When Lanier returned from Florida he tried to get various positions
which might enable him to secure a livelihood. A lectureship
at Johns Hopkins University, -- about which President Gilman
had talked with him in 1876 -- a librarian's position in the Peabody Library,
and a place in some of the departments of the government in Washington, --
all these were sought for in vain. One of the saddest commentaries
on the condition of political life in the seventies is that Lanier
was not able to secure even a clerkship in any department.
The days of civil service reform and the time when a commissioner
of civil service would urge the application for government positions
by Southern men had not yet come. "Inasmuch," Lanier says in a letter
to Mr. Gibson Peacock, June 13, 1877, "as I had never been a party man
of any sort, I did not see with what grace I could ask any appointment;
and furthermore I could not see it to be delicate, on general principles,
for me to make PERSONAL application for any particular office. . . .
My name has been mentioned to Mr. Sherman (and to Mr. Evarts, I believe)
by quite cordially disposed persons. But I do not think
any formal application has been entered, -- though I do not know.
I HOPE not; for then the reporters will get hold of it, and I scarcely know
what I should do if I could see my name figuring alongside
of Jack Brown's and Foster Blodgett's and the others of my native State."*
It was the same year in which Bayard Taylor was nominated
as minister to Germany and Lowell as minister to Spain, but Lanier
could not obtain a consulate to France or even the humblest position,
"seventy-five dollars a month and the like," in any department in Washington.
--
* `Letters', p. 43.
--
Under these circumstances he wrote what are perhaps the most pathetic words
in all his letters. "Altogether," he says, "it seems as if
there wasn't any place for me in this world, and if it were not for May
I should certainly quit it, in mortification at being so useless."*
He did not remain in this mood long, however. He settled in Baltimore
with his family in November, 1877, in four rooms arranged
somewhat as a French flat, and a little later in a cottage,
about which he writes enthusiastically to his friends.
There is no better illustration of his playfulness and his ability
to get the most out of everything than his letter to Gibson Peacock: --
--
* `Letters', p. 46.
--
33 Denmead St., Baltimore, Md.,
January 6, 1878.
The painters, the whitewashers, the plumbers, the locksmiths,
the carpenters, the gas-fitters, the stove-put-up-ers, the carmen,
the piano-movers, the carpet-layers, -- all these have I seen, bargained with,
reproached for bad jobs, and finally paid off: I have also coaxed my landlord
into all manner of outlays for damp walls, cold bathrooms,
and other like matters: I have furthermore bought at least
three hundred and twenty-seven household utensils which suddenly came
to be absolutely necessary to our existence: I have moreover
hired a colored gentlewoman who is willing to wear out my carpets,
burn out my range, freeze out my water-pipes, and be generally useful:
I have also moved my family into our new home, have had a Xmas tree
for the youngsters, have looked up a cheap school for Harry and Sidney,
have discharged my daily duties as first flute of the Peabody Orchestra,
have written a couple of poems and part of an essay
on Beethoven and Bismarck, have accomplished at least
a hundred thousand miscellaneous necessary nothings, -- and have NOT,
in consequence of the aforesaid, sent to you and my dear Maria
the loving greetings whereof my heart has been full during the whole season.
Maria's cards were duly distributed, and we were all touched
with her charming little remembrances. With how much pleasure
do I look forward to the time when I may kiss her hand in my own house!
We are in a state of supreme content with our new home:
it really seems to me as incredible that myriads of people have been living
in their own homes heretofore as to the young couple with a first baby
it seems impossible that a great many other couples have had
similar prodigies. It is simply too delightful. Good heavens,
how I wish that the whole world had a Home!
I confess I AM a little nervous about the gas-bills,
which must come in, in the course of time; and there are the water-rates,
and several sorts of imposts and taxes: but then, the dignity of being
liable for such things (!) is a very supporting consideration.
No man is a Bohemian who has to pay water-rates and a street-tax.
Every day when I sit down in my dining-room -- MY dining-room! --
I find the wish growing stronger that each poor soul in Baltimore,
whether saint or sinner, could come and dine with me.
How I would carve out the merry thoughts for the old hags!
How I would stuff the big wall-eyed rascals till their rags ripped again!
There was a knight of old times who built the dining-hall of his castle
across the highway, so that every wayfarer must perforce pass through:
there the traveler, rich or poor, found always a trencher and wherewithal
to fill it. Three times a day, in my own chair at my own table,
do I envy that knight and wish that I might do as he did.*
--
* `Letters', p. 49.
--
He was soon to find another joy in the study of Old and Middle
English literature, which he entered upon with unbounded zest and energy.
