally 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 generosity and his enthusiasm were all Southern 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 significance in the modern world, +and to feel the inspiration 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 recreation for men; +to him the study of it was a passion, and the creation of it +the highest vocation 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 +Wordsworth and Keats rather than Scott, George Eliot 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 conservative 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 accomplishment 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 Lanier 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 transparent 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 turning 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 figure 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."* +If to this be added the words of Dr. Gilman as to the impression +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."** + +-- +* `Independent', November 18, 1897. +** `South Atlantic Quarterly', April, 1905. +-- + +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 permitted, 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, -- provided 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 covers it +may be a tragedy." Professor Gildersleeve 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 miserable +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 fingers. Somehow, that little incident seems to me +an epitome of his life, though I have mentioned it only to show +how busy he was."* + +-- +* Letter to the author. +-- + +He was a welcome guest in many homes. "He had the most gentle, refined, +sweet, lovely manners, 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 impression 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 evening (they had been walking +through the Wissahickon woods and came back to tea), +and his presence seemed something beautiful in the room, +even more from his manner than from his appearance, 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 absolutely without ear for music, had a curious delight +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 nature. He could easily have found a more appreciative 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 excitement +about pictures, though none of us knew much about them. +I remember the pleasure Mr. Lanier had in the sense of color and splendor +given him by the big Hans Makart (`Caterina 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 +all that he longed for in books and study and thought."* + +-- +* Letter to the author. +-- + +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 cherished 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 intimate 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, + 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."* + +-- +* Poem by Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull, read at the presentation of the Lanier bust + to Johns Hopkins University. +-- + +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 personality; she there caught +something of the afterglow of his presence: -- + +"The morning that I spent with Mrs. Turnbull was almost as interesting +as an interview with Sidney Lanier himself would have been, +so fully does his memory live in that most aesthetic interior, +where poetry and music are held in perpetual honor, and where domestic life +has all the beauty of a work of art. The hero of Mrs. Turnbull's novel, +`A Catholic Man', is none other than Sidney Lanier, +and that scrupulously faithful 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 nothing profane or vulgar is allowed admission. Passing through +the reception rooms, I was introduced 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: `This is Sidney Lanier;' and when I, +despite my admiration 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." + + . . . . . + +"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 fireside, 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 +between daylight and dark, and pouring forth those profound, +unexpected, and delightful things which seem to belong to him alone, +which characterize his correspondence also, and all his literary remains."* + +-- +* `Revue des Deux Mondes', 1898. Translated for `Littell's Living Age', + May 14 and May 21, 1898. +-- + +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 necessarily 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. + +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 romp 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 small soul +that ever cherishes bitterness; 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 regarded as feminine traits. These Lanier had, 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 knightliness in his own character. +He had the combination 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." +There is in his later prose the "send and drive" of a vigorous soul. +It was this elemental manhood 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 resented +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 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 determination, and Mr. ---- retracted and apologized; +the orchestra went on only after the same had been done." + +Another element that contributed to the admirable symmetry +of Lanier's character was that of humor. One would misjudge him entirely +if he took into account only the highly wrought letters 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 music or nature or poetry, were balanced by humor +that was playful and delicate and at times irresistible. +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 Revival Hymn", +"Jones's Private Argument", and others. With his children +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 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 modernness of mind has already been illustrated in his attitude +to music and to scholarship. 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 nineteenth 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 counterasserted 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 +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 +irritable 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 commenting on Macaulay's idea +of poetry declining as science grows: "How long a time intervened +between Humboldt and Goethe; how long between Agassiz and Tennyson? +One can scarcely tell whether Humboldt and Agassiz were not as good poets +as Goethe and Tennyson were certainly 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 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. During the seventies +the criticism of the invitation extended to Huxley to deliver +the principal address at the opening of Johns Hopkins University, +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 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 conscience, -- the conscience which makes Mr. Darwin +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 Lanier's interest in microscopic work: "Mrs. Lanier and family +were not with him then, and he was busy writing some articles +on the science of composition. 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 interesting 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 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."