Came thus, not because he was unmindful of conventionalities. He was
as mindful of them as Browning, -- came thus because he had to come thus.
There was no time to dress. The poor chalk-fingered poet was miserable
the whole evening, hardly roused himself when the talk fell on Blake,
and when we took a walk together the next day he made his moan to me about it.
A seraph with chalk on his fingers. Somehow, that little incident seems to me
an epitome of his life, though I have mentioned it only to show
how busy he was."*
--
* Letter to the author.
--
He was a welcome guest in many homes. "He had