Letters Between Two Poets: The Correspondence of Bayard Taylor and Sidney Lanier

I.

THESE letters are the formal record of the friendship between two poets; and while the self-evident reason for putting them before the public must lie in the discussions they contain on matters of literary art, there is a rather special human interest in the relation which called them forth. For this was a friendship which did not mature slowly, restrained by the cautious prudence of alert self-consciousness, but sprang at once into full, generous, and whole-hearted existence, as if aware how brief a time were allotted it.

In Letters of Sidney Lanier,¹ the circumstances which brought about the first epistolary acquaintance appear in detail. Mr. Gibson Peacock, editor of the Philadelphia Evening Bulletin, and a warm friend and admirer of Mr. Lanier, had sent the younger poet’s newly published Symphony to Mr. Taylor; and when the latter’s hearty appreciation of this poem reached the author, it called forth the letter which inaugurated their friendship and a correspondence that lasted, almost without a break, until Mr. Taylor’s death. Since this correspondence is practically complete (with the exception of a few extracts that appear in the Life and Letters of Bayard Taylor), the text has been allowed to explain itself, with no elucidating comment save in one or two instances.

It should be remembered that at this time Bayard Taylor had been a very prominent figure in the literary world for over twenty-five years. As author, translator, traveler, diplomatist, and lecturer, his position had long been assured ; four years before, his twenty or thirty previous volumes had culminated in that great translation of Faust which is in itself a literary heritage that any man might consider sufficient for a life work. Sidney Lanier’s name, on the contrary, was almost unknown. Only a few months before had appeared the first poem which brought him any general recognition,² and his opening letter expresses his deep sense of generous and sympathetic appreciation from the older man, whose own battle with Obscurity was but a dim memory.

The opportunity was for Mr. Lanier “a noble prospect of realizing an old dream.” He writes to Mr. Peacock shortly before addressing Mr. Taylor himself : “ I have always had a longing after him, but I have never dared indulge it more than one indulges what one considers only a pet possibility ; so that now when I behold this mere shadow of a meeting assume the shape of an actual hand-shaking in the near future, it is as when a man wakes in the morning and finds his Dream standing by his bed.”

Early in August, 1875, Mr. Lanier made a trip to New York, and his first letter is from 195 Dean Street, Brooklyn : —

August 7, 1875.

MY DEAR SIR, — When a man, determined to know as well what is under as what is above, has made his plunge down to the bottom of the great Sea Doubtful of poetic endeavor, and has looked not only upon the enchanted caverns there, but upon the dead bodies also, there comes a moment, as his head reemerges above the surface, when his eyes are ablink with salt water and tears, when the horizon is a round blur, and when he wastes strength that might be applied to swimming in resolutely defying what seems to be the gray sky overhead.

In such a moment, a friendly word — and all the more if it be a friendly word from a strong swimmer whom one perceives far ahead, advancing calmly and swiftly — brings with it a pleasure so large and grave that, as voluble thanks are impossible, so a simple and sincere acknowledgment is inevitable.

I did not know that my friend Mr. Peacock had sent you my Symphony until I received his letter inclosing yours in reference to that poem : your praise came to me, therefore, with the added charm of surprise. You are quite right in supposing the Makamât of Hariri of Basra to be unknown to me. How earnestly I wish that they might be less so, by virtue of some account of them from your own lips ! I 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 travelers, 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. . . .

I remember how Thomas Carlyle has declared a man will be strengthened in his opinion when he finds it shared by another mortal, and so inclose a slip which a friend has just sent me from the Boston Transcript, containing some pleasant words about my poems, by Mr. Calvert.

Pray believe that I shall always hold myself, and always rejoice to be held by you, as your friend,

SIDNEY LANIER.

This letter reached Mr. Taylor while away from home, and it was ten days later that his reply came : —

BOSTON, August 17, 1875.

MY DEAR SIR, - . . . I am exceedingly glad that you are to remain for a month, because now I can be sure of seeing you, although not immediately, as I should wish, were I absolute master of my days.

I go from here to Pennsylvania for a week, but shall return to New York on the 28th to attend the celebration of Goethe’s one hundred and twenty-sixth birthday, and shall then be nearly a week, alone and idle, at my residence, No. 31 West 61st Street, where I beg you will come, say on Sunday, the 29th, after which we can arrange how to meet again. Or, if you desire to attend the Goethe celebration, — Bryant gives the address, and my unlucky self the ode, — please send me a line to Kennett Square, Pennsylvania, and I can easily get an invitation for you from the Goethe Association.

I write hurriedly, finding much correspondence awaiting me here, so can only repeat how much joy the evidence of a new, true poet always gives me, — such a poet as I believe you to be. I am heartily glad to welcome you to the fellowship of authors, so far as I may dare to represent it; but, knowing the others, I venture to speak in their names also. When we meet, I hope to be able to show you, more satisfactorily than by these written words, the genuineness of the interest which each author always feels in all others; and perhaps I may be also able to extend your own acquaintance among those whom you have a right to know.

Excuse this hurried scrawl, and believe me most sincerely

Your friend,

BAYARD TAYLOR.

The next letter is subsequent to the Goethe celebration (which Mr. Lanier attended), and the visit to Mr. Taylor the following day ; —

August 30, 1875.

DEAR MR. TAYLOR,The three numbered sonnets inclosed ³ are in continuation of those in the magazine which I mail herewith. Any criticism you may make on them, when we meet again, I will take as a special grace ; for they form the beginning of a series which I will probably be writing all my life, knowing no other method of heart’s-ease for my sense of the pure worshipfulness which dwells in the Lady they celebrate.

The other two are only a couple of little snatches which were both born last Thursday, and I don’t know any other reason for sending them to you save that they ’re curiously unlike — for twins.