* + +-- +* Letter to the author. +-- + +So he had little patience with "those timorous 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 requires 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."* 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." + +-- +* `The English Novel', p. 28. +-- + +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 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, biology, chemistry, evolution, and all," +he writes to J. F. Kirk, June 15, 1880. "It pieces on, perfectly, +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 generalizations fill me with such dreams again. + +"But it is precisely at the beginning of that phenomenon +which is the underlying subject of this poem, `Individuality', +that the largest of such generalizations must begin, +and the doctrine 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 enthusiastic dissecter who, +forgetting that his observations 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 beautiful 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 differentiation. + +"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 reaffirmation 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 literature -- 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.* 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 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. + +-- +* See especially the poem "Remonstrance". +-- + +Notwithstanding his vivid realization of the evil of dogma and of sect, +he maintained throughout his life a reverent faith; he could distinguish, +as Browning said Shelley could not, between churchdom and Christianity. +Not only in the "Crystal" and "A Ballad of Trees and the Master", +and in the spirit of nearly all of his poems, is this evident; +but throughout his lectures, essays, and letters he never missed +an opportunity 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: + 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: + 'T was 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 assurance 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, +supplemented by literary work, could sustain him and his family. +By prodigious work he had overcome, 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 during the war and the habits of a bent student. +His flute-playing had helped to mitigate the disease. 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 imagination. +He once referred to consumptives as "beyond 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 surface of indescribable distress +for the next twenty hours, subsiding only enough each morning +to let me get on my working-harness, but never intermitting. +A number of tests show it not to be the `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 singing 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 physician; and meantime I work day after day +in such suffering as is piteous to see."* 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 lectures +on the English Novel under circumstances too harrowing to describe. +His audience did not know whether he could finish any one of them. + +-- +* `Letters', p. 244. +-- + +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, Robert Sampson Lanier, was born at West Chester, +and the father writes letters to his friends, announcing his joy thereat. +One is to his old friend, Richard Malcolm Johnston. + + + West Chester, Pa., August 28, 1880. + +My dear and sweet Richard, -- 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 far from being satisfactory persons, and something 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 turbulent +than that of Richard II, and far more legitimate 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 wonderful how quickly these young fledgelings impress 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 perfectly clear conception of his character. This conception +is simply enchanting. In fact, the young man has already made himself +absolutely indispensable to us, and my comrade and I wonder +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 answer 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. I 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* and all the rest of your family. + +-- +* It is said that he wrote the `Marshes of Glynn' under one of these. +-- + +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 serious letter to his friend, +Mrs. Isabelle Dobbin, of Baltimore. The concluding words +show his realization of the deeper meaning of childhood. + + + West Chester, August 18, 1880. + +Here is come a young man so lovely in his person, and so gentle and high-born +in his manners, 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 associated 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'll be glad to know that my dear Comrade is doing well. . . . +We have reason to expect 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 of his slumber, +and the shine of his mother's eyes thereover, seem to melt up +and mysteriously absorb 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.* The spirit in which he worked on these "pot-boilers" +is seen in a letter to his publisher, Mr. Charles Scribner: -- + +-- +* 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. +-- + + + 435 N. Calvert St., Baltimore, Md., + November 12, 1880. + +My dear Mr. Scribner, -- You have certainly 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 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 reading 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 believe 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 business +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 familiar 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 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 arranges, +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". There is more of a tendency +to go off in digressions, "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, Religion, 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 Lanier'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 something more +than a `raconteur' and something different 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 features, 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 professorial armchair, +and reads from dainty slips of MS. in a clear, penetrating voice +full of subtlest comprehension, but painfully and often interrupted +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 philanthropy. `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.'"* + +-- +* `Independent', Sept. 1, 1881. +-- + +Just after finishing his lectures, which were reduced from twenty to twelve +out of consideration for his health, Lanier went to New York +to consult his publishers about future work. The impression made by him +on one of his old students is seen in this passage: "One day I had +a startling 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 somewhere for the evening +`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, probably, +was the strain of it all." + +Brave as he was, however, and eager to keep at his work, +he finally submitted to the inevitable, and in May started with his brother +to the mountains of western North Carolina. His final interview +with Dr. Gilman 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."