As has been seen in previous chapters, Lanier had been all his life
a reader of the best books. Before he came to Baltimore to live
he had impressed Paul Hamilton Hayne with his unusually thorough knowledge
of Chaucer and the Elizabethan poets. He was also familiar
with modern English literature. Now, however, he was to begin
the study of literature in a systematic and more scholarly way.
A distinct advance in his intellectual life must, therefore,
be dated from the winter of 1877-78, when he began to study English
with the aid of the Peabody Library.
For purposes of research this library was, during Lanier's lifetime,
one of the best in America. Mr. Peabody indicated its character when he said,
in his announcement of the gift, that it was to be "well furnished
in every department of knowledge, to be for the free use of all persons
who may desire to consult it, to satisfy the researches of students
who may be engaged in the pursuit of knowledge not ordinarily obtainable
in the private libraries of the country." It was modeled
on the plan of the British Museum, and he was anxious
to "engraft in Baltimore the offshoots of the highest culture obtainable
in the great capitals of Europe." In accordance with his idea,
the provost, Dr. Morison, had in the selection of the library
consulted specialists in the leading universities of the country.
Besides containing the scientific journals in the various
departments of human learning, it was especially rich
in the publications of the Early English Text Society, the Chaucer Society,
the Percy Society, and in the reprints of Elizabethan literature
made by Alexander B. Grosart and other English scholars.
There had been some complaint on the part of the citizens of Baltimore
that the library could not be of more general use. To meet this
Dr. Morison said in 1871: "We cannot create scholars or readers
to use our library, but we can make a collection of books
which all scholars will appreciate, when they shall appear among us
as they surely will some day." This prophecy was fulfilled
when Johns Hopkins University was established in 1876. In addition to
the excellent collection of books there was a carefully prepared catalogue,
which made the investigator's task much easier.
To the Peabody thus furnished and arranged, Lanier came
with an eagerness of mind that few men have had. Writing to J. F. Kirk,
August 24, 1878, he said, speaking of an edition of Elizabethan sonnets
which he was preparing: "I have found the Peabody Library here a rich mine
in the collection of material for my book, especially as affording sources
for the presentation of the anonymous poems in the early collections
which are very interesting." He always expressed himself as grateful
that he could find his working material so easily accessible.
Of his habits of study one of the assistant librarians says: "He usually came
in the morning, occupying the same seat at the end of the table,
where he worked until lunch time, so absorbed with his studies
that he scarcely ever raised his eyes to notice anything around him.
During the winters that he was a member of the Peabody Orchestra
he came back in the afternoons when the rehearsals were held,
bringing his flute with him, and continued his studies
until it was time to go into the rehearsal. He continued in this way
until his increasing weakness prevented him from leaving home,
when he would write notes to the desk attendants asking them to verify
some reference, or copy some extract for him, and frequently his wife
would come to the library to do the copying for him."*
--
* Letter of Mr. John Park to the author.
--
This library was Lanier's university. While other Southerners
were finding their way to German universities, he was training himself in
the methods and ideals of the modern scholar. The dream of his college days
was being fulfilled. He lacked the patient and careful training of men
who have a lifetime to devote to some special field of work.
He could not in the short time at his disposal explore the fields of learning
which he entered. Into those two or three years of study and research,
however, were crowded results and attainments that many less gifted men,
working with less prodigious zest and power, do not reach in a decade.
Writing to Bayard Taylor, October 20, 1878, he said: "Indeed, I have been
so buried in study for the past six months that I know not news
nor gossip of any kind. Such days and nights of glory as I have had!
I have been studying Early English, Middle English, and Elizabethan poetry,
from Beowulf to Ben Jonson: and the world seems twice as large."*
No sooner had he begun this work than he desired to communicate to others
his own pleasure in English literature. In March, 1878,
he began a series of lectures at the residence of Mrs. Edgworth Bird,
who had welcomed him to her home when he first came to Baltimore.
These lectures on Elizabethan poetry were attended by
many of the most prominent men and women of the city. The following winter
Lanier arranged for a series of lectures at the Peabody Institute.
"In the spring of 1878," says one of his friends, "I was speaking of
the desultory study which women so often do and of how much better it would be
if all this energy could be directed to some definite end. He said:
`That is just what I am purposing. Next winter I am going to have
a Shakespearean revival for women,' and he then proceeded
to tell me of the prospective lectures." He had become imbued with the idea
that much might be done in the way of establishing "Schools for Grown People"
in all the leading cities of America. He writes to Gibson Peacock: --
--
* `Letters', p. 214.
