—
* `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.