September 25, 1875.

MY DEAR MR. TAYLOR, - For some time after my last charming day with you it really seemed as if the ghost of Dr. Sangrado — him of bloody memory — had obtained permission to work his will upon me, as the Devil did upon Job. I was unmercifully phlebotomized : hæmorrhage came upon hæmorrhage.

Which I would not mention, except that I cannot bear you should believe any light cause able to prevent me from immediately acknowledging a note so thoroughly kind and heartsome as your last to me. When it came, I was not allowed the privilege either of speaking or writing.

But I ’m getting in prime condition again, and anticipate with keen eagerness the pleasure of seeing you when you return.

Pray send me a line, to let me know when that will be. I ’ve moved over to New York, and my address is at the Westminster Hotel, this city.

An accumulation of work keeps me at my desk the whole of each day and much of each night. I pray you, therefore, invert the littleness of these words, and therewith measure the scope of that affection wherein I am

Faithfully your friend,

SIDNEY LANIER.

September 28, 1875.

MY DEAR MR. LANIER, - We are in all the agonies of moving ; but a good fate brings us within two short blocks of your hotel. . . . Saturday evening we have the monthly meeting of the Century Club (in 15th Street), and I hope you will be strong enough to go with me. Bryant is president, and you will see Stoddard, Stedman, and many other good fellows. Pray don’t make any engagement elsewhere, if you go out evenings.

I need n’t excuse my haste this morning: you know what parking is. Hook forward with delight to many more hours together.

September 29, 1875.

MY DEAR MR. TAYLOR, — Your note comes flushed with good news. For bringing me within two blocks of you I will in the most sublime manner forgive Fate a dozen heinous injuries.

I will eagerly await you on Friday evening, and will be delighted to go with you to the Century Club.

I write in the greatest haste, to-day not being long enough by some six hours for what I have to do before it ends.

Which makes me realize how glorious is Friendship, to whose immortality the poor necessities of night and sleep do not exist.

Friday noon.

MY DEAR MR. TAYLOR, — ... Behold. in this I. sonnet, how this morning the idea which you were good enough to present me last night would sing itself in me till I could do no less than put it on paper.

Also tell me, when we meet to-night, if you now have any objections to the II. and III., which you have seen before.

Next comes another hasty undated little note from the same hand, telling of poetic activities : —

Sunday morning.

MY DEAR FRIEND, — Any time between now and to-morrow night, won’t you please look over this Cushman stanza, and tell me, when we next meet, if you do not think it more consistent than formerly? I think to send it to Scribner’s, if peradventure it may find favor in their eyes.

And won’t you accept the manuscript of this little song ? . . .

Hastily (and yet not hastily),

Your friend, S. L.

Two weeks later Mr. Lanier was in Philadelphia.

October 15, 1875.

MY DEAR MR. TAYLOR, — I hope you ’ll like this little song,⁴ which is but lately an inhabitant of this planet.

I will miss my Saturday night tomorrow ; and I would be strongly inclined to consider this a very cross-purpose indeed, if I did not feel myself so indebted to Purpose already.

And perhaps it is well enough for me to be away for a week or two. I want to digest Mr. —— and Mr. ——. I find that spiritually we are cannibals all: we feed upon each other ; soul assimilates and makes tissue of soul.

I have n’t time to write you.

God be praised that you exist, is a frequent ejaculation of

Your friend,

SIDNEY LANIER.

October 16, 1875.

MY DEAR LANIER, — Just returned from the Century breakfast to Lord Houghton (which was charming, and most inspiriting to all authors). I find your note. . . .

Your song is delightful. I ’m glad to find that you are taking these “ swallow flights.” They have their true place, and through them the poet often learns a great deal. Forgive me two technical criticisms. The end of verse 2d —

is too monotonous in sound. The one vowel (and not one of the best vowel sounds) repeated four times is too much, especially as “ dares the day ” comes two lines before it.

(for instance) gets rid of two of the sounds, and is quite as pleading, though less eager.

Also, the additional foot in the penultimate line of the poem violates its melody. Could you not say,

I can’t see that anything is lost by this change, which preserves the metre. The conception of the little piece is perfect. Of course, you will not accept these suggestions unless they seem valid to your own mind.

Meanwhile, hearty thanks for sending me the manuscript! . . . My round of dreary lecturing begins again, and I must roll a heavy stone over the fountain of my Muse. . . .

October 20, 1875.

MY DEAR MR. TAYLOR, — I have just received a letter from that lovely Charlotte Cushman, which invites me with such lavish goodness to come to her that I cannot at all resist; and so I ’m going there (Boston, Parker House) for a few days, before returning South. I will stop in New York a day or two on my way back — probably about a week from now—to see you. Will you be there ? As I will remain in Boston about a week, I will be glad to avail myself of your kind offer of letters to Mr. Longfellow and Mr. Lowell. They will reach me if sent to the Parker House, where Miss Cushman is staying, and where I will stop.

On second thought, as her letter contains a message to Lord Houghton (who, it seems, went to Newport to see her, but missed her), which you will much more likely be able to deliver than I, I 'll inclose it herein. Her disease renders her unable to sit at a table : hence she writes in pencil. Pray read her letter, if only to see what a fair large soul it is.

