A Biography of Sidney Lanier Part 9

In November, 1872, Lanier went to San Antonio in quest of health.

In letters to his father giving an account of his trip from New Orleans to Galveston and thence to Austin, he shows keen insight into the life of that State. He sketches many types of character and scenes -- sketches that show at once his knowledge of human nature and his ability as a reporter. It may be said here that Lanier always took an interest in the pa.s.sing show, -- he was not a detached dreamer.

He arrived at San Antonio in November. On account of his ill health he could write but few letters, although he is "fairly reeking with all manner of quips and quiddities which I yearn to spread for the delectation of such a partial set of people as a home set always is."

He writes to his sister: "To-day has been as lovely as any day can hope to be this side of Millennium; and I have been out strolling morning and afternoon, far and wide, ever tempted onward by the delicious buoyant balm in the air and pleasantly surprised in finding what a distance I could accomplish without over fatigue." He rode horseback a great deal -- a form of exercise he was especially fond of all his life.

In a letter to his father he refers to some work he is doing in the library: "I have also managed to advance very largely my conceptions of the Jacquerie through a history which I secured from the Library of the Alamo Literary Society, -- a flouris.h.i.+ng inst.i.tution here which is now building a hall to cost some thirteen thousand dollars, and of which I have become a literary member." He has been reading Michelet's "History of France" which "gives him the essence of an old book which he had despaired of ever seeing, but which is the only authority extant, -- save Froissart and a few others equally unreliable; it is the chronicle of the 'Continuator of Guillaume de Nangis'."

With Olmsted's book of travels as a model, he planned a series of articles for a New York paper.

The only result, however, from these plans was a picturesque sketch of San Antonio,* afterwards published in the "Southern Magazine".

This sketch is at once a history of San Antonio and a description of the scenery and the people of that quaint city. "Over all the round of aspects in which a thoughtful mind may view a city,"

he says in a typical pa.s.sage, "it bristles with striking idiosyncrasies and bizarre contrasts. Its history, population, climate, location, architecture, soil, water, customs, costumes, horses, cattle, all attract the stranger's attention, either by force of intrinsic singularity or of odd juxtapositions. It was a puling infant for a century and a quarter, yet has grown to a pretty vigorous youth in a quarter of a century; its inhabitants are so varied that the 'go slow' directions over its bridges are printed in three languages, and the religious services in its churches held in four; the thermometer, the barometer, the vane, the hygrometer, oscillate so rapidly, so frequently, so lawlessly, and through so wide a meteorological range, that the climate is simply indescribable, yet it is a growing resort for consumptives; it stands with all its gay prosperity just in the edge of a lonesome, untilled belt of land one hundred and fifty miles wide, like Mardi Gras on the austere brink of Lent; it has no Sunday laws, and that day finds its bar-rooms and billiard-saloons as freely open and as fully attended as its churches; its buildings, ranging from the Mexican 'jacal' to the San Fernando Cathedral, represent all the progressive stages of man's architectural progress in edifices of mud, of wood, of stone, of iron, and of sundry combinations of those materials; its soil is in wet weather an inky-black cement, but in dry a floury-white powder; it is built along both banks of two limpid streams, yet it drinks rain water collected in cisterns; its horses and mules are from Lilliput, while its oxen are from Brobdingnag."

In the same vivid style he sketches the various characteristics of the city and its people. His account of a Texas "norther", his descriptions of the San Fernando Cathedral and of the Mission San Jose de Aquayo are especially good.

-- * 'Retrospects and Prospects', p. 34.

It was on this visit to San Antonio that Lanier resolved finally to devote himself to an artist's career. He came in contact with some of the German musicians of the city and played before the Maennerchor, which received his flute-playing with enthusiastic applause.

San Antonio, Tex., January 30, 1873.

Last night at eight o'clock came Mr. Scheidemantel, a genuine lover of music and a fine pianist, to take me to the Maennerchor, which meets every Wednesday night for practice. Quickly we came to a hall, one end of which was occupied by a minute stage with appurtenances, and a piano; and in the middle thereof a long table, at which each singer sat down as he came in. Presently, seventeen Germans were seated at the singing-table, long-necked bottles of Rhine-wine were opened and tasted, great pipes and cigars were all afire; the leader, Herr Thielepape, -- an old man with long, white beard and mustache, formerly mayor of the city, -- rapped his tuning-fork vigorously, gave the chords by rapid arpeggios of his voice (a wonderful, wild, high tenor, such as thou wouldst dream that the old Welsh harpers had, wherewith to sing songs that would cut against the fierce sea-blasts), and off they all swung into such a n.o.ble, n.o.ble old German full-voiced 'lied', that imperious tears rushed into my eyes, and I could scarce restrain myself from running and kissing each one in turn and from howling dolefully the while. And so . . . I all the time wors.h.i.+ping . . . with these great chords . . . we drove through the evening until twelve o'clock, absorbing enormous quant.i.ties of Rhine-wine and beer, whereof I imbibed my full share. After the second song I was called on to play, and lifted my poor old flute in air with tumultuous, beating heart; for I had no confidence in that or in myself. But, 'du Himmel!'

