As the title-page shows, `The Power of Prayer' is the joint production
of Sidney and Clifford Lanier. The latter gentleman informs me
that once he read a newspaper scrap of about ten lines stating that a Negro
on first seeing a steamboat coming down the river was greatly frightened.
Mr. Lanier then wrote out in metrical form the plot of `The Power of Prayer',
substantially as we now have it, and sent it to his brother Sidney,
who polished it up and published it under their joint names.
Mr. Clifford Lanier had not seen the piece mentioned in the next paragraph,
nor had his brother; but on being shown the piece, the former
was of the opinion that his newspaper clipping must have been based
on the work to which I turn, as it had already appeared and the incidents
were so much alike.
In the third chapter of `The Gilded Age' (Hartford, Conn., 1873)
by Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner, there is a piece,
`Uncle Daniel's Apparition and Prayer', so similar to `The Power of Prayer'
that I quote it almost entire. Uncle Dan'l (a Negro), his wife,
his young mistress, and his two young masters were sitting on a log
by the Mississippi River one moonlight night a-talking.
"Suddenly Uncle Dan'l exclaimed: `Chil'en, dah's sumfin a comin'!'
"All crowded close together and every heart beat faster.
Uncle Dan'l pointed down the river with his bony finger.
"A deep coughing sound troubled the stillness, way toward a wooded cape
that jutted into the stream a mile distant. All in an instant
a fierce eye of fire shot out from behind the cape and sent
a long brilliant pathway quivering athwart the dusky water. The coughing
grew louder and louder, the glaring eye grew larger and still larger,
glared wilder and still wilder. A huge shape developed itself
out of the gloom, and from its tall duplicate horns dense volumes of smoke,
starred and spangled with sparks, poured out and went tumbling away
into the farther darkness. Nearer and nearer the thing came,
till its long sides began to glow with spots of light
which mirrored themselves in the river and attended the monster
like a torch-light procession.
"`What is it? Oh! what is it, Uncle Dan'l?'
"With deep solemnity the answer came:
"`It's de Almighty! Git down on yo' knees!'
"It was not necessary to say it twice. They were all kneeling in a moment.
And then while the mysterious coughing rose stronger and stronger
and the threatening glare reached farther and wider, the negro's voice
lifted up its supplications.
"`O Lord, we's ben mighty wicked, an' we knows dat we 'zerve to go
to de bad place, but, good Lord, deah Lord, we ain't ready yit,
we ain't ready -- let dese po' chil'en hab one mo' chance,
jes' one mo' chance. Take de ole niggah if you's got to hab somebody. --
Good Lord, good deah Lord, we don't know whah you's a gwine to,
we don't know who you's got yo' eye on, but we knows by de way you's a comin',
we know by de way you's a tiltin' along in yo' charyot o' fiah
dat some po' sinner's a gwine to ketch it. But, good Lord, dese chil'en
don't 'blong heah, dey's f'm Obedstown whah dey don't know nuffin,
an' you knows, yo' own sef, dat dey ain't 'sponsible. An' deah Lord,
good Lord, it ain't like yo' mercy, it ain't like yo' pity, it ain't like
yo' long-sufferin' lovin'-kindness for to take dis kind o' 'vantage
o' sich little chil'en as dese is when dey's so many ornery grown folks
chuck full o' cussedness dat wants roastin' down dah. O Lord,
spah de little chil'en, don't tar de little chil'en away f'm dey frens,
jes' let 'em off jes' dis once, and take it out'n de ole niggah.
HEAH I IS, LORD, HEAH I IS! De ole niggah's ready, Lord, de ole ----'
"The flaming and churning steamer was right abreast the party,
and not twenty steps away. The awful thunder of a mud-valve
suddenly burst forth, drowning the prayer, and as suddenly
Uncle Dan'l snatched a child under each arm and scoured into the woods
with the rest of the pack at his heels. And then, ashamed of himself,
he halted in the deep darkness and shouted (but rather feebly):
"`Heah I is, Lord, heah I is!'