--
180 St. Paul St., Baltimore, Md.,
November 5, 1878.
I have been "allowing" -- as the Southern negroes say --
that I would write you, for the last two weeks; but I had a good deal to say,
and haven't had time to say it.
During my studies for the last six or eight months a thought
which was at first vague has slowly crystallized into a purpose,
of quite decisive aim. The lectures which I was invited to deliver
last winter before a private class met with such an enthusiastic reception
as to set me thinking very seriously of the evident delight
with which grown people found themselves receiving systematic instruction
in a definite study. This again put me upon reviewing
the whole business of Lecturing which has risen to such proportions
in our country, but which, every one must feel, has now reached its climax
and must soon give way -- like all things -- to something better.
The fault of the lecture system as at present conducted -- a fault
which must finally prove fatal to it -- is that it is too fragmentary,
and presents too fragmentary a mass -- `indigesta moles' -- of facts
before the hearers. Now if, instead of such a series
as that of the popular Star Course (for instance) in Philadelphia,
a scheme of lectures should be arranged which would amount to
the SYSTEMATIC PRESENTATION of a GIVEN SUBJECT, then the audience
would receive a substantial benefit, and would carry away
some genuine possession at the end of the course. The subject
thus systematically presented might be either scientific
(as Botany, for example, or Biology popularized, and the like) or domestic
(as detailed in the accompanying printed extract under the "Household" School)
or artistic or literary.
This stage of the investigation put me to thinking of schools
for grown people. Men and women leave college nowadays
just at the time when they are really prepared to study with effect.
There is indeed a vague notion of this abroad, but it remains vague.
Any intelligent grown man or woman readily admits that it would be well
-- indeed, many whom I have met sincerely desire -- to pursue
some regular course of thought; but there is no guidance,
no organized means of any sort, by which people engaged in ordinary avocations
can accomplish such an aim.
Here, then, seems to be, first, a universal admission
of the usefulness of organized intellectual pursuit for business people;
secondly, an underlying desire for it by many of the people themselves;
and thirdly, an existing institution (the lecture system) which,
if the idea were once started, would quickly adapt itself
to the new conditions. In short, the present miscellaneous lecture courses
ought to die and be born again as `Schools for Grown People'.
It was with the hope of effecting at least the beginning OF a beginning
of such a movement that I got up the "Shakespeare Course" in Baltimore.
I wished to show, to such a class as I could assemble,
how much more genuine profit there would be in studying AT FIRST HAND,
under the guidance of an enthusiastic interpreter, the writers and conditions
of a particular epoch (for instance) than in reading any amount of commentary
or in hearing any number of miscellaneous lectures on subjects which range
from Palestine to Pottery in the course of a week. With this view
I arranged my own part of the Shakespeare course so as to include
a quite thorough presentation of the whole SCIENCE of poetry as preparatory
to a serious and profitable study of some of the greatest singers
in our language.*
--
* `Letters', p. 53.
--
In accordance with this idea he drew up a scheme for
four independent series of class lectures, directed particularly
to the systematic guidance of persons -- especially ladies --
who wished to extend the scope of their culture. There were to be
schools of (1) English Literature, (2) the Household, (3) Natural Science,
and (4) Art. Thirty lectures were to be given in each school,
he to give those on English Literature. He hoped that he would be able
to arrange for such series in Washington, Philadelphia, and Southern cities.
This scheme is a striking anticipation of popular lectures
that have been given in New York city during the past few years,
as well as of the University Extension lectures since established
at the University of Chicago, the University of Pennsylvania,
and other American universities.
The only part of the scheme that took shape was the Shakespeare course
planned for the Peabody Institute. In addition to twenty-four lectures
by Lanier, two lectures were to be given by Prof. B. L. Gildersleeve, --
"one on the Timon of Lucian, compared with Timon of Shakespeare,
and one on Macbeth and Agamemnon; two on the State of Natural Science
in Shakespeare's Time, by Prof. Ira Remsen; two on Religion
in Shakespeare's Time, by Dr. H. B. Adams; two readings
from Marlowe's Faust and three lectures on the Mystery Plays
as illustrated by the Oberammergau Passion Play, by Prof. E. G. Daves;
and three lectures on the Early English Comedy as illustrated
by Gammer Gurton's Needle and Ralph Royster Doyster,
by Col. Richard M. Johnston."
Of these only Lanier's lectures were given, and they did not prove to be
a financial success, although they accomplished much good in Baltimore.
Published as they have been recently,* they are among the most valuable aids
in the study of Lanier's personality and of his attitude to literature.