Thou shouldst have heard mine old love warble herself forth.

To my utter astonishment, I was perfect master of the instrument.

Is not this most strange? Thou knowest I had never learned it; and thou rememberest what a poor muddle I made at Marietta in playing difficult pa.s.sages; and I certainly have not practiced; and yet there I commanded and the blessed notes obeyed me, and when I had finished, amid a storm of applause, Herr Thielepape arose and ran to me and grasped my hand, and declared that he hat never heert de flude accompany itself pefore! I played once more during the evening, and ended with even more rapturous bravos than before, Mr. Scheidemantel grasping my hand this time, and thanking me very earnestly.

My heart, which was hurt greatly when I went into the music-room, came forth from the holy bath of concords greatly refreshed, strengthened, and quieted, and so remaineth to-day. I also feel better than in a long time before.*

-- * 'Letters', p. 71.

Again he played for "an elegant-looking company of ladies and gentlemen"

in a private home. "I had not played three seconds," he says, "before a profound silence reigned among the people, seeing which, and dreaming wildly, and feeling somehow in an eerie and elfish, and half-uncanny mood, I flew off into all manner of trills, and laments, and cadenza-monstrosities for a long time, but finally floated down into 'La Melancolie', which melted itself forth with such eloquent lamenting that it almost brought my tears -- and, to make a long story short, when I allowed the last note to die, a simultaneous cry of pleasure broke forth from men and women that almost amounted to a shout."*

Two weeks later he wrote: "I have writ the most beautiful piece, 'Field-larks and Blackbirds', wherein I have mirrored Mr. Field-lark's pretty eloquence so that I doubt he would know the difference betwixt the flute and his own voice."**

-- * 'Letters', p. 73.

** 'Letters', p. 47.

Inspired by the sympathy of people in whose judgment he had confidence, and impelled by his own genius a.s.serting itself, and realizing that his hold upon life was but slight, he went from San Antonio in April, 1873, with the fixed purpose to give the remainder of his life to music and poetry.

The resolution is all the more significant when it is remembered that the year 1873 was one of financial distress, especially in the South.

"It was then," says Joel Chandler Harris, "that the effects of war and waste were fully felt, and then that the stoutest heart was tried, labor was restless and hard to control, the planter was out of funds and interest was high, . . . the farmers were almost at the point of desperation."

The formation of this resolution to devote himself to artistic work marks an epoch in Lanier's life so important as to call for further comment.

For twelve years he had been deflected out of his true orbit.

For seven years he had given his time and talent to pursuits which he did not cherish -- writing only now and then with his left hand.

Everything had been against him. To preserve unspotted the ideal of his youth -- through all the changes and struggles of these years -- and now to give himself to it meant heroism of a rare type.

It meant that he must seem disobedient to a father with whom his relation had been peculiarly intimate, that he would go in the face of the opinion of friends and relatives, and that he must for a while at least leave behind his family, whom he loved with an unparalleled affection.

He was to enter upon a career the future of which was not certain.

In spite of all these obstacles, he deliberately made up his mind to give the remainder of his life to the work that he loved.

Once again, after he had settled down in Baltimore, his father made a determined effort to induce him to change his mind, but to no avail.

Lanier's answer to his father's letter, written November 29, 1873, is really his declaration of independence -- the vow of consecration: --

"I have given your last letter the fullest and most careful consideration.

After doing so I feel sure that Macon is not the place for me.

If you could taste the delicious crystalline air, and the champagne breeze that I've just been rus.h.i.+ng about in, I am equally sure that in point of climate you would agree with me that my chance for life is ten times as great here as in Macon. Then, as to business, why should I, nay, how CAN I, settle myself down to be a third-rate struggling lawyer for the balance of my little life, as long as there is a certainty almost absolute that I can do some other thing so much better?

Several persons, from whose judgment in such matters there can be no appeal, have told me, for instance, that I am the greatest flute-player in the world; and several others, of equally authoritative judgment, have given me an almost equal encouragement to work with my pen.

(Of course I protest against the necessity which makes me write such things about myself. I only do so because I so appreciate the love and tenderness which prompt you to desire me with you that I will make the fullest explanation possible of my course, out of reciprocal honor and respect for the motives which lead you to think differently from me.) My dear father, think how, for twenty years, through poverty, through pain, through weariness, through sickness, through the uncongenial atmosphere of a farcical college and of a bare army and then of an exacting business life, through all the discouragement of being wholly unacquainted with literary people and literary ways, -- I say, think how, in spite of all these depressing circ.u.mstances, and of a thousand more which I could enumerate, these two figures of music and of poetry have steadily kept in my heart so that I could not banish them. Does it not seem to you as to me, that I begin to have the right to enroll myself among the devotees of these two sublime arts, after having followed them so long and so humbly, and through so much bitterness?"*

-- * Quoted by William Hayes Ward in his Introduction to Lanier's 'Poems'.

