school, since he had had a college education, 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 music and in dramatic criticism than in books. Having read Corn in Lippincott's, he wrote an enthusiastic notice of it in the Evening Bulletin; and this notice speedily brought him a letter from Lanier, the first in this collection, and ere many weeks they met. From their meeting ripened a friendship strong and honorable on both sides, as these letters will show. Though Mr. Peacock was a man of extreme reserve, and the elder by twenty years, yet neither age nor reserve hindered his affectionate interest from manifesting itself to Lanier, who, in turn, rejoiced at finding a friend who was also competent to criticise and to suggest.

Through Mr. Peacock, Lanier became acquainted with Charlotte Cushman, with Bayard Taylor, and with many another of the appreciators of art and literature who in those days frequented the little parlors in Walnut Street. How inspiring and helpful this intercourse was to Lanier we may guess when we remember that until now, though past thirty, he had been seeking health and a livelihood in places which, stricken by the havoc of conquest, had little time or means for culture. Amid hostile conditions he had cherished his Ideal, and now he found, what every genuine soul craves, friendship and appreciation. There was no danger of his becoming spoiled; the sympathy he received was far removed from flattery. To Miss Cushman he was especially drawn, all who had the privilege of knowing well that generous and brave spirit, - and to Mrs. Peacock, whose voice of wonderful range and beauty, and whose sympathetic nature, made her doubly attractive to him. He could now feel that though fame still lingered, and though the daily struggle for existence must be

-as were

met, there was a little circle of friends whose commendation he could trust, and upon whose affection, liberal and sincere, he could at all times rely. At the Peacocks' he more than once found shelter in distress. There, during the Centennial year, he was tenderly nursed through an illness which brought him very near the grave; there, his visits were always welcome.

Lanier's letters to Mr. Peacock tell so fully his plans and wanderings between 1875 and 1880 that it is unnecessary to add biographic details here. During those years there was no other correspondent to whom he so freely wrote out of his heart. These letters not only admit us into the fellowship of a poet, but they also disclose to us a man whose life was, in Milton's phrase,

66

a true poem." Here is nothing to extenuate, nothing to blot: the poet and the man are one. My purpose in editing has, accordingly, been to retain whatever reveals aught, however slight, of the man, in order that the portrait of Lanier's personality, unconsciously drawn by himself, should be as complete as possible; and whatever does not refer to this will at least illustrate the conditions by which an embodied Ideal, a Poet, so recently found himself beset in this world of ours. I know not where to look for a series of letters which, in bulk equally small, relate so humanly and beautifully the story of so precious a life.

64 CENTRE STREET, BALTIMORE, MD., January 26th, 1875.

MY DEAR SIR: A very lovely friend of mine Mrs. F. W.- has been so gracious as to transmit to me, through my wife, your first comments on my poem Corn, in Lippincott's, which I had not seen before. The slip appears to be cut from the Bulletin of 16th or 17th.

I cannot resist the impulse which urges me to send you my grateful acknowledgments of the poetic insight, the heartiness and the boldness which

display themselves in this critique. I thank you for it, as for a poet's criticism upon a poet.

Permit me to say that I am particularly touched by the courageous independence of your review. In the very short time that I have been in the hands of the critics, nothing has amazed me more than the timid solicitudes with which they rarefy in one line any enthusiasm they may have condensed in another, a process curiously analogous to those irregular condensations and rarefactions of aim which physicists have shown to be the conditions for producing an indeterminate sound. Many of my critics have seemed-if I may change the figure-to be forever conciliating the yet-unrisen ghosts of possible mistakes. From these you separate yourself toto cœlo: and I am thoroughly sure that your method is not only far more worthy the dignity of the critical office, but also far more helpful to the young artist, by its bold sweeping-away of those sorrowful uncertain mists that arise at times out of the waste bitterness of poverty and obscurity.

anticipated double delight of yourselves and of music.

Many thanks for the Bulletin containing the Sonnet. I am gratified that you should have thought the little poem worth republishing. I have not now time to say more than that I am always

of

Your friend, SIDNEY LANIER.

March 24th, 1875.

A thousand thanks for your kind and very thoughtful letter. I should have gone to Philadelphia in acceptance your invitation to meet Miss Cushman, - although much tied by engagements here, and in ill condition of health to go anywhere, had I not expected to meet her here in April. Your announcement of her illness gives me sincere concern, and I will be thankful to you if you will keep me posted as to her progress in recovery. I wrote her a short time ago, to care of her bankers in New York: but fear she has been too ill to read my letter.