It must be borne in mind that they were not written for publication,
nor for an academic audience, and that the only proper way to estimate them
is to compare them with lectures of a similar kind, --
Lowell's Lowell Institute lectures, for instance. Viewed from
this standpoint, one cannot but marvel at the carefulness with which
Lanier prepared his lectures, and the vital interest he took
in work which has been disagreeable to men of similar temperament.
Any one who expects to find in them contributions to present day knowledge
of the subjects touched upon will be disappointed; but no one can read them
without enjoying the poet's naive enthusiasm and his clear insight
into things that many a plodder never sees, nor can he fail to be impressed
with the modernness of his mind. He must have been a successful teacher, --
he uses every effort to fix the attention of his hearers,
he summarizes frequently, illustrates, vitalizes his subject.
--
* `Shakspere and His Forerunners'. Doubleday, Page & Co., 1903.
--
There is evident throughout these lectures the most enthusiastic appreciation
of literature and of its place in the life of the world.
Few men ever enjoyed reading more than Lanier. He knew something
of Stevenson's joy of being "rapt clean out of himself by a book," --
the process was "absorbing and voluptuous". And this enthusiasm
he shared with all his hearers. After much criticism of the scientific type
by followers of Arnold and Brunetiere, after many class-room
lectures and recitations, in which the spiritual value of literature
has been lost sight of, it is altogether refreshing to read
the almost childlike expressions of Lanier. One feels often
that the worship of what he calls his "sweet masters" is overdone,
and that he praises far too highly some obscure sonneteer;
but there is in his work the spirit of the romantic critic --
the zest of Charles Lamb and Hazlitt for the old masters.
Lowell, speaking of a period in his own life when he was delivering
his early lectures at Lowell Institute, said: "Then I was at
the period in life when thoughts rose in covies, . . . a period of life
when it doesn't seem as if everything has been said; when a man
overestimates the value of what specially interests himself, . . .
when he conceives himself a missionary, and is persuaded
that he is saving his fellows from the perdition of their souls
if he convert them from belief in some aesthetic heresy.
That is the mood of mind in which one may read lectures with some
assurance of success. . . . This is the pleasant peril of enthusiasm."
There could not be a better description of Lanier's lectures.
Longfellow, referring to some lectures on Dante which he had
repeated often, said: "It is become an old story to me. I am tired."
Lanier knew nothing of this `ennui'. He fretted at times over the fact
that he had to give to work of this kind the time he might have given
to his poetry, but there is not in his lectures a single note of weariness;
there is always the freshness and exuberance of youth, the joy of discovery,
of interpretation, of illuminating comment.
He had the power of making even the older English literature vital
to a popular audience. An Anglo-Saxon poem was not to him primarily
material for the study of philology, although he now and then tried
to interest his hearers in the etymology of words --
it was a revelation of the life of a race in its childhood.
While he lost in technical precision, he gave the listener a real grip
on some old poem by which he could always remember it and relate it
to other things. A few pages on "Beowulf", for instance,
presenting some specially striking scenes therefrom in a translation
that in rhythm and substance preserves the spirit of the original,
would incite the members of his audience to at least
a literary study of the Anglo-Saxon epic. By contrasting
"The Address of the Soul to the Dead Body" with "Hamlet",
he gave his hearers some clue to its interpretation -- he related it
to an elementary religious mood.
Is not this passage calculated to make one realize the real meaning
of "Beowulf", -- especially when accompanied by admirable translations?
"To our old ancestors there were many times when Nature must have seemed
a true Grendel's mother, a veritable hag, mindful of mischief;
and these monsters are not silly inventions, -- they are true types, ideals,
removed very far, if you please, yet born of the old struggle of man
against the wild beast for his meat, against the stern earth for his bread,
against the cold that cracks his skin and wracks his bones, against the wind
that whirls his ship over in the sea, the wave that drowns him,
the lightning that consumes him. . . .
"And so, as I said, there is to me an indescribable pathos in these
sombre pictures of Nature in our old Beowulf here, -- these drear marshes,
these monster-haunted meres, that boil with blood and foam with tempests,
these fast-rooted, joyless woods that overlean the waters,
these enormous, nameless beasts that lie along on promontories all day
and wreak vengeance on ships at night -- have you not seen them,
headlands running out into the sea like great beasts
with their forepaws extended? And is it not a huge Gothic picture of the wind
rushing down the windy nesse . . . in the evening, and whelming
the frail ships of the old Dane, the old Jute and Frisian and Saxon,
in the sea? All these, I say, are mere outcroppings of the rude war
which was not yet ended against Nature, traces of a time
when Nature was still a savage Mother of Grendel, tearing and devouring
the sons of men."*
--
* `Shakspere and His Forerunners', vol. i, p. 55.
