"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. —