The letter just quoted needs to be read with caution. It sets in too sharp antagonism his life up to this point and that of his later years.

Previous chapters of this book have been written in vain if they have not revealed the fact that Lanier was a much more highly developed man when he left Georgia than the letter would indicate. He wrote it in the first flush of enthusiasm at finding himself among artists.

But it is misleading. For instance, he speaks of the "farcical college"; yet in his last days, when he saw his life in its proper perspective, he said that he owed to Dr. Woodrow the strongest and most valuable stimulus of his early life. He was not a raw provincial; he had traveled extensively, had been a.s.sociated with people of culture, if not of letters, and he had read widely and wisely. His inheritance from Southern people, -- their temperament and their civilization, -- and his indebtedness to Southern scenery will be the more apparent in later chapters of this book.

All the while his genius had been steadily growing. When the time came he was a prepared man -- ready to seize with avidity every opportunity that presented itself.

Furthermore, the very struggle he had to maintain his ideal, and it will not do to minimize this struggle, had strengthened and enlarged his soul. One may as well lament Milton's absorption in the conflicts of his country as Lanier's partic.i.p.ation in the war and in the stirring events of reconstruction.

After the fort.i.tude and endurance manifested in this period of his life, his later sufferings were the more easily borne. One of his favorite theories was that antagonism or opposition either in art or morals is to be welcomed, for out of it comes a finer art and a larger manhood. He developed somewhat at length this theory in his admirable study of Shakespeare's growth.

In a pa.s.sage evidently autobiographical he traces Shakespeare's progress in the three periods of his life, the Dream Period, the Real or Hamlet Period, and the Ideal Period. Lanier, too, pa.s.sed through his Dream Period, -- the college days and the early years of the war. He pa.s.sed through his Hamlet Period -- the years from 1865 to 1873 -- years in which he felt the shock of the real, the twist and cross of life. There had been suffering from poverty, drudgery, and disease; there had been also something of the storm and stress of religious and philosophic doubt.

With the beginning of his artistic life he pa.s.ses into his Ideal Period, when by reason of the terrific shock of the real he was able to realize "a new and immortally fine reconstruction of his youth." He was to know what suffering meant in the future; but the serenity and joy of his life from this point are apparent to all who may study it.

Of fret, of dark, of thorn, of chill, Complain no more; for these, O heart, Direct the random of the will As rhymes direct the rage of art.

Chapter VI. A Musician in Baltimore

With his purpose firmly fixed in his mind he started for New York, which was then fast becoming the musical and literary centre of the country.

For three months and more he gave himself unstintedly to the work of perfecting himself in playing the flute, and attended regularly the great concerts then being given by Theodore Thomas.

It was an opportune time. The day of the Italian opera, for which Lanier did not care, was past, and orchestral music was beginning its triumphant career in this country. These were months, then, of education in the very music for which Lanier had yearned.

He at once attracted musical critics and made a stir in some of the churches and concert-rooms of the city.

He had brought along with him two of his own compositions, "Swamp Robin" and "Blackbirds"; and there were some who did not hesitate to prophesy a brilliant career for him as "the greatest flute-player in the world." Lanier did not rely on inspiration, however, nor was he satisfied with the applause of popular audiences; he knew that his course must be one of "straightforward behavior and hard work and steady improvement." He would be satisfied only with the judgment of Thomas or Dr. Leopold Damrosch, then conductor of the Philharmonic Society.

On his way to New York he had stopped at Baltimore, and on the advice of his friend Henry Wysham had played for Asger Hamerik, who was at that time making efforts to have the Peabody Inst.i.tute establish an orchestra. Hamerik was so attracted by Lanier's playing, both of masterpieces and of his own compositions, that he invited him to become first flute in the prospective orchestra. With even this promise in view, Lanier had written to his wife: "It is therefore a POSSIBILITY . . . that I may be first flute in the Peabody Orchestra, on a salary of $120 a month, which, with five flute scholars, would grow to $200 a month, and so . . . we might dwell in the beautiful city, among the great libraries, and midst of the music, the religion, and the art that we love -- and I could write my books and be the man I wish to be."* Hamerik did succeed in getting the orchestra established and Lanier accepted the position -- for far less money, however.

Lanier settled in Baltimore, in December, and at once attracted the attention of the patrons of the orchestra. In the Baltimore "Sun" of December 8, 1873, his playing was mentioned as one of the features of the opening symphony concert. In the same paper of January 25 occurs this note: "Lanier and Stubbs could not have acquitted themselves better, nor done more justice to their very difficult parts."

And so throughout the winter there is contemporary evidence that this "raw provincial, without practice and guiltless of instruction,"

was holding his own with the finely trained Germans and Danes of Hamerik's Orchestra.

-- * 'Letters', p. 75.

The fact is, Lanier was a musical genius. In playing the flute he combined deftness of hand and quick intuitiveness of soul.

The director of the Peabody Orchestra, who had been a pupil of Von Buelow, and was a composer of distinction, has left the most authoritative account of Lanier as a performer: --