--
Lanier believed strongly that the early English poems
ought to be taught in schools and colleges. The following passage
does not sound as revolutionary now as it did in 1879: --
"Surely it is time our popular culture were cited into
the presence of the Fathers. That we have forgotten their works
is in itself matter of mere impiety which many practical persons
would consider themselves entitled to dismiss as a purely sentimental crime;
but ignorance of their ways goes to the very root of growth.
"I count it a circumstance so wonderful as to merit
some preliminary setting forth here, that with regard to
the first seven hundred years of our poetry we English-speaking people
appear never to have confirmed ourselves unto ourselves. While we often
please our vanity with remarking the outcrop of Anglo-Saxon blood
in our modern physical achievements, there is certainly little
in our present art of words to show a literary lineage running back
to the same ancestry. Of course it is always admitted
that there WAS an English poetry as old to Chaucer as Chaucer is to us;
but it is admitted with a certain inclusive and amateur vagueness
removing it out of the rank of facts which involve grave and important duties.
We can neither deny the fact nor the strangeness of it,
that the English poetry written between the time of Aldhelm and Caedmon
in the seventh century and that of Chaucer in the fourteenth century
has never yet taken its place by the hearths and in the hearts of the people
whose strongest prayers are couched in its idioms. It is not found
in the tatters of use, on the floors of our children's playrooms;
there are no illuminated boy's editions of it; it is not
on the booksellers' counters at Christmas; it is not studied
in our common schools; it is not printed by our publishers;
it does not lie even in the dusty corners of our bookcases;
nay, the pious English scholar must actually send to Germany
for Grein's Bibliothek in order to get a compact reproduction
of the body of Old English poetry.
. . . . .
"One will go into few moderately appointed houses in this country
without finding a Homer in some form or other; but it is probably
far within the truth to say that there are not fifty copies of Beowulf
in the United States. Or again, every boy, though far less learned
than that erudite young person of Macaulay's, can give some account
of the death of Hector; but how many boys -- or, not to mince matters,
how many men -- in America could do more than stare if asked to relate
the death of Byrhtnoth? Yet Byrhtnoth was a hero of our own England
in the tenth century, whose manful fall is recorded in English words
that ring on the soul like arrows on armor. Why do we not draw in this poem
-- and its like -- with our mother's milk? Why have we no nursery songs
of Beowulf and the Grendel? Why does not the serious education
of every English-speaking boy commence, as a matter of course,
with the Anglo-Saxon grammar?"*
--
* `Music and Poetry', p. 136. This quotation is an expansion of one
in the lectures now under consideration. He evidently overstates his point,
but the passage suggests what the study of old English meant
to Lanier himself.
--
There would come from such study a strengthening of English prose
and a deepening of culture. He continues: --
"For the absence of this primal Anglicism from our modern system
goes -- as was said -- to the very root of culture.
The eternal and immeasurable significance of that individuality in thought
which flows into idiom in speech becomes notably less recognized among us.
We do not bring with us out of our childhood the fibre of idiomatic English
which our fathers bequeathed to us. A boy's English is diluted
before it has become strong enough for him to make up his mind clearly
as to the true taste of it. Our literature needs Anglo-Saxon iron, --
there is no ruddiness in its cheeks, and everywhere
a clear lack of the red corpuscles."
Lanier was more thoroughly at home in the Elizabethan age, however.
He reveled in its myriad-mindedness -- its adventures and exploits,
its chivalry and romance. The sonnets especially appealed to him, for they
abounded in conceits. One of the striking characteristics that he noted
in the leading men of that age was the union of strength and tenderness.
"All this love-making was manly," he says. "It was then as it is now,
that the bravest are the tenderest. . . . Stout and fine Walter Raleigh
pushes over to America, quite as ready to sigh a sonnet as to plant a colony.
Valorous Philip Sidney, who can write as dainty a sonnet as any lover
of them all, can at the same time dazzle the stern eyes of warriors
with deeds of manhood before Zuetphen and touch their hearts
to pity and admiration as he offers the cup of water -- himself being
grievously wounded and in a rage of thirst -- to the dying soldier
whose necessity is greater than his. Men's minds in this time were employed
with big questions; the old theory of the universe is just losing
its long hold upon the intellect, and people are busy with all space,
trying to apprehend the relation of their globe to the solar system.
