Sidney Lanier | Page 9

often yearned, from the plains of Texas, or the flats of Florida, or the crowded streets of Baltimore. The climate was agreeable. Describing this section, Lanier said: "Surely, along that ample stretch of generous soil, where the Appalachian ruggednesses calm themselves into pleasant hills before dying quite away in the seaboard levels, a man can find such temperances of heaven and earth -- enough of struggle with nature to draw out manhood, with enough of bounty to sanction the struggle -- that a more exquisite co-adaptation of all blessed circumstances for man's life need not be sought."*
-- * `Music and Poetry', p. 134. --
Macon was the capital of Middle Georgia, the centre of trade for sixty miles around. There was among the citizens an aggressive public spirit, which made it the rival in commercial life of the older cities, Savannah and Augusta; before the War it was a more important city than Atlanta. It was one of the first towns to push the building of railroads; it became "the keystone of the roads grappling with the ocean at the east and with the waters beyond the mountains at the west." The richer planters and merchants lived on the hills above the city -- in their costly mansions with luxuriant flower gardens -- while the professional men and the middle classes lived in the lower part of the city. Social lines were not, however, so sharply drawn here as in cities like Richmond or Charleston. Middle Georgia was perhaps the most democratic section of the South. It was a democracy, it is true, working within the limitations of slavery,* and greatly tempered with the feudal ideas of the older States, but it was a life which gave room for the development of well-marked individual types. There were many Georgia "Crackers" in the surrounding country; they were even recognized more than in other States as part of the social structure. While still a young boy Lanier was delivery clerk in the Macon post-office, and entertained the family at nights by "mimicry of their funny speech." In later life he wrote dialect poems, setting forth the humor of these people, and drew upon their speech for illustrations of philological changes in language.
-- * In Macon a great many citizens had no slaves at all, and even those who had them had only a few. In 1850 the white population was 3323, while there were only 2352 slaves. In 1859, when the population had grown to 8000, the proportion was maintained. [Despite this statement by Mr. Mims, if these numbers are correct, it would appear that Macon had a significantly higher percentage of slaves than most areas of the South. -- A. L., 1998.] --
In Macon hospitality was regarded as an indispensable, even sacred duty. Cordiality and kindness in all the ordinary relations of men and women made up for whatever deficiencies there were in art and literature. Professor Le Conte, who lived in Macon during the boyhood of Lanier, speaking of some weeks he spent there during a college vacation, says, "Oh, the boundless hospitality of those times -- a continual round of entertainments, musicales, and evening parties, . . . horseback rides and boat rides during the day and piano-playing, singing, fluting, and impromptu cotillions and Virginia reels in the evening!"* The Lanier House, a hotel owned by Sterling Lanier from 1844 to 1854, was the centre of this social life. Here many distinguished men were entertained and many receptions were held. The proprietor was a typical "mine host", endeavoring to throw around his guests some of the atmosphere of the finer Southern homes. In 1851 President Fillmore and his Secretary of the Navy, John P. Kennedy, visited Macon and were entertained at this hotel. Macon was not without its cultivated people. Young ladies studied music in New York and brought into the private life of the city an atmosphere of musical culture. Now and then students were sent to the universities of the East. A group of professional and business men -- E. A. Nisbet, Washington Poe, Charles Day, Colonel Whittle, L. Q. C. Lamar (in his earlier days) -- had the refinement and cordiality characteristic of the old regime.
-- * `The Autobiography of Joseph Le Conte'. --
The religious spirit ran high in Macon. While the Presbyterian church had a better educated clergy and proportionately a greater number of educated personages among the laity, the Methodist and Baptist churches dominated the life of the community. Revivals that recall the Great Awakening in New England in the time of Jonathan Edwards were frequent. The most popular preacher in Macon -- George F. Pierce, afterwards bishop in the Southern Methodist church -- is said to have preached the terrors of the law so plainly that the editor of a long extinct Universalist paper