The Poems of Sidney Lanier | Page 9

could never describe to you what a mere drought and famine
my life has been, as regards that multitude of matters which I fancy one
absorbs when one is in an atmosphere of art, or when one is in
conversational relation with men of letters, with travellers, with persons

who have either seen, or written, or done large things. Perhaps you
know that, with us of the younger generation in the South since the war,
pretty much the whole of life has been merely not dying." ==
The selection of Mr. Lanier to write the Centennial Cantata first
brought his name into general notice; but its publication, in advance of
the music by Dudley Buck, was the occasion
of an immense amount
of ridicule, more or less good-humored. It was written by a musician to
go with music under the new relations of poetry to music brought about
by the great modern development of the orchestra, and was not to be
judged without its orchestral accompaniment. The criticism it received
pained our poet, but did not at all affect his faith in his theories of art.
To his father he wrote from New York, May 8, 1876:
==
"My experience in the varying judgments given about poetry . . .
has all converged upon one solitary principle, and the experience of the
artist in all ages is reported by history to be of precisely the same
direction. That principle is, that the artist shall put forth, humbly and
lovingly, and without bitterness against opposition, the very best and
highest that is within him, utterly regardless of contemporary criticism.
What possible claim can contemporary criticism set up to respect -- that
criticism which crucified Jesus Christ, stoned Stephen, hooted Paul for
a madman, tried Luther for a criminal, tortured Galileo, bound
Columbus in chains, drove Dante into a hell of exile, made
Shakespeare write the sonnet, `When in disgrace with fortune and
men's eyes', gave Milton five pounds for `Paradise Lost', kept Samuel
Johnson cooling his heels on Lord Chesterfield's doorstep, reviled
Shelley as an unclean dog, killed Keats, cracked jokes on Glueck,
Schubert, Beethoven, Berlioz, and Wagner, and committed so many
other impious follies and stupidities that a thousand letters like this
could not suffice even to catalogue them?"
==
Since first coming to the North in September, 1873,
Mr. Lanier had
been separated from his family. The two happy months with them after
his visit to Florida was followed by several other briefer visits. The
winters of 1874-75 and 1875-76 found him still in Baltimore, playing at
the Peabody, pursuing his studies and writing the "Symphony", the

"Psalm of the West", the "Cantata", and some shorter poems, with a
series of prose descriptive articles for `Lippincott's Magazine'. In the
summer of 1876 he called his family to join him at West Chester, Pa.
This was authorized by an engagement to write the Life of Charlotte
Cushman. The work was begun, but the engagement was broken two
months later, owing to the illness of the friend of the family who was to
provide the material from the mass of private correspondence.
Following this disappointment a new cold was incurred,
and his
health became so much impaired that in November
the physicians
told him he could not expect to live longer than May, unless he sought
a warmer climate. About the middle of December he started with his
wife for the Gulf coast, and visited Tampa, Fla., gaining considerable
benefit from the mild climate. In April he ventured North again,
tarrying through the spring with his friends in Georgia; and, after a
summer with his own family in Chadd's Ford, Pa., a final move was
ventured in October to Baltimore as home.
Here he resumed his old
place in the Peabody orchestra,
and continued to play there for three
winters.
The Old English studies which he had pursued with such deep delight,
he now put to use in a course of lectures on Elizabethan Verse, given in
a private parlor to a class of thirty ladies.
This was followed by a
more ambitious "Shakespeare Course" of lectures in the smaller hall of
the Peabody Institute. The undertaking was immensely cheered on and
greatly praised, but was a financial failure. It opened the way, however,
to one of the chiefest delights of his life, his appointment as lecturer on
English literature for the ensuing year at the Johns Hopkins University.
After some correspondence on the subject with President Gilman, he
received notice on his birthday, 1879, of his appointment, with a salary
attached (it may be mentioned), which gave him the first income
assured in any year since his marriage. This stimulated him to new life,
for he was now barely able to walk after a severe illness and renewed
hemorrhage.
The last two years had been more fruitful in verse than any