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. —