I sent you a paper (The Graphic of 27 th) which contains a very pretty compliment to me in the shape of a poem by Elizabeth Stuart Phelps, based on a quoted line from my Symphony. The same paper contains an extract from my paper on St. Augustine, which, unfortunately, the scissors wielder clipped off just as the climax was reached. The —— takes occasion to give me some pain, anent this poor St. Augustine article, by first making a statement which is grossly inaccurate, and next basing on it a criticism which would be unjust even if its foundation were not untrue, and finally dismissing the subject with a comparison of my merits and Mrs.——’s, which is as pure a piece of gratuitous ungentlemanliness as a vulgar soul could well devise. Not that I care in the least for the judgment, or that I shall change my “ foible ” — foible ! — of seeing God in everything ; but the point where the pain comes in is simply that it may interfere with one’s already very short allowance of bread, by making the magazines shy of giving employment to one who fails to please the——. What a diatribe I ’ve written ! But such indignation as you detect herein is wholly impersonal, and entirely due to that repugnance with which one sees a really strong newspaper turning over articles to be “ criticised ” by persons who do not even understand the usages of gentlemen. How differently come your criticisms, which I always receive thankfully, whether unfavorable or otherwise ! . . .

November 1, 1875.

MY DEAR LANIER, - I hasten to send you the letters, hoping they will reach you in good season. I also return Miss Cushman’s letter, thinking you will prefer to keep it. Give her my love, which she has always had since I knew her.

As for the——, be calm ; that is nothing, and will have no effect whatever. I had not seen the article, but found it at the Century, and also read the whole of your St. Augustine, which is poetical in parts, and wholly bright and readable. When you consider that for eight years the —— has snubbed me and sneered at me in the most vulgar way, and “ I still live,” you will not allow so flippant a notice to trouble you. ... If Whittier should come to Boston, go and see him : it will be enough to say that you are my friend. He is thoroughly noble, and you will like him.

I breakfast with Lord Houghton tomorrow, and will give him Miss Cushman’s message. As Manto says to Faust (Part II.), “ On ! Behold!”

MACON, GA., November 24, 1875.

MY DEAR MR. TAYLOR, — Poets understand everything : I doubt not you well know a certain sort of happiness which at the same time locks up expression and enlarges fancy, and you will therefore easily comprehend how it is that thirty days have passed without any message from me to you, although there has been no one of them during which you were not constantly in my mind. This happiness of which I speak — which freezes one’s pen and tongue while it melts one’s heart — means, in the present instance, that I have been at home for ten days past, joyfully reunited with the other — and far sweeter — Moiety of me. My three young men — one of seven, one of five, and one of two years —keep me in an endless labyrinth of surprises and delights : nothing could be more keen, more fresh, more breezy, than the meeting together of their little immense loves with the juicy selfishness and honest animalisms of the dear young cubs. What a prodigious candor they practice ! They ’re as little ashamed of being beasts as they are proud of being gods. They accept themselves at the hands of their Creator with perfect unreserve : pug nose or Greek, blue eyes or gray, beasthood or godhood, — it’s all one to them. What’s the good of metaphysical mopings, as long as papa ’s at home, and you’ve got a mamma to kiss, and a new ball from now till dinner, and then — apples !

This is their philosophy: it is really a perfect scheme of life, and contains all the essential terms of religion, while — as for philosophy — it is perfectly clear upon points which have remained obscure from Plato down to George Lewes.

How I wish my lovely two-year-old boy, my royal ——, could look you in the eyes for once, and put his arms deliberately round your neck and give you one of his fervent kisses ! Fancy that your big Lars was also a baby, and also a poet, and you ’ll have a whiff of it.

Your letters came to me while I was with Miss Cushman, and were the means of procuring for me two delightful afternoons with Mr. Lowell and Mr. Longfellow. I was sorry to miss Mr. Aldrich. I wrote him a little note, to find out when he would be in town. He replied that he could not come until after I had left Boston, but added that he would be in New York during the winter, “ when perhaps Mr. Taylor would be good enough — he is good enough for anything — to bring us together.”

I’m sure you ’ll care to know that I had a charming visit to Miss Cushman, and that each day was crowded with pleasant things which she and her numerous friends had prepared for me.

I leave Macon for Baltimore on Friday next. ... I resume my old place as first flute of the Peabody Orchestra, which lasts until March ; though hoping all the time still to find some opportunity for getting my longed-for chair of the Physics and Metaphysics of Music established in some college or other. . . .

A month after this Mr. Lanier received, largely through Mr. Taylor’s influence, the invitation to write the Cantata for the Centennial Celebration at Philadelphia, for which Dudley Buck had agreed to compose the music.

January 4, 1876.

MY DEAR MR. TAYLOR, — General Hawley’s invitation has just arrived, and I have sent my acceptance. I will probably see Theodore Thomas here on Monday next, and will try to arrange a meeting with Mr. Buck in New York soon.

There is n’t the least use in my trying to thank you for this pleasant surprise ; but I do wish I could tell you the delight with which I find my name associated with yours in this way.

Are we at liberty to mention our appointment in this behalf to our friends ? I only ask, remembering that the name of the Centennial poet has not yet been officially announced, — at least so far as I know. . . .

Your faithful and grateful,

S. L.

January 7, 1876.

MY DEAR LANIER, — I have so many distractions in these days that I really forgot (temporarily) to send you my volume, and am glad of your reminder. I ’ll order it done this morning. As the book goes by mail, I can’t write your name in it, but I ’ll do that afterwards.

I think it best to let the Centennial Commission make the announcement of orators and poets. I’ve mentioned my share confidentially to one or two friends, but shall not let it get into print. . . . I know that General Hawley is quite pleased to have you do the work. I should say eight days would be ample time. You must not exceed fifty lines ; my Hymn will be twenty to twenty-four only. . . .

January 9, 1879.

DEAR MR. TAYLOR, — Yesterday I impressed myself with these following principles: —

1. That the Cantata was to be sung not only at our Centennial, but at a festival where the world was our invited guest to be welcomed.

2. That spread-eagleism would be ungraceful and unworthy.

3. That something ought to be said in the poem.

4. That it afforded room to give the musical composer an opportunity to employ the prodigious tone contrasts of sober reflection, the sea, lamentation, a battle, warning, and magnificent yet sober and manly triumph and welcome.

