A Biography of Sidney Lanier Part 14

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 s.p.a.ce, or time, or the convenience of any human arm, can reconcile inst.i.tutions for the turbulent fanatic of Plymouth Rock and the G.o.d-fearing Christian of Jamestown. . . . You may a.s.sign 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 G.o.dkin and poets like Lowell and Walt Whitman, did the national spirit prevail.

Lanier came forward, therefore, at a critical time to express his pa.s.sionate 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 const.i.tution, 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 ill.u.s.trious 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 const.i.tutionalism 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 a.s.sociates, 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 Peac.o.c.k.

The correspondence between them is well known to all students of Lanier.*

Mr. Peac.o.c.k "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. Peac.o.c.k -- 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. Peac.o.c.k 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 ma.n.u.script 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 p.r.i.c.king 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. Peac.o.c.k'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 shuttlec.o.c.k 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 compa.s.s 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 n.o.ble 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.