I have the delightful anticipation of seeing you again, for a day or two, erelong but cannot tell whether it will be in two or three weeks. My plans depend on the movements of others; and as soon as they become more definite shall know them.

you

Pray tell your good Mrs. Peacock that I am much better, and, though in daily fight against severe pain, am hard at work. About four days ago, a certain poem which I had vaguely ruminated for a week before took hold of me like a real James River ague, and I have been in a mortal shake with the same, day and night, ever since. I call it The Symphony: I personify each instrument in the orchestra, and make them discuss various deep social questions of the times, in the progress of the music. It is now nearly finished; and I shall be rejoiced thereat, for it verily racks all the bones of my spirit.

Did you see Mr. [Bayard] Taylor? Tell me about him. I cannot tell you

with what eagerness I devoured Felix Holt. For perfect force-in-repose, Miss Evans (or, I should have said, Mrs. Lewes) is not excelled by any writer.

Pray convey my warm regards to Mrs. Peacock, and keep that big, heartsome "Max Adeler "1 in remembrance of his and

Your friend, SIDNEY LANIER.

BRUNSWICK, GA., April 18th, 1875. MY DEAR MRS. PEACOCK: Such a three days' dolce far niente as I'm having! With a plenty of love, — wife's, bairns', and brother's, and no end of trees and vines, what more should a workbattered man desire, in this divine atmosphere which seems like a great sigh of pleasure from some immense Lotos in the vague South? The little house, by one of whose windows I am writing, stands in one corner of an open square which is surrounded by an unbroken forest of oaks, of all manner of clambering and twining things, and of pines, not the dark, gloomy pines of the Pennsylvania mountains, but tall masses of vivid emerald all in a glitter with the more brilliant green of the young buds and cones; the sun is shining with a hazy and absent-minded face, as if he were thinking of some quite other star than this poor earth; occasionally a little wind comes along, not warm, but unspeakably bland, bringing strange scents rather of leaves than of flowers; the mocking-birds are all singing, but singing sotto voce, and a distant cock crows as if he did n't mean to crow, but only to yawn luxuriously; an old mauma over in the neighborhood is singing, as she sets about washing in her deliberate way, something like this:

Adagio.

etc.

1 The pseudonym of Charles Heber Clark, at that time an editor of the Philadelphia Evening Bulletin, and the author of Out of

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persistently rejecting all the semitones of the D minor in which she is singing (as I have observed all the barbaric music does, as far as it can), and substituting the stronger C for the C#; and now my little four-year-old comes in from feeding the pony and the goat, and writhes into my lap, and inquires with great interest, Papa, can you whistle backwards?" by which I find, after a puzzled inquiry, that he means to ask if I can whistle by drawing my breath in, instead of forcing it out, an art in which he proceeds to instruct me with a great show of superiority; and now he leaves, and the whole world is still again, except the bird's lazy song and old mauma's monotonous croon

ing.

BRUNSWICK, GA., June 16th, 1875.

I am just stopping here a day, after the woods of Florida. I have all your letters. Out of what a liberal sky do you rain your gracious encouragements upon me! In truth, dear friend, there is such large sweep and swing in this showerafter-shower of your friendliness, it comes in such big rhythms of generosities, it is such a poem of inner rains, that I cannot at all get myself satisfied to meet it with anything less than that perfect rose of a song which should be the product of such watering. I think I hear one of these growing now down in my soul yonder, somewhere: presently the green calyx of silence shall split, . . . and you shall see your flower.

Your notice of The Symphony1 has given a great deal of pleasure to my family as well as to me. It has been extensively copied in the Southern papers, and adopted by editors as expressing their views of the poem.

Mr. [Bayard] Taylor's letter brings me a noble prospect of realizing an old dream. I had always a longing after him, but I have never dared indulge it more than one indulges what one considers only a pet possibility; so that now when I behold this mere shadow of a meeting assume the shape of an actual hand-shaking in the near future, it is as when a man wakes in the morning and finds his Dream standing by his bed.

After August, when my present engagement will terminate, my motions will entirely depend on whatever incomebringing work I may succeed in finding. Within three weeks from this time, I will however be en route to New York: and you must write me as soon as you receive this addressing me at Macon, Ga. your programme for that time, if you going to be out of Philadelphia. I shall look you up ubicunque in Anglia, wherever you may be.