5. That it ought to be, not rhymed philosophy, but a genuine song and lyric outburst.

Having put this offering on my altar, I waited ; and this morning I saw that the Fire had come down from a gracious Heaven, and that it was burning.

Here is the result. Pray read it, and send me word immediately — and with perfect candor — as to such parts of it as strike you unfavorably. I wish I could hear you intone it, ore rotundo !

January 12, 1875

DEAR MR. TAYLOR, — Being cool next day, I found some flaws in my poem ; and having made out a working copy of it (by reading the analysis of movements written in the margin, you will see what immense resources it offers to the musician), I send it to you. Pray let me know freely if the whole is worthy.

Always your friend, S. L.

I have not yet sent it to Mr. Buck.

January 12, 1870.

MY DEAR LANIER, — Just in time! for I must leave to-morrow. Your principles of conception and construction are right, and the execution, as a whole, is successful. My task will be to carefully examine details. I have numbered the lines to avoid any mistakes.

2. See if you can’t find a better word instead of “larger.”

3. “ Stairèd ” will not do, especially after “ hundred-terracèd. ” As you are looking down, why not say “climbing,” but never “ stairèd.”

7 and 8. I think you can get two better lines. “ Where ” has not a good effect at the end of the line, and I don’t quite like “ rage in air.” How would something like this answer ?

10. Is “balking” the best adjective?

16. There ’s something hard and awkward about this line.

17, 18, 19. The repetition seems to weaken the effect. I would suggest a change like this in the stanza: —

22 to 31 inclusive. I like these ten lines least of all. “ Tongued ” is not agreeable, and “prescribed” and “ conscribed ” make quite an unpleasant impression, as of artifice. Line 25 is not quite intelligible. The stanza would be much better if lines 24, 25, 26, and 27 were wholly omitted. But I should much prefer a smoother stanza, hinting at toil, patience, growth, and the blending of different old - world elements. The prohibitory strain is carried too far ; it reaches a climax in the preceding stanza, and you want something else interposed between that and the new refrain, “ It was : it is,” etc.

Could n’t you make a stanza after this fashion ?

Courage stood and faltered not

Patience

Toil

Cavalier and Puritan

Holland

Huguenot

Wrought, joined hands, welded separate links into one chain, etc., etc.

Then the new movement, it seems to me, would come in with fine effect.

36, 37, 38. Are these lines really necessary ? They may be in a musical sense. “ Now still thee ” is not a good expression, and there is a little too evident purpose in “ underworld ” and “ thunderworld.”

50. “ Lover ” is not true, and is rather weak here ; why not say,—

There! I have found all the fault I can. If you will only change the lines 22 to 31, I think it will answer admirably, and be most welcome. The plan is entirely poetical, and ought to be made very effective in music. I want, for your sake, to have the Cantata universally liked, but you will be sharply set upon if you use the words “ stairèd.” “prescribed,” and “ conscribed.” and the line “clothes for men,” etc. (25). Why not yield that much, for this once? I also think that the suggestion I make for the change in the stanza will make the whole piece more popular. There is both originality and lyric fire everywhere else. . . .

Always faithfully yours,

B. T.

January 13, 1876.

MY DEAR MR. TAYLOR, — I agree with your main points of objection, and I will change the stanza about which you are most apprehensive. I’m particularly charmed to find that you don’t think the poem too original. I tried hard to think — in a kind of average and miscellaneousness.

I read and explained it to Thomas last night. He said, “ I think Mr. Buck ought to be delighted with the musical conception of the poem ; ” adding that of course he would not dare to pronounce upon the poetic merits of it beyond saying that the ideas seemed to him very beautiful.

I sent you the copy showing the movements, before I had received your letter. I ’ll send a final copy when I ’ve finished it. You see I had to compose for the musician as well as the country, and had to cast the poem into such a form as would at once show well in music (where contrast of movement between each adjacent part, in broad bands of color, was, from the nature of the art, a controlling consideration) and in poetry. I wished, indeed, to make it as large and as simple as a symphony of Beethoven’s. If it does not come up to this, I’ve failed ; but your commendation confirms my own cool feeling about it, which is that it will do.

I think — But I won’t, either, for it’s simply absurd. Your criticisms on the piece are invaluable to me; for though I don’t agree with all of them, the sharp reëxaminations which they compel me to make develop many things which otherwise would not be developed.

January 13, 1876.

MY DEAR LANIER, - I have barely time (while my wife packs my valise) to say that the change you have made in the next to the last movement is altogether better. Now please rewrite the stanza beginning, “ Then the smitingtonguèd swords.” Something expressing patience, toil, and growth is required between the menace of failure and the triumphant success. The transition is too sudden, and the stanza, as it at present stands, mars the beauty of the Cantata. As I said before, “ stairèd years ” must also he changed. If you doubt my judgment in the matter, consult Peacock also. I suppose I need n’t return this second MS. Good-by !

January 15, 1876.

DEAR MR. TAYLOR, — You are so far responsible for me as the writer of this Cantata that I don’t intend to feel satisfaction until I am sure that you think the poem absolutely worthy of the country and of poetry as an art. Therefore, having, after two days’ cooling, found many faults with it myself, I have quite rewritten it, and send it to you, hoping that you will let me know if it seems to you entirely large, simple, and melodious. For it is to this that I have directed all my efforts in it. I have had constantly in mind those immortal melodies of Beethoven, in which, with little more than the chords of the tonic and dominant, he has presented such firm, majestic, and at the same time artless ideas. Of course, with the general world — especially in a Swinburnian time — I do not expect to obtain the least recognition of the combination of childlike candors and colossal philosophies which I have endeavored here to put in words , but I do wish to know whether to you the poem, as you now see it, comes near this ideal. I don’t believe there is the least necessity for me to beg you not to have the least regard for me in pronouncing upon anything that you still find wanting. I desire the poem to be perfect.