To all this ferment the desperate conflict of the Catholic religion
with the new form of faith now coming in adds an element of stern strength;
men are pondering not only the physical relation of the earth to the heavens,
but the spiritual relation of the soul to heaven and hell.
This is no dandy period."*
--
* `Shakspere and His Forerunners', vol. i, p. 168.
--
"And if any one should say there is not time to read these poets,"
he says in a strain of excessive admiration, "I reply with vehemence
that in any wise distribution of your moments, after you have read
the Bible and Shakspere, you have no time to read anything
until you have read these . . . old artists. They are so noble,
so manful, so earnest; they have put into such perfect music
that protective tenderness of the rugged man for the delicate woman
which throbs all down the muscles of the man's life and turns
every deed of strength into a deed of love; they have set the woman,
as woman, upon such adorable heights of worship, and by that act
have so immeasurably uplifted the whole plane upon which society moves;
they have given to all earnest men and strong lovers
such a dear ritual and litany of chivalric devotion;
they have sung us such a high mass of constancy for our love;
they have enlightened us with such celestial revelation of the possible Eden
which the modern Adam and Eve may win back for themselves
by faithful and generous affection; that -- I speak it with reverence --
they have made another religion of loyal love and have given us
a second Bible of womanhood."*
--
* `Shakspere and His Forerunners', vol. i, p. 7.
--
Following his study of the sonnet-writers of the Elizabethan age,
comes a somewhat technical study of the pronunciation of Shakespeare's time --
a restatement of Ellis's monumental work on that subject.
His discussion of music in Shakespeare's time has already been noticed.
He next tried to reproduce for his class the domestic life of the age,
commenting in full on the sermons, the plays, the customs of the time.
In order to give unity to this study, he sketches in a somewhat fanciful way
the boyhood of Shakespeare in Stratford and his early manhood in London.
The most important part of the lectures, however, is his discussion
of the growth of Shakespeare's mind and art, a study made possible
by recent publications of the New Shakespeare Society.
Lanier never wrote any more vigorous or eloquent prose than these chapters,
although it must be said that he makes too much of the dramatist's personality
as revealed in his plays. Two passages are quoted to indicate
in the first place the standpoint from which he studied the plays,
and in the second place to show his conception of the moral height
attained by Shakespeare as compared with contemporary dramatists: --
"The keenest scholarship, the freest discussion, the widest search
for external evidence, the most careful checking of conclusions
by the Metrical Tests one after another, have all been applied
to establish this general succession in time of these three plays;*
and it is not in the least necessary to commit ourselves
to the exact years here given in order to feel sure that these three plays
represent three perfectly distinct epochs, separated from each other
by several years, in Shakspere's spiritual existence. . . .
--
* The `Midsummer Night's Dream', `Hamlet', and `The Tempest'.
--
"In short, the young eye already sees the twist and cross of life,
but sees it as in a dream: and those of you who are old enough
to look back upon your own young dream of life will recognize instantly
that the dream is the only term which represents that unspeakable
SEEING of things, without in the least REALIZING them,
which brings about that the youth admits all we tell
-- we older ones -- about life and the future, and, admitting it fully,
nevertheless goes on right in the face of it to ACT just as if
he knew nothing of it. In short, he sees as in a dream.
It is the Dream Period. But here suddenly the dream is done,
the real pinches the young dreamer and he awakes. This, too, is typical.
Every man remembers the time in his own life, somewhere from near thirty
to forty, when the actual oppositions of life came out before him
and refused to be danced over and stared him grimly in the face:
God or no God, faith or no faith, death or no death, honesty or policy,
men good or men evil, the Church holy or the Church a fraud,
life worth living or life not worth living, -- this, I say,
is the shock of the real, this is the Hamlet period in every man's life.
"And finally, -- to finish this outline, -- just as the man settles
all these questions shocked upon him by the real, will be his Ideal Period.
If he finds that the proper management of these grim oppositions of life
is by goodness, by humility, by love, by the fatherly care of a Prospero
for his daughter Miranda, by the human tenderness of a Prospero
finding all his enemies in his power and forgiving their bitter injuries
and practicing his art to right the wrongs of men and to bring
all evil beginnings to happy issues, then his Ideal Period
is fitly represented by this heavenly play, in which, as you recall its plot,
you recognize all these elements. Shakspere has unquestionably emerged
from the cold, paralyzing doubts of Hamlet into the human tenderness
and perfect love and faith of `The Tempest', a faith which can look clearly
upon all the wretched crimes and follies of the crew of time,
and still be tender and loving and faithful. In short, he has learned
to manage the Hamlet antagonisms, to adjust the moral oppositions,
with the same artistic sense of proportion with which we saw him
managing and adjusting the verse-oppositions and the figure-oppositions."*
--
* `Shakspere and His Forerunners', vol. ii, p. 260.