're

1 The Symphony was published in Lippincott's Magazine, June, 1875.

May I beg that you will cause Mr. Taylor to address me to your own care, or, if you are to leave town before I get there, to care of the Bulletin? I will write my own plans more definitely in a few days.

Pray accept this photograph.2 Of course you will see that, instead of being an average of my phiz, it is the best possible single view thereof, and is for that reason much better looking than I am, but it will serve to remind you and my dear Mrs. Peacock of Your friend,

SIDNEY L.

PHILADELPHIA, PA., July 31st, 1875.

If you have ever watched a shuttle, my dear friend, being violently knocked backward and forward in a loom, never settled for an instant at this end before it is rudely smacked back to the other, you will possess a very fair idea of the nature of my recent travels. I do not know how many times I have been from North to South in the last six weeks; the negotiations about the Florida book and the collection of additional material for it have required my presence at widelyseparated points often; and as my employer is himself always on the wing, I have sometimes had to make a long chase in order to come up with him. I believe my wanderings are now ended, however, for a time, and as the very first of the many blessings which this cessation of travel will bring to a tired soul, I count the opportunity to send a line which will carry my love to you and to your other you.

Lippincott has made what seems to be a very fair proposition to print the Florida book, taking an interest in it which I think practically amounts to about one half. I am going to add to it, by way of appendix, a complete Guide-book to Florida; and as this feature ought of itself to secure some sale among the fif

2 The photograph is reproduced in the volume of Lanier's poems published by Charles Scribner's Sons in 1884.

teen or twenty thousand annual visitors, I am induced to hope that my employer may be reimbursed for his entire outlay, - though I keep in mind, what they all tell me, that the publication of any book is a mere lottery, and baffles all prophecy as to its success. Two chapters of the book, one on St. Augustine in April, and one on The Oclawaha River, are to appear in the Magazine, October and November numbers.

I will probably leave here to-day, and my address for a month hence will be 195 Dean St., Brooklyn. Your package of letters was handed me duly at the Bulletin office. I was ready to murder somebody, for pure vexation, when I learned there that I had just missed you by about two hours; it would have been such a comfort to have seen your two faces before you left.

Many thanks for Mr. Taylor's letter. I do hope I may be able to see him during the next month. Do you think

a letter from me would reach him at Mattapoisett? For his estimate of my Symphony seems to me so full and generous that I think I will not resist the temptation to anticipate his letter to me. I will write also to Mr. Calvert to-morrow; his insight into a poet's internal working, as developed in his kind notice of me in the Golden Age, is at once wonderful and delightful.

The next number of Lippincott's will contain four sonnets of mine in the Shakespearian metre. I sincerely hope they are going to please you. You will be glad to know that The Symphony meets with continuing favor in various parts of the land.

My month in Brooklyn will be full of the very hardest work. I will be em ployed in finishing and revising the Florida book, many of the points in which demand very careful examination. In August my railroad employment termi

nates.

My friend Miss Stebbins has sent me a letter of introduction to her brother,

who is chairman of the Board of Trustees of the new College of Music in New York. I am going to see if they will found a chair of the Physics of Music and give it me. I can scarcely describe how lovely my life would seem if I could devote the balance of it to such lectures as would properly belong to a professorship of this nature, and to my poetry.

to you

So, now, you know all about me: tell me how you and Mrs. Peacock fare through the summer. What is Cushing's Island? A small one, broken, with water dashing up all around you, and a clean, sweet wind airing your very souls? I wish it might be, for your sakes, and I hope you are both getting strong and elastic. Write me straightway all about yourselves. I beg that each of you will deliver a loving message for me to the other and that you will both hold me always as

Your faithful friend,
SIDNEY LANIER.

195 DEAN STREET, BROOKLYN, N. Y., August 10th, 1875.

Your letter of the 8th, enclosing McClellan's, reached me a few moments ago. Accept my thanks for both.

Your syren-song of the beauties of your Island is at once tempting and tantalizing. When you say you "think I would be tempted to come, if I could imagine the enchanting views from this house," you make me think of that French empress who wondered how the stupid canaille could be so obstinate as to starve when such delicious pâtés could be bought for only five francs apiece. Cushing's Island, my dear friend, is as impossible to me, in the present state of the poetry-market, as a dinner at Very's was to a chiffonnier: all of which I would n't tell you, both because it is personal and because poverty is not a pleasant thing to think about at Cushing's Island, except for the single controlling reason 1 A resort in the harbor of Portland, Me.