* + +-- +* `South Atlantic Quarterly', April, 1905. +-- + +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 Robin, +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 Legends of Wales": +"In now leaving this beautiful book with my young countrymen, +I find myself so sure of its charm as to feel no hesitation +in taking authority to unite the earnest expression of their gratitude +with that of my own to Lady Charlotte Guest, whose talents and scholarship +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 remember Keats's + + watcher of the skies + When a new planet swims into his ken." + +A letter to President Gilman indicates his continued interest +in scientific investigation: -- + + + Asheville, N.C., June 5, 1881. + +Dear Mr. Gilman, -- Can you help me -- or tell me how I can help myself -- +in the following 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 popular account I propose to carry on +two simultaneous 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 thermometers, +two aneroid thermometers, and two hygrometers of any make. +It has occurred to me that since these observations will be conducted +during the University recess I might -- always provided, of course, +that there is any authority or precedent for such action -- +procure this apparatus from the University collection, +especially as no instrument is included which could not easily be replaced. +Of course I would cheerfully 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. Hastings, with the request that he will have this apparatus +packed at my expense and shipped by express to me at this point immediately. + + Yours very sincerely, 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 utterance of the poet +ever betrayed more of his nature, -- "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 Carolina. 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 sunset 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."* + +-- +* `Independent', June 28, 1894. +-- + +Lynn is in a sheltered valley among the mountains 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 soon 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 forenoon 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 realization of Matthew Arnold's wish with regard to dying: -- + + Let me be, + While all around in silence lies, + 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 knowledge 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 endowment of a permanent lectureship on poetry +in Johns Hopkins University. The grave is unmarked -- 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 characters were so strikingly unlike, +sleep in their adopted city. + +Shortly after Lanier's death memorial services were held +at Johns Hopkins University, at which time beautiful tributes were paid to him +by his colleagues and friends. A committee of the citizens 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.* "The hall was filled," +says ex-President Gilman, "with a company of those who knew and admired him. +On the pedestal 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 Lowell, Holmes, Gilder, Stedman; young men who never saw him, +but who had come under his influence, read their tributes in verse; +a former student of the University made a critical estimate +of the `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 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 Confederate 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, +unsolicited and unexpected, from that charming poetess, Edith Thomas. +She heard of the memorial 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." + +-- +* For a full record of the exercises see `A Memorial of Sidney Lanier', + Baltimore, 1888. +-- + +The aftermath of Lanier's home life is all pleasant to contemplate. +His wife, although still an invalid, has, by her readings from +her husband's letters and poems, and by her sympathetic help for all those +who have cared to know more about him, done more than any other person +to extend his fame. With tremendous obstacles 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. Charles Day Lanier is president of the Review of Reviews Company, +and is associated with his youngest brother, Robert Sampson Lanier, +in editing "The Country Calendar". Henry Wysham Lanier +is a member of the firm of Doubleday, Page & Company, +and editor of "Country Life in America". They all inherit +their father's love of music and poetry, and through their magazines +are doing much to foster among Americans a taste for country life. +By a striking coincidence -- entirely unpremeditated on their part -- +three of the sons and their mother live at Greenwich, Connecticut. +It will be remembered that the home of the English Laniers was at Greenwich, +-- 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 musical circles of New York; if, like Longfellow, +he had gone from a small college to a German university, 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 immature 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 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 instead 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 Browning, that what a man would do exalts him. +The lines of Robert Browning's poems in which he sets forth the glory +of the life of aspiration -- aspiration 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 artistic 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 considerations -- +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 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 sufferings, +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 themselves 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 unrevised works have been published; +these have their excuse for being in the light they throw on his life; +but otherwise some of them are disappointing. 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 writing +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 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, fluency, and eloquence. +It may be claimed without dispute that he was a rare good letter-writer; +perhaps only Lowell's letters are more interesting. The faults of his poetry +are not always seen in his best letters. In them there is a playfulness, +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 Memorial 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 typical 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 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 comparison of a sonnet to a little drama, +or his statement 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 "constant temptation, to the vigorous and springy mind of the poet, +to bound off wherever his momentary fancy may lead him." +This is especially seen in his lectures on the English Novel, +where he is often carried far afield from the general theme. +In his lectures on "Shakspere and His Forerunners", he was so often 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 Richardson 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 expressed them vigorously, +so he over-praised many men. When he says, for instance, +that Bartholomew Griffin "will yet obtain a high and immortal 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 language," one wonders to what extent +the "pleasant 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 unbalanced judgments. +It is often true in criticism that a man "should like +what he does like; and his likings are facts in criticism for him." +Without very great learning and with strong prejudices in some directions, +Lanier yet had remarkable insight into literature. Lowell's saying +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 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 Whitman's `Leaves of Grass' +worth at least a million of `Among my Books' and `Atalanta in Calydon'. +In the two latter I could not find anything which has not been +much better said before; but `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 conceptions of art +and the author's." Another good one is that on Shelley: "In truth, +Shelley appears always to have labored under an essential immaturity: +it is very possible that if he had lived a hundred years +he would never have become 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 little 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 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 uncompromisingly behind the gayest pictures +of William Morris! . . . Again, how openly joyful is Chaucer, +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 unobstructed 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. . . . `The Canterbury Tales' +is simply a drama with somewhat more of stage direction than is common; +but the `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 lovable as the `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 produces 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 comes up +out of the old dreams of fate that were false and of passions +that were not pure?"* + +-- +* `Music and Poetry', p. 198. +-- + +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 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 solicitudes with which +they rarefy in one line any enthusiasm they may have condensed +in another -- 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 Shakespeare 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, 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" entitles 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 preface, +as in the epilogue, to the "Science of English Verse", +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 differentiates poetry from prose? How does a writer produce +certain effects with certain rhythms and vowel and consonant arrangements? +The 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 possible 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 pursuing +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 scientific basis." +The book at once received commendation from competent critics. +Edward Rowland 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 common sense;" the book is +"accurate, scientific, suggestive." The editor of the "Dial" referred to it +as "the most striking and thoughtful exposition 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 importance.* +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. + +-- +* See, for instance, Winchester's `Principles of Literary Criticism', + Alden's `English Verse', Paul Elmer More's `Shelburne Essays', + and Omond's `English Metrists'. +-- + +There is little objection to Parts II and III of the +"Science of English Verse". They are generally recognized +as strikingly suggestive and helpful. It is with the main thesis +of the first part that many disagree -- the author's insistence +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 +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 distinct. 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 quantity, +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 escape out of +the rigidities of the type into the infinite field of those subtle rhythms +which pervade familiar utterance." He separates himself therefore +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, approached from the direction of +that great rhythmic sense of humanity displayed in music, +in all manner of folk-songs, and in common talk, it is perfect music." + +-- +* `The Beginnings of Poetry', chapter 2. +-- + +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 mathematical 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 language." The result is a compromise +shifting toward one extreme or another. Lanier's theory would apply +to the earliest folk-songs. He illustrated his point +by referring to the negro melodies, 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; Sophocles and Aeschylus were both teachers of the chorus. +Many of the lyrics of the Elizabethan age were written especially for music, +and more 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 enchantingly that it irradiates and brings heaven and elysian bowers +into any parlor when he says or sings it to me." Mr. Arthur Symons +has recently said: "`Christabel' is composed like music; +you might set at the side of each section, especially 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 intoned, "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 perfection of speech. The theory will not hold, however, +in much dramatic verse, or in meditative blank verse, as used by Wordsworth. +Much of the poetry of Byron, Browning, Keats, and Shakespeare, +while supremely great from the standpoint of color, or dramatic power, +or picturesqueness, 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 constantly 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, +-- consciously 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, Whittier, or Longfellow, he must find that their poetry +as a whole is singularly lacking in melody. Moreover, the poet who was +the most dominant 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 scholarly volume +on the theory of poetry received by mail this morning from England," +said Whitman, "but gave it up at last as a bad job." One 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 justification 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 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, indeed, we may say +that he who has not yet perceived 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 meeting with the misunderstanding +that every great artist has met since the world began: +"Let my 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 culture 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 prettinesses 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. Different as they were in nearly every respect, +the two poets were yet alike in their idea that there should be a reaction +against the conventional and artificial poetry of their time, +-- the difference being, that Whitman's reaction took +the direction of formlessness, while Lanier's was concerned 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 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 series of poems might be selected +that would entitle 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 lacking 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 "Remonstrance", 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 representing 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 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 expression. If one compare +even the best parts with the "Evening of Extraordinary Splendor and Beauty" +by Wordsworth, he sees the difference in the art of expression. +There is in Wordsworth'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 seeing 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 repose which is the proper mood of the artist. +He had to write as long a poem as "The Symphony" 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 careful 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 spontaneous 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 