The quality of affection in Lanier reached its climax in his home life. There he was seen and known at his best. An early aspiration of his was "to show that the artist-life is not necessarily a Bohemian life, but that it may coincide with and BE the home-life." Such poems as "Baby Charley" and "Hard Times in Elfland", and the story of "Bob" reveal the playful and affectionate father, while "My Springs", "In Absence", "Laus Mariae" and many published and unpublished letters are but variations of the oft-recurring theme: —
When life's all love, 't is life: aught else, 't is naught.
A letter written to his wife will serve to give the spirit which prevailed in the home: —
January 1, 1875.
A thousand-fold Happy New Year to thee, and I would that thy whole year may be as full of sweetness as my heart is full of thee.
All day I dwell with my dear ones there with thee. I do so long for one hearty romp with my boys again! Kiss them most fervently for me, and say over their heads my New Year's prayer, that whether God may color their lives bright or black, they may continually grow in a large and hearty manhood, compounded of strength and love.
Let us try and teach them, dear wife, that it is only the small soul that ever cherishes bitterness; for the climate of a large and loving heart is too warm for that frigid plant. Let us lead them to love everything in the world, above the world, and under the world adequately; that is the sum and substance of a perfect life. And so God's divine rest be upon every head under the roof that covers thine this night, prayeth thy
Husband.
Sweetness of disposition, depth of emotion, and absolute purity of life are frequently regarded as feminine traits. These Lanier had, but they were fused with the qualities of a virile and healthy manhood. He attracted strong and intellectual men as well as refined and cultivated women. The bravery manifested during the Civil War and the fortitude that he displayed after the war became elemental qualities in his character. His admiration of the heroic deeds of the age of chivalry arose from a certain inherent knightliness in his own character. He had the combination of tenderness and strength to which he called attention in Sir Philip Sidney. His admiration for old English poetry was due to the "ruddiness in its cheek and the red corpuscles in its veins." There is in his later prose the "send and drive" of a vigorous soul. It was this elemental manhood that attracted him to Whitman, despite all his protests against the latter's carelessness of form and lack of grace. "Reading him," he says, "is like getting the salt sea spray into one's face."
He had some of the Southerner's resistance to anything like insult. A story is frequently told in Baltimore of the way in which Lanier resented the conductor's words to a young lady at a rehearsal of the Peabody Orchestra. "——, irritated in his undisciplined musician's nerves, vented that irritation in a rude outburst towards a timid young woman who was playing the piano, either with orchestra or voice or in solo. In an instant Lanier's tall, straight figure shot up from his seat and, taking the chair he occupied in his hand, he said: `Mr. ——, you must retract every word you have uttered and apologize to that young lady before you beat another bar.' There was no mistake of his resoluteness and determination, and Mr. —— retracted and apologized; the orchestra went on only after the same had been done."