--
"Surely the genius which in the heat and struggle of ideal creation
has the enormous control and temperance to arrange and adjust
in harmonious proportions all these aesthetic antagonisms of verse,
surely that is the same genius which in the heat and battle of life
will arrange the moral antagonisms with similar self-control and temperance.
Surely there is a point of technic to which the merely clever artist
may reach, but beyond which he may never go, for lack of moral insight;
surely your Robert Greene, your Kit Marlowe, your Tom Nash, clever poets all,
may write clever verses and arrange clever dramas; but if we look
at their own flippant lives and pitiful deaths and their small ideals
in their dramas, and compare them, technic for technic, life for life,
morality for morality, with this majestic Shakspere, who starts in a dream,
who presently encounters the real, who after a while conquers it
to its proper place (for Shakspere, mind you, does not forget the real;
he will not be a beggar nor a starveling; we have documents
which show how he made money, how he bought land at Stratford;
we have Richard Quincy's letter to `my lovveinge good frend and contreyman
Mr. Wm. Shakspere, deliver thees,' asking the loan of thirty pounds
`uppon Mr. Bushells and my securytee,' showing that Shakspere
had money to lend), and finally turns it into the ideal in `The Tempest';
if we compare, I say, Greene, Marlowe, Nash, with Shakspere,
surely the latter is a whole heaven above them in the music of his verse,
as well as in the temperance and prudence of his life, as well also
as in the superb height of his later moral ideals. Surely, in fine,
there is a point of mere technic in art beyond which nothing but
moral greatness can attain, because it is at this point that the moral range,
the religious fervor, the true seership and prophethood of the poet,
come in and lift him to higher views of all things."*
--
* `Shakspere and His Forerunners', vol. ii, p. 324.
--
Lanier frequently indulged in little homilies, -- "preachments"
Thackeray would call them. They were lectures on life
as well as on literature in its more technical sense. Two passages indicate
a poet's feeling for nature, especially his love of trees: --
"But besides the phase of Nature-communion which we call physical science,
there is the other, artistic phase. Day by day we find
that the mystic influence of Nature on our human personality
grows more intense and individual. Who can walk alone
in your beautiful Druid Hill Park, among those dear and companionable oaks,
without a certain sense of being in the midst of a sweet and noble
company of friends? Who has not shivered, wandering among these trees,
with a certain sense that the awful mysteries which the mother earth
has brought with her out of the primal times are being sucked up
through those tree-roots and poured upon us out of branch and leaf
in vague showers of suggestions that have no words in any language?
Who, in some day when life has seemed TOO bitter, when man has seemed
too vile, when the world has seemed all old leather and brass,
when some new twist of life has seemed to wrench the soul
beyond all straightening, -- who has not flown, at such a time,
to the deep woods, and leaned against a tree, and felt his big arms outspread
like the arms of the preacher that teaches and blesses,
and slowly absorbed his large influences, and so recovered one's self
as to one's fellow-men, and gained repose from the ministrations
of the Oak and the Pine?"*
--
* `Shakspere and His Forerunners', vol. i, p. 72.
--
"In the sweet old stories of ascetics who by living pure and simple lives
in the woods came to understand the secrets of Nature,
the conversation of trees, the talk of birds, do we not find
but the shadows of this modern communion with Nature to keep ourselves
simple and pure, to cultivate our moral sense up to that point of insight
that we see all Nature alive with energy, that we hear the whole earth
singing like a flock of birds, yet so that we remember Death with Mr. Darwin,
so that nothing is any more commonplace, so that death has its place
and life its place, so that even a hasty business walk along the street
to pay a bill is a walk in fairyland amidst unutterable wonders
as long as the sky is above and the trees in sight, -- in other words,
to be natural . . . natural in our art, natural in our dress,
natural in our behavior, natural in our affections, -- is not that
a modern consummation of culture? For to him who rightly understands Nature
she is even more than Ariel and Ceres to Prospero; she is more than a servant
conquered like Caliban, to fetch wood for us: she is a friend and comforter;
and to that man the cares of the world are but a fabulous
`Midsummer Night's Dream', to smile at -- he is ever in sight of the morning
and in hand-reach of God."*
--
* `Shakspere and His Forerunners', vol. i, p. 73.