"There was a moment of throbbing suspense, and then,
to the surprise and comfort of the party, it was plain
that the august presence had gone by, for its dreadful noises were receding.
Uncle Dan'l headed a cautious reconnoissance in the direction of the log.
Sure enough `The Lord' was just turning a point a short distance up the river,
and while they looked, the lights winked out and the coughing
diminished by degrees and presently ceased altogether.
"`H'wsh! Well now dey's some folks says dey ain't no 'ficiency in prah.
Dis chile would like to know whah we'd a ben now if it warn't fo' dat prah?
Dat's it. Dat's it!'"
There follows a discussion as to whether or not the prayer caused
the apparition to go by, of which of course Uncle Dan'l has no doubt.
The apparition reappears and Uncle Dan'l betakes himself to prayer again,
this time a long way off.
I wrote the authors of `The Gilded Age' and asked the source
of `Uncle Daniel's Apparition and Prayer'. Mr. Clemens kindly replied
that he is the author of the piece, and that it is pure fiction
without either history or tradition back of it.
A comparison of the two stories shows some differences.
The scene in the one case is the Alabama River, in the other the Mississippi.
Moreover, the PERSONNEL is different. The Negro man in Twain's story
is about forty, in Lanier's he is old and has been blind for forty years.
Another difference Mr. Sidney Lanier points out to his wife
in his letter of October 1, 1874: "Cliff's and my `Power of Prayer'
will come out in the Scribner's; probably in the `Etchings'
at the end of the Magazine. I wrote thee what Dr. Holland said
anent its resemblance to something of Mark Twain's in plot.
Day before yesterday I called and asked Dr. Holland what work of Mark Twain's
he referred to. `Well,' said he, `I know nothing about it myself:
I read the poem to a friend, and he suggested that the plot
was like something of Mark Twain's. But yesterday I read him your note,
and he then recollected that in Twain's version it is God Almighty
that is coming up the bend. In yours it is the Devil: -- which certainly
makes a little difference!' and here he broke into a great laugh.
`Yes,' I rejoined, `a difference toto coelo,' whereat he laughed again,
and told me he had already ordered a check to be sent me for the poem."
Mr. Clifford Lanier was born at Griffin, Ga., April 24, 1844, entered business
in Montgomery, Ala., at fourteen, subsequently attended college
for a year and a half, and in May, 1862, joined his brother
in the Confederate Army. His soldier life has been detailed
in connection with that of the poet. In October, 1864, Mr. Clifford Lanier
was assigned as signal officer to the blockade-runner `Talisman',
which, after two successful runs to the Bermuda Islands,
was wrecked in December, 1864. He escaped, however,
and surrendered to the Federal authorities at the end of April, 1865.
He has been successively lawyer, hotel manager, and superintendent of schools
in Montgomery, Ala. For several years past he has been a director
of the Bank of Montgomery and other corporations. All the while, however,
he has been deeply interested in literature and has written
some graceful sketches and poems, among which may be mentioned the following:
`Thorn-fruit' (1867), `Love and Loyalty at War' (1893),
`Biding Tryst' (1894), prose; `Greatest of These is Love',
`The American Philomel', `Keats and Fanny B----', `The Spirit of Art',
`Antinous to Hadrian', `Time', `Tireless', `Tramp' (in Stedman
and Hutchinson's `Library of American Literature'), `Love and Life',
`Edgar Allan Poe', etc. As stated in the `Introduction',
the Chautauquans of 1898 have named themselves "The Laniers"
in honor of Messrs. Sidney and Clifford Lanier. The motto of the class
is the first line of Mr. Clifford Lanier's `Transformation'
(`Sunday-school Times', Phila., June 30, 1894):
"The humblest life that lives may be divine."
8. The complete `Poems' has `the' before `world', but Mrs. Lanier
thinks the poet must have used `de' here as elsewhere.