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.