CHAPTER VIII

STUDENT AND TEACHER OF ENGLISH

LITERATURE

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

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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." 1 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.

Under these circumstances he wrote what are perhaps the most pathetic words in all his letters. "Altogether," he says, "it seems as if there was n'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."2 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 1 Letters, p. 43. 2 Letters, p. 46.

his ability to get the most out of everything than

his letter to Gibson Peacock :

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 twentyseven 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 gasbills, 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 diningroom!-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.1

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 de1 Letters, p. 49.