I put the Farewell, dear England, into the Mayflower strophe, because Mather relates that the people in the vessel actually stood up and cried out these words as they were departing. I also entirely rewrote the stanza you did not like, and then inserted a whisper chorus (of the Huguenot and Puritan, in dactylic measure), to prepare by its straining pianissimo for the outburst of jubilation.

January 20, 1876.

MY DEAR LANIER, — Thank you !

The revised Cantata, which I have just received through my wife’s letter, is in every way better than the first draught. It is what it purports to be, — a cantata, not an ode, — with the musical character inherent in its structure and not to be separated. If the composer seconds you properly, the effect cannot be otherwise than grand and satisfactory. I have only a few slight technical faults to find.

“ A weltering flow ” — a sluggish, aimless tide — hardly corresponds with “ ridged with acts,” which indicates billows and a direction of the tide. Now, your idea is clear to me, and I think it might be expressed in a more logical figure.

I don’t like, either, the molossus “ Grown foul Bads,” nor the use of “ Bads ” as a noun. The latter is not incorrect, but it is somehow disagreeable. “ Evils grown in alien air ” would read better to me.

The Huguenot and Puritan stanza is a great improvement.

The word “ stertorous ” seems to me out of tone ; it sounds more medical than poetical, and the noun “ death ” makes it worse. In the next line, “ brother — wars new — dark ” has a heavy effect, and will be very hard to sing. Yet the meaning is just what is wanted. Thence to the end all is excellent.

I have forgotten one other.

is much too forced an image. You seem to be fond of the word “ tongued,” but in this instance it may be best to use a little self-denial. It is an expression which will give the spiteful critics a chance. If it were good, I should say, “ Damn the spiteful critics ! ” but I don’t think it good. Turn the matter over once more in your mind.

There ! Is that fault enough to find ? I’ve examined every line severely, and find nothing more. You have already added fifty per cent to the merit of the work. I am too busy to write more : pardon this abrupt breaking off !

February 27, 1876.

MY DEAR MR. TAYLOR, — Pray tell me how you are. I wished for you all day yesterday with special fervor, thinking how the bland and sunny air that bathed us all here would have soothed your malady. . . .

It has been uphill work with me to struggle against the sense of loss which the departure of my beloved Charlotte Cushman leaves with me. She and you were the only friends among the artists I have ever had ; and since she is gone I am as one who has lost the half of his possessions. The passion to which my devotion to her had grown takes it hard when sight and hearing are both become for evermore impossible. To-day, though keenly desirous to rest after a week of great strain, this little poem teased me till it was on paper. I hope you will think it not wholly unworthy. As I read it over now, a disagreeable fancy comes that the last two lines of it are somewhat like something of somebody else, and these vague “ somes ” are intolerable. Pray tell me if this is so. . . .

March 4, 1876.

MY DEAR LANIER, — I did n’t answer you sooner, because I wanted to send you my Hymn, — to read and ponder over, — and it was not quite ready. Here it is, now, and I ask you to be as frank with me about it as I am wont to be with you. If I take offense, don’t believe me again! . . .

Your poem is strong and full of feeling, with which the occasional roughness entirely harmonizes. The idea is a little similar to a poem of mine, The Mystery, but is very differently expressed. I notice no resemblance to anything in the last lines. . . .

March 11, 1876.

MY DEAR MR. TAYLOR, — I ’ve only just crawled out of a sick-bed, where I have been spending one of the most unsatisfactory weeks of my existence, — a week whose place in the general plan of good I find as much difficulty in justifying as croton bugs, or children born idiots, or the sausage-grinding school of poetry.

I have particularly desired to write you about the Hymn.⁵ Of course, the value of a friend’s criticism in this kind is simply that when one has to write in a hurry the friend is in the nature of one’s own conscience of beauty (as you have beautifully called your wife), as that conscience will be after the coolness of time has come. The friend is a mere anticipation of time, — one’s-self-after-awhile. Purely upon this theory I acquire boldness enough to say what follows. 1st. Generally. Inasmuch as the opening verse presents a noble tema, or motive, of triple design in the ideas of the God of Peace, Toil, and Beauty, would it not be best to carry on this motive entirely through the poem, making (say) the II. verse converge upon the idea of Peace, the III. upon Toil, IV. upon Beauty (or Art), and (if you choose) V. regathering the whole by means of some common tone, — the whole thus gaining perfect unity of impression ? In looking down the poem with this view, one easily sees that, with a very small change of phraseology, it can be perfectly carried out. In the III. verse you have indeed returned to the original motive in a very beautiful manner, — the oak of toil, the rose of art, etc. The II. verse ought on three accounts clearly to be stricken out: (1) it is a departure from the whole plan of the poem ; (2) it is explanatory of what all the parties to the Hymn thoroughly understand already to be the situation ; (3) it is below the plane of the other conceptions. Conceding these views for a moment (and I think there can be no doubt that your cool judgment, after a while, will estimate the poem precisely according to the success with which it carries out the general scheme indicated), the following will be an outline of the poem as it will finally appear: —

I. Just as you have it, or with any transposition of the lines that may seem desirable to facilitate the new arrangement.

II. For this you can take your number IV., and with a slight change of idea make the whole refer to Peace; as, for example, a general supplication that, although our eras are but as dust, yet dust may become fruitful, and Peace may be vouchsafed as the climate favorable, etc.

