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 participation in the war and in the stirring events of reconstruction. After the fortitude 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 passage 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, passed through his Dream Period, the college days and the early years of the war. He passed 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 passes 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 Institute 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." 1 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 1 Letters, p. 75.

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.

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 Bülow, and was a composer of distinction, has left the most authoritative account of Lanier as a performer:

"To him as a child in his cradle Music was given, the heavenly gift to feel and to express himself in tones. His human nature was like an enchanted instrument, a magic flute, or the lyre of Apollo, needing but a breath or a touch to send its beauty out into the world. It was indeed irresistible that he should turn with those poetical feelings which transcend language to the penetrating gentleness of the flute, or the infinite passion of the violin ; for there was an agreement, a spiritual correspondence between his nature