--
The lectures close, as they began, with an estimate of the value of the poet
to the world and with a word of greeting to his audience: --
"Just as our little spheres of activity in life surely combine
into some greater form or purpose which none of us dream of,
and which no one can see save some unearthly spectator
that stands afar off in space and looks upon the whole of things, --
I was impressed anew with the fact that it is the poet
who must get up to this point and stand off in thought
at the great distance of the ideal, look upon the complex swarm of purposes
as upon these dancing gnats, and find out for man the final form and purpose
of man's life. In short, -- and here I am ending this course with the idea
with which I began it, -- in short, it is the poet who must sit
at the centre of things here, as surely as some great One sits
at the centre of things Yonder, and who must teach us how to control,
with temperance and perfect art and unforgetfulness of detail,
all our oppositions, so that we may come to say with Aristotle, at last,
that poetry is more philosophical than philosophy and more historical
than history.
"Permit me to thank you earnestly for the patience with which
you have listened to many details that must have been dry to you;
and let me sincerely hope that, whatever may be your oppositions in life,
whether of the verse kind or the moral kind, you may pass, like Shakspere,
through these planes of the Dream Period and the Real Period,
until you have reached the ideal plane from which you clearly see
that wherever Prospero's art and Prospero's love and Prospero's
forgiveness of injuries rule in behavior, there a blue sky and a quiet heaven
full of sun and stars are shining over every tempest."*
--
* `Shakspere and His Forerunners', vol. ii, p. 328. I have quoted freely
from these lectures because they are in a form not easily accessible
to the general reader, and because, more than any other of his prose works,
they reveal the inner man.
--
One of the things which enabled Lanier to produce the effect that he did
in teaching literature was the fact that he was an excellent reader.
He had a singularly clear and resonant voice and a power
to enter so into the spirit of a work of art that he had no trouble
in keeping a large audience thoroughly interested. The following account
by one of his hearers, written a short time after his death,
gives the effect produced by his readings: --
"Mr. Lanier did not lay claim to any extraordinary power as a reader;
indeed, he once, when first requested to instruct a class of ladies
in poetic lore, modestly demurred, on the ground of his inability
to read aloud. `I cannot read,' he said simply; `I have never tried.'
All, however, who afterwards heard him read such scenes from Shakespeare
as he selected to illustrate his lectures were thrilled
by his vivid realization of that great dramatist. His voice, though distinct,
was never elevated above a moderate tone; he rarely made use of a gesture;
certainly, there was no approach to action or to the adaptation of his voice
to the varied characters of the play; yet many scenes which I have
heard him read, I can hardly believe that I have never seen produced
on the stage, so truly and vividly did he succeed in presenting them
to my imagination. At the time I used to wonder in what element
lay the charm. Partly, of course, in his own profound appreciation
of the author's meaning, partly also in his clear and correct emphasis,
but most of all in the wonderful word-painting with which,
by a few masterly strokes, he placed the whole scene before the mental vision.
In theatrical representation, a man with a bush of thorn and lantern
must `present moonshine' and another, with a bit of plaster,
the wall which divides Pyramus from his Thisbe; but in Mr. Lanier's readings,
a poet's quick imagination brought forth in full perfection
all the accessories of the play. When he read, in the Johns Hopkins
lecture hall, that scene from `Pericles' in which Cerimon restores
Thaisa's apparently lifeless body to animation, a large audience
listened with breathless attention. His graphic comments
caused the whole rapidly moving scene to engrave itself on the memory."*
--
* Letter of Mrs. Arthur W. Machen to the author.
--
Such readings and lectures are treasured in the minds of those who heard them.
In addition to his work at the Peabody Institute Lanier taught
in various schools, and so extended his influence. It is easy
to overstate the good he accomplished, but it is within bounds to say
that his efforts to develop the culture life of the city bore fruit,
and that he has his place among those who have contributed
to the new Baltimore. He shared in all the advantages made possible
by the philanthropy of George Peabody and Johns Hopkins,
and in such aesthetic influences as the Allston Art Association
and the Walters collection of French and Spanish pictures. In turn
he promoted a love of music and poetry. The successive invasions of Baltimore
by people from New England, Virginia, and Georgia had added
a cosmopolitan and cultured society. By a wide circle Lanier was
much beloved. His admiration for the city and his ideals for its future
are well expressed in his "Ode to the Johns Hopkins University": --
And here, O finer Pallas, long remain, --
Sit on these Maryland hills, and fix thy reign,
And frame a fairer Athens than of yore
In these blest bounds of Baltimore. . . .
Yea, make all ages native to our time,
Till thou the freedom of the city grant
To each most antique habitant
Of Fame, -- . . .
And many peoples call from shore to shore,
`The world has bloomed again at Baltimore!'