During the winters that he was a member of the Peabody Orchestra
he came back in the afternoons when the rehearsals were held,
bringing his flute with him, and continued his studies
until it was time to go into the rehearsal. He continued in this way
until his increasing weakness prevented him from leaving home,
when he would write notes to the desk attendants asking them to verify
some reference, or copy some extract for him, and frequently his wife
would come to the library to do the copying for him."*
--
* Letter of Mr. John Park to the author.
--
This library was Lanier's university. While other Southerners
were finding their way to German universities, he was training himself in
the methods and ideals of the modern scholar. The dream of his college days
was being fulfilled. He lacked the patient and careful training of men
who have a lifetime to devote to some special field of work.
He could not in the short time at his disposal explore the fields of learning
which he entered. Into those two or three years of study and research,
however, were crowded results and attainments that many less gifted men,
working with less prodigious zest and power, do not reach in a decade.
Writing to Bayard Taylor, October 20, 1878, he said: "Indeed, I have been
so buried in study for the past six months that I know not news
nor gossip of any kind. Such days and nights of glory as I have had!
I have been studying Early English, Middle English, and Elizabethan poetry,
from Beowulf to Ben Jonson: and the world seems twice as large.
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