"*
No sooner had he begun this work than he desired to communicate to others
his own pleasure in English literature. In March, 1878,
he began a series of lectures at the residence of Mrs. Edgworth Bird,
who had welcomed him to her home when he first came to Baltimore.
These lectures on Elizabethan poetry were attended by
many of the most prominent men and women of the city. The following winter
Lanier arranged for a series of lectures at the Peabody Institute.
"In the spring of 1878," says one of his friends, "I was speaking of
the desultory study which women so often do and of how much better it would be
if all this energy could be directed to some definite end. He said:
`That is just what I am purposing. Next winter I am going to have
a Shakespearean revival for women,' and he then proceeded
to tell me of the prospective lectures." He had become imbued with the idea
that much might be done in the way of establishing "Schools for Grown People"
in all the leading cities of America. He writes to Gibson Peacock: --
--
* `Letters', p. 214.
--
180 St. Paul St., Baltimore, Md.,
November 5, 1878.
I have been "allowing" -- as the Southern negroes say --
that I would write you, for the last two weeks; but I had a good deal to say,
and haven't had time to say it.
During my studies for the last six or eight months a thought
which was at first vague has slowly crystallized into a purpose,
of quite decisive aim.
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