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CHAPTER V

LAWYER AND TRAVELER

UNABLE to secure a position in a Southern college or to make a living by literary work, Lanier decided at the end of 1868 to take up the profession of law. He was led to do so by the earnest solicitation of his father. With his mind once made up in that direction, he went to the work with characteristic zeal. He displayed a business-like and methodical spirit which at once attracted attention. On November 19, 1869, he wrote to his brother, who was urging him to go into the cotton-mill business: "I have a far more feasible project, which I have been long incubating let us go to Brunswick. We know something of the law, and are rapidly knowing more; it is a business which is far better than that of any salaried officer could possibly be. . . . It is best that you and I make up our minds immediately to be lawyers, nothing but lawyers, good lawyers, and successful lawyers; and direct all our energies to this end. We are too far in life to change our course now; it would be greatly disadvantageous to both of us. Therefore, to the

law, Boy. It is your vocation; stick to it: It will presently reward you for your devotion." The scheme did not materialize, however; he remained at Macon in the office of Lanier and Anderson. He writes to Northrup, who has again held out to him a plan for going to Germany:

"As for my sweet old dreams of studying in Germany, eheu! here is come a wife, and by'r Lady, a boy, a most rare-lung'd, imperious, worldgrasping, blue-eyed, kingly Manikin; 1 and the same must have his tiring-woman or nurse, mark you, and his laces and embroideries and small carriage, being now half a year old: so that, what with mine ancient Money - Cormorants, the Butcher and the Baker and the Tailor, my substance is like to be so pecked up that I must stick fast in Georgia, unless litigation and my reputation should take a simultaneous start and both grow outrageously. For, you must know, these Southern colleges are all so poor that they hold out absolutely no inducement in the way of support to a professor: and so last January I suddenly came to the conclusion that I wanted to make some money for my wife and my baby, and incontinently betook me to studying Law: wherein I am now well advanced, and, D. V., will be admitted to the Bar in May next. My advantages

1 Charles Day Lanier. See poem, "Baby Charley."

are good, since my Father and uncle (firm of Lanier and Anderson) are among the oldest lawyers in the city and have a large practice, into which I shall be quickly inducted.

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"I have not, however, ceased my devotion to letters, which I love better than all things in my heart of hearts; and have now in the hands of the Lit. Bureau in N. Y. a vol. of essays. I'm (or rather have been) busy, too, on a long poem, yclept the Jacquerie,' on which I had bestowed more real work than on any of the frothy things which I have hitherto sent out; tho' this is now necessarily suspended until the summer shall give me a little rest from the office business with which I have to support myself while I am studying law." 1

Lanier's work as a lawyer was that of the office, as he never practiced in the courts. To the accuracy and fidelity of this work the words of his successor, Chancellor Walter B. Hill of the University of Georgia, bear testimony:

"About 1874 or 1875 I became associated as partner with the firm of Lanier and Anderson, in whose office Sidney Lanier practiced law up to the time he left Macon [1869-1873] — I do not know whether he was a partner in the firm or whether he merely used the same office. At any rate, it seems that the greater part of his work 1 Lippincott's Magazine, March, 1905.

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