Returning to Suffolk, Va.,
Clifford Lanier wrote to her: "What a transition is this --
from the spring and peace of Macon to this muddy and war-distracted country!
Going to sleep in the moonlight and soft air of Italy, I seem to have waked
embedded in Lapland snow." Sidney wrote: "Have you ever wandered,
in an all night's dream, through exquisite flowery mosses,
through labyrinthine grottoes, `full of all sparkling and sparry loveliness',
over mountains of unknown height, by abysses of unfathomable depth,
all beneath skies of an infinite brightness caused by no sun;
strangest of all, -- wandered about in wonder, as if you had lived an eternity
in the familiar contemplation of such things? If you have dreamed,
thought, and felt so, you can realize the imbecile stare
with which I gaze on all of this life which goes on around me here.
Macon was my two weeks' dream."*
--
* `A Belle of the Fifties', p. 200.
--
During 1863 and a large part of 1864 the two brothers served
as scouts in Milligan's Corps along the James River. The duties were
unusually dangerous and onerous, from the fact that their movements
had to be concealed, and that they were in constant danger of being captured.
In this work of hard riding Lanier displayed a cool and collected courage;
he was untiring in his energy, prudent and cautious.
Notwithstanding the dangers and hardships, he looked upon the period of life
at Fort Boykin on Burwell's Bay -- their headquarters --
as "the most delicious period of his life in many respects.
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