III. This is nearly ready in the number III. of the poem which closes with the lovely reference to the oak of Toil and the rose of Beauty (or Art). The opposition of these two is so fine that it suffices to authorize the consolidated treatment of the ideas of Toil and Beauty in one and the same verse.

IV. For this your number V. can easily be made to serve by directing its general tone upon the three prominent ideas already treated, having reference to the exchanging of each with each, and the relation of each to the God of the three, thus making a perfect return to the I., and ending, as it were, upon the tonic. This would make the poem perfect in four stanzas : and it can all be done without altering the structure of the verses at all, and with only changing here and there a noun, a verb, or an adjective, so as to make the sense point always towards the thematic ideas. 2d. If, however, this does not happen to meet your fancy, and you decide to retain the poem as it is, there are one or two minor matters to which your attention should be called : —

1st. I am clear that the II. should either disappear entirely or be replaced, for the reasons hereinbefore stated.

2d. In III., the sounds of “ thy guidance ” (y and long i) and of “ made failure ” (two long a’s) seem bad, particularly as they come so close to each other.

3d. In IV., the idea in the two lines which come after the first two should be a more closely logical sequitur upon them.

4th. The fourth line of V. (I mean “thyself in him” only; the rest of the line is perfect) can be justified in one’s thought, but it compels one to think hard in order to do that, — and this is a disadvantage. Can you not make it a little more transparent ? Again, the last two lines might so easily be made to reaffirm and point the first stanza as well as the whole poem ; for example :

I think, further, in reference to these last two lines, that it would be well to give them either a stronger hold by a verb of some sort, or some turn more precisely parallel with the rest of the verse. The first two couplets commence with “ Let each with each ” and “ Let each in each,” which is fine : it is somewhat weakening the force of these to close with a grammatically independent couplet which has no verb at all.

Of course you understand that I like the poem (except the II. verse) : all the ideas are noble, and there is a simple grandeur in the expressions which is fine. All my suggestions are made simply with a view to concentrate the impression. The shot are all good: let them not scatter, but strike like one bullet.

Pray let me see the poem again. . . .

Mr. Taylor’s answer to this brought the announcement that his part had been changed from writing the opening Hymn to preparing the Ode for the great Fourth of July celebration.

March 20, 1876.

Bravisshno, dear Mr. Taylor ! Why, this is the very Fitness of Things: the appointment matches, as a rhyme matches a rhyme ; nothing can be more evident than that God has temporarily taken the direction of matters into his own hands. ... I send you my congratulations and fair wishes with a certain sense of indignant triumph in the coming-to-pass of what ought to have been.

I see, from what you say in reply to my letter on the Hymn, that my musical associations have put me under a certain general suspicion, with you, of a propensity to impart the principles of musical construction into poetry. But this was a principle far larger than any peculiar to music or to any one art. I am so much interested in it that I am going to beg you to let me plead the case with you a moment.

Permit me first to say that I came at it, not by any reasoning prepense, but by examination, afterwards, of wholly unconscious procedure. It revealed itself clearly to me in thinking about a little poem I wrote a few days ago. Perhaps I can best illustrate it by first quoting the poem, which is a pendant to a little song you have already seen, being No. II. of Rose-Morals : —

Now, it seems to me — as a mere extended formulation of the thoroughly unconscious action of the mind in this poem — that every poem, from a sonnet to Macbeth, has substantially these elements, — (1) a Hero, (2) a Plot, and (3) a Crisis ; and that its perfection as a work of art will consist in the simplicity and the completeness with which the first is involved in the second and illustrated in the third. In the case of a short poem, the hero is the central idea, whatever that may be ; the plot is whatever is said about that idea, its details all converging, both in tone and in general direction, thereupon ; and the crisis is the unity of impression sealed, or confirmed, or climaxed by the last connected sentence or sentiment or verse of the poem. Of course, I mean that this is the most general expression of the artistic plan of a poem : it is the system of verses, which may be infinitely varied, but to which all variations may be finally referred. I do not think that there is, as you feared, any necessary reason why a poem so constructed should present “a too conscious air of design:” that is a matter which will depend solely upon the genuineness of the inspiration and the consummate command of his resources by the artist.

Is not this framework essentially that of every work of any art? Does not every painting, every statue, every architectural design, owe whatever it has of artistic perfection to the nearness with which it may approach the fundamental scheme of a Ruling Idea (or Hero), a Plot (or involution of the Ruling Idea in complexities related to or clustering about it), and a Denouement or Impression-as-a-whole ?

I don’t mean this for a theory ; I hate theories. I intend it only to be a convenient synthesis of a great number of small facts; and therefore I don’t stickle at all for calling the elements of a work of art Heroes or Plots or Crises, and the like, only using those terms as the shortest way of expressing my meaning.

Anyway, fair fall the Ode. I hope that God will let you into Heaven, with no limitations as to walking on the grass or picking the flowers — till you ’ve got all you want.

Mr. Buck has sent me a copy of the piano score of the Cantata, but I have not yet had time to examine it thoroughly. Anything will go well, though, with a large chorus to sing it and Thomas’ Orchestra to play it. . . .

Write me soon, as to your always desirous S. L.

March 24, 1876.

DEAR MR. TAYLOR. — Don’t trouble to write me any elaborate reply. I only sent you this continuation of my thought about the centralization of ideas in poems because I have been studying your work within the last two or three months, and have become clearly satisfied that that is the direction in which you should grow. You tend from it by reason of the very stress and crowding of the multitudinous good things which you give to the world. I find poems of yours in which every sentiment, every thought, every line, as sentiment, thought, or line, is exquisite, and yet which do not give a full white light as poems for want of a proper convergence of the components upon a single point. Sometime we will talk of this ; I am not at all sure that in my hasty letters — for I am worked almost to the annihilation of sleep and of meals — I have given anything like a clear idea of what I mean. . . .

