I can't tell you how much I sigh for some quiet evenings
at the Century, where I might hear some of you talk about the matters I love,
or merely sit and think in the atmosphere of the thinkers.
I fancy one can almost come to know the dead thinkers too well:
a certain mournfulness of longing seems sometimes to peer out
from behind one's joy in one's Shakespeare and one's Chaucer, --
a sort of physical protest and yearning of the living eye for its like.
Perhaps one's friendship with the dead poets comes indeed to acquire
something of the quality of worship, through the very mystery
which withdraws them from us and which allows no more messages from them,
cry how we will, after that sudden and perilous Stoppage.
I hope those are not illegitimate moods in which one sometimes desires
to surround one's self with a companionship less awful,
and would rather have a friend than a god."*
--
* `Letters', p. 171.
--
Mr. Stedman has recorded his impression of Lanier as he met him
at Bayard Taylor's: "I saw him more than once in the study
of our lamented Deucalion, -- the host so buoyant and sympathetic,
the Southerner nervous and eager, with dark hair and silken beard,
features delicately moulded, pallid complexion, and hands of the slender,
white, artistic type." The friendship between Lanier and Taylor
was no less cherished by the older poet. He rejoiced to recognize in Lanier
"a new, TRUE poet -- such a poet as I believe you to be --
the genuine poetic nature, temperament, and MORALE.
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