Sid would play upon his flute like one inspired, while the rest of us
would listen in solemn silence."
Besides being a faithful student, Lanier was an omnivorous reader
in the wide fields of English literature, sharing his tastes
with some of his companions who with him lived in "an atmosphere
of ardent and loyal friendship." "I can recall," says Mr. T. F. Newell,
his classmate and room-mate,* "those Attic nights, for they
are among the dearest and tenderest recollections of my life,
when with a few chosen companions we would read from some treasured volume,
it may have been Tennyson or Carlyle or Christopher North's
`Noctes Ambrosianae', or we would make the hours vocal with music and song;
those happy nights, which were veritable refections of the gods. . . .
On such occasions I have seen him walk up and down the room and with his flute
extemporize the sweetest music ever vouchsafed to mortal ear.
At such times it would seem as if his soul were in a trance,
and could only find existence, expression, in the ecstasy of tone,
that would catch our souls with his into the very seventh heaven of harmony.
Or, in merry mood, I have seen him take a banjo, for he could play
on any instrument, and as with deft fingers he would strike
some strange new note or chord, you would see his eyes brighten,
he would begin to smile and laugh as if his very soul were tickled,
while his hearers would catch the inspiration, and an old-fashioned
`walk-round' and `negro breakdown', in which all would participate,
would be the inevitable result.
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