I am going night and day on my Centennial Ode for the Magazine, which is to be illustrated and made the feature of the July number. It has to be furnished early in April, and I am only about half through. Some people will put their hands to their ears, at the doctrine it preaches. My musical engagement here is now completed, and as the poem is the only piece of work I have, I suppose God intends me to feed on blackberries all the summer.

The interesting letter in which Mr. Taylor expresses his own views as to the theories above promulgated may be found in the Life and Letters before referred to.

April 1, 1876.

MY DEAR MR. TAYLOR, — Will you do me the favor to read this and send it back to me, if you do not find it objectionable ? ⁶ I am going to offer it to the Tribune. If they print it, so; if they do not, I will try some one else. I have endeavored to speak with the utmost justice towards the Tribune’s critic, and modesty as regards myself. If you can make any suggestions to me which will enable me to see it otherwise than a duty to speak at all, I will be profoundly thankful to you. In any case of a poem of my own private giving forth, I would never dream of rebuking the most brutal critic for mistaking my artistic purposes as artistic ignorances ; but many of the people who will read this Tribune attack are not only incapable of judging its correctness, but will be prevented from seeing the whole poem for yet six weeks, and will therefore come to its final perusal with the prepossession that the author of it was stupidly ignorant of the first principles which should guide a writer of text for music. This prepossession is a wrong on the public, and, without reference to its wrong on me, should be immediately and decisively overturned. . . .

I ’m hard at my Ode. and see the beginning of the end. Tell me how you fare with yours. I fervently pray the God of the poet to give you all such fire as you shall want. . . .

April 3, 1876.

MY DEAR LAXIER. — I must write very hastily, as usual; for, in addition to my regular work and extra business matters which come at this season, the Ode is pressing upon me with might, with might!

I don’t wonder you were annoyed at the notice of your Cantata in the Tribune. I was surprised when I saw it; but I have since ascertained how it came there. It is published by Schirmer, and was sent to Mr. —— to be noticed. The advertisement to-day says it will appear shortly. Mr. Buck must explain this : I cannot. Mr. ——, of course, supposed it was a legitimate subject to write about; and in talking with him about it to-day I learned, incidentally, that he meant no special criticism of the text, but only used what he thought necessary to illustrate the music. This does not lessen your grievance, but it ought to modify your expressions. I have marked with a pencil certain things which I earnestly beg you to omit. In such matters, the man who betrays his exasperation puts himself at a disadvantage ; the reading public never fully apprehends an author’s position, and there are not fifty readers of the Tribune who would comprehend your annoyance sufficiently to sympathize with your rejoinder. Were it my case, my first thought would be to reply as you have done ; my second thought would be not to reply at all. One result will be the publication of the whole text, at once, by other papers, since they can now so easily get it.

I am very sorry this has happened so ; but I think the first blame belongs to the premature publication of the music (which includes the text). Since working on the Tribune I have learned how honest and amiable —— is by nature: he should not have quoted anything, but I know that he supposed he was free to do so. I knew nothing of the matter until after I saw the article in print.

I must break off. If I should not write to you again for three weeks, don’t imagine I forget you, but my ideas for the Ode are gathering, and the distractions which interrupt them make me almost desperate. I shall probably be forced to run away from New York for a week or so.

BALTIMORE, April 4, 1876,

MY DEAR MR. TAYLOR, — It suddenly occurs to me — apropos of your connection with the Tribune — that in sending you the article to read I may have rendered myself liable to a fancy on your part (for you have not known me very long) that I was trying in a roundabout way to secure some sort of interference by you in its, or my, behalf.

But no ! My only reason for sending you the piece was that I quite distrust my own judgment in such matters. I live so utterly alone that just as a deaf person forgets the proper intonations of voice in speaking, so I forget how matters look, and go, among men ; and I therefore sent my article for your judgment and advice to me upon its propriety, knowing that you are more among men than I am. I never asked, and will never ask, help in such a matter ; and were this not so, I would ask it directly, or not at all.

By the grace of God my Centennial Ode is finished. I now only know how divine has been the agony of the last three weeks, during which I have been rapt away to heights where all my own purposes as to a revisal of artistic forms lay clear before me, and where the sole travail was of choice out of multitude.

I hope to see you on Thursday, being called by business to New York, Of course you won’t care to see ray Ode until after you have written your own, — wherein may the God of the artist detach his best angels to your service.

66 CENTRE ST., BALTIMORE, MD., April 8, 1876.

MY DEAR MR. TAYLOR, — From indications at Philadelphia yesterday, I deem it of very great importance to me that some intelligent criticism of my poem should appear in a journal of standing. Without wishing to guide or in any way direct criticism, I am keenly desirous that the poem might be judged on the plane of its principles, — leaving the critic the utmost freedom in pronouncing how far it has succeeded in carrying them out. I have not yet been able to tell you —in all our correspondence about the poem — what were the main considerations leading to its substance and form. Please let me do so now.

1st. The principal matter over which the United States can legitimately exult is its present existence as a republic, in spite of so much opposition from nature and from man. I therefore made the refrain of the song — about which all its train of thought moves — concern itself wholly with the Fact of Existence. The waves cry, “ It shall not be ; ” the powers of nature cry, “ It shall not be; ” the wars, etc., utter the same cry. This refrain is the key to the whole poem.

2d. The poem was limited to sixty lines, in which space I had to compress the past and the future of the country, together with some reference to the present occasion. This necessitated the use of the highly generalized terms which occur, — as for instance when, in the Good Angel’s Song, the fundamental philosophies of Art, of Science, of Power, of Polity, of Faith, and of Social Life are presented in the simple Saxon words, and in one line each.