remember +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 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 overcame it. He did not restrain his luxuriant imagination. +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 Pleading", 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 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 American 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 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 Revenge of Hamish"; +the opening lines and the Columbus sonnets of the "Psalm of the West"; +and the longer poems, "The Symphony", "Sunrise", 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 imperfect enough as wholes -- +there are lines that come from the innermost soul of poetry: -- + + But 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. + + 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. + +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 original 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 corresponds +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 spirituality +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 "Sunrise" -- 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 powerfully impressed his imagination. +He is the poet 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 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 pleasure 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, -- + 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: + 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 + 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 victory he achieved are summed up in a passage which may well be +the last word of this biography. 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. + + + + +[End of original text.] + + + + +Notes to the text: + + + +The illustrations cannot be included in this ASCII edition. +This list of illustrations originally followed the table of contents: + + List of Illustrations + + Sidney Lanier in 1870. (Photogravure.) Frontispiece + Sidney Lanier at the age of fifteen, in 1857 + Sidney Lanier in 1866, from a "carte de visite" photograph + in possession of Mr. Milton H. Northrup, of Syracuse, N.Y. + Mary Day Lanier in 1873 + Facsimile of one of Lanier's earliest existing musical scores, + written at the age of 19 + Facsimile of letter to Charlotte Cushman + Bronze bust of Sidney Lanier by Ephraim Keyser + + +The index, being unnecessary, has been omitted. + + +The following changes were made to the text: + + +Throughout the text, contractions including "n't", as in "isn't", "wasn't", +"wouldn't", etc., were in the original text given in an older form, +e.g. "is n't", "was n't", "would n't", etc. These occurrences +have been modernised. + + +Chapter III: + +"his thin hands tightly clinched," + changed to: +"his thin hands tightly clenched," + + +Chapter IV: + +"In another letter (June 29, 1866) he encloses a photograph* and comments on" +(accompanied by the footnote: "* See p. 54.", referring to +a "carte de visite" photograph facing that page, which cannot be included +in this ASCII text) + changed to: +"In another letter (June 29, 1866) he encloses a photograph and comments on" + + +Chapter V: + +"English annalists and poets, -- Geoffrey of Monmouth, Sir Thomas Mallory," + changed to: +"English annalists and poets, -- Geoffrey of Monmouth, Sir Thomas Malory," + (the latter spelling is given in every other instance in the book). + + +Chapter VII: + +"This is the sixth letter I've written since nine o'clock to night," + changed to: +"This is the sixth letter I've written since nine o'clock to-night," + +"The Song of the Chattahooche" changed to: ". . . Chattahoochee". + + +Chapter XI: + +The poem by Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull had only the ending quotation mark +in the original text. An opening quotation mark was added. + + +Chapter XIII: + +"Where men his Self must see," + changed to: +"Where men his Self must see." + +`"Corn" while representing' + changed to: +`"Corn", while representing' + +`"An Evening Song", "My Springs", "A Ballad of the Trees and the Master",' + changed to: +`"An Evening Song", "My Springs", "A Ballad of Trees and the Master",' + + +The numerous references to "Shakspere" were NOT standardized to "Shakespeare", +although both spellings occur in the text. This is primarily due +to the references to Lanier's book, "Shakspere and His Forerunners". + +Please note that other titles relating to Lanier are also now online. + + +Accents cannot be displayed correctly in ASCII. The following lines +are given to show where accents occurred in the original: + +notably the Moncures, the Maurys, the Latane/s, and the Flournoys, +characteristic of the old re/gime. + (and other occurrences of "regime") +They fe^ted me to death, nearly. . . . Indeed, they were all +"His dialogue reads too often like a catalogue `raisonne/' of his library." +A party of hunters -- including Philip Sterling and Paul Ru"betsahl, + (and other occurrences of "Ruebetsahl") +"A terrible me^le/e of winged opposites is forever filling the world +into contemporary life, and occasionally an exquisite lyric like "Nirva^na". + (and other occurrences of "Nirvana") +play his overture to `Tannha"user'. The `Music of the Future' is surely +found a seat, and the ba^ton tapped and waved, and I plunged into the sea, + (and other occurrences of "baton") +of the San Fernando Cathedral and of the Mission San Jose/ de Aquayo +into `La Me/lancolie', which melted itself forth with such eloquent lamenting +The director of the Peabody Orchestra, who had been a pupil of Von Bu"low, + (and other occurrences of "Buelow") +the Germania Ma"nnerchor Orchestra, -- one of the many companies of Germans +with appealing to the (ae)sthetic emotions of an audience, + (and other occurrences of "aesthetic" and "aesthetical") +with stringing notes together -- mere trouve\res of a day -- +She was the daughter of the Marquis de la Figanie\re, +when this now-hatching brood of my Ephemer(ae) shall take flight +without enjoying the poet's nai"ve enthusiasm and his clear insight +by followers of Arnold and Brunetie\re, after many class-room +that the English poetry written between the time of Aldhelm and C(ae)dmon + (and other occurrences of "Caedmon") +with deeds of manhood before Zu"tphen and touch their hearts +and had coo"perated with him in the series of lectures +how to coo"perate with other men in the prosecution of inquiry." +These lectures, suggested by those given at the Colle/ge de France, +Gayarre/'s histories, the "War between the States", by Alexander H. Stephens, + (and other occurrences of "Gayarre") +open-minded not prejudiced, modern and not medi(ae)val. His characteristics +of the e/lite of all ages encircles a mountain which is dominated +before it displays its magic, like the modern spiritualistic se/ance-givers +how blank, world-bound, and wearying is the stone fac,ade of hopelessness +thoroughly musical; Sophocles and (Ae)schylus were both teachers of the chorus. +to King Arthur's court, `ge/rt' (as sweet Sir Thomas Malory hath it) + + + + + +End of this Etext of "Sidney Lanier", by Edwin Mims + + + diff --git a/1224.zip b/1224.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..6d3620c --- /dev/null +++ b/1224.zip diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..f53cbee --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #1224 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1224) |