3d. I wished that the poem might belie the old slander upon our tendency to Fourth of July uproariousness, buncombe, spread-eagleism, and the like. I tried, therefore, to make it the quietest poem possible.

4th. A knowledge of the inability of music to represent any shades of meaning save those which are very intense, and very highly and sharply contrasted, led me to divide the poem into the eight paragraphs or movements which it presents, and to make these vividly opposed to each other in sentiment. Thus, the first movement is reflection, measured and sober ; this suddenly changes into the agitato of the second ; this agitato, culminating in the unison shout, “ No !It shall not be,” yields, in the third movement, to the pianissimo and meagre effect of the skeleton voices from Jamestown, etc. ; this pianissimo, in the fourth movement, is turned into a climax of the wars of armies and of faiths, again ending in the shout, “No ! ” etc. ; the fifth movement opposes this with a whispered chorus, — Huguenots whispering “ Yea,” etc.; the sixth opposes again with loud exultation, “ Now praise.” etc. ; the seventh opposes this with the single voice singing the Angel’s Song ; and the last concludes the series of contrasts with a broad full chorus of measured and firm sentiment.

5th. So far I have spoken of the main circumstances determining the substance of the poem. The metrical forms were selected purely with reference to their descriptive nature. The four trochaic feet of the opening strophe measure off reflection ; the next (Mayflower) strophe swings and yaws like a ship; the next I made outré and bizarre and bony simply by the device of interposing the line of two and a half trochees amongst the four - trochee lines; the swift action of the Huguenot strophe of course required dactyls. And having thus kept the first part of the poem (which describes the time before we were a real nation) in metres which are as it were exotic to our tongue, I now fall into the iambic metre — which is the genius of English words — as soon as the Nation becomes secure and firm.

6th. My business as member of the orchestra for three years having caused me to sit immediately in front of the bassoons, I had often been struck with the possibility of producing the ghostly effects of that part of the bassoon register so well known to the students of Berlioz and Meyerbeer, by the use of the syllable ee sung by a chorus. With this view, I filled the ghostly Jamestown stanza with ee’s, and would have put in more if I could have found them appropriate to the sense.

Now let me ask your friendship two questions.

1st. Is there any proper way in which you could call the attention of the Tribune literary critic, whenever my poem as poem is to be noticed, to these considerations I have above enumerated ? Would it be trespassing either upon his, my, or your position, if you should hand him what I have written above ?

2d. In view of the fact that the poem is now printed with the piano score, and is liable at any time to be copied, and copied badly, by other papers, would it not be well for me if it were printed by the Tribune, properly ?

In fine, I am convinced that if one influential paper would take the initiative in judging the poem from the above standpoint, all the loose opinion would crystallize about it; and if not, I shall be cruelly misjudged and mistreated.

Two reflections make me bold enough to ask this of you : first, that I would so gladly embrace any opportunity of giving you my love in this or any other way; and second, that I feel as if the great wrong done me by Mr. ——℉s criticism gave me a half right and claim upon the paper. If the inclosed letter of Dudley Buck’s would be of any service in this connection, let it be.

Buck showed me Mr. Whittier’s hymn yesterday, which was just received. I noticed the two lines.⁷ It is good.

I trust with perfect confidence to your candor in this matter, if my request seem bizarre or in any the least wise improper.

God bless you.

Your friend,

SIDNEY LANIER.

P. S. I should like it to be stated that I have been a member of the Peabody Orchestra for three years, under Asger Hamerik.

Mr. Buck’s letter was as follows : —

April 4, 1876.

MY DEAR MR. LANIER, — I am sorry that the Tribune article gave you pain; but after you have been dissected, flayed, and otherwise disposed of as many times as I have been, you will not wince at one newspaper article. No, I did not find the poem so difficult to set as it strikes the critic of the Tribune, whose article was as great a surprise to me as to yourself. The “ pitfalls ” referred to were rather godsends in my case, with exception of the (2) Jamestown and Plymouth lines. The tough spot for me was the first verse, after which everything seemed to fall into shape of its own accord. It is not a matter of number of feet or kind of verse with me so much as whether I take a fancy to a poem, which I did in your case. Since the work appeared and the rehearsals commenced in Philadelphia, I have of course heard a multitude of expressions in regard to the poem, and find that my original judgment of its effect on various minds is correct, namely, the more intelligence (more particularly in the line of poetry) a person possesses, the better he likes it. Several have said to me, ” These words grow upon me every time I read them.” One person in particular astonished me, at the first rehearsal, by saying after reading them through once that he could n’t understand them. It was a person of intelligence. I remarked simply that I thought he had better give the poem two or three readings. He came to me last week and said he wanted to take back what he had said about the poem, and he too remarked as above in regard to their growing upon him. This trait is certainly true of a vast number of the best things by the best men, — I think eminently so in case of Tennyson. It was this which made me so desirous to have the poem printed in advance of the music. Then it would have been studied and analyzed per se, and they would have gotten at the merits of it quicker. Why this was not permitted has always been beyond my comprehension. In a word, I think the intelligence of the country will be on your side, and about the rest I would not trouble myself. Be therefore comforted, and write me a dramatic cantata!

Have you any “ bits ” lying about that would do for songs ?

In haste, very truly yours,

DUDLEY BUCK.

This is the last reference in the correspondence to the criticisms and ridicule of the Centennial Cantata which, as shown here, gave Mr. Lanier no little pain at the time. This was due, however, far less to personal sensitiveness than to the feeling that his critics were falsifying before the public principles of art which seemed to him vital; and it was to combat what he believed to be an obscuring of fundamental truth that he finally sent to one of the New York newspapers a complete statement of his conception (which appears in the recent volume of collected essays, Music and Poetry).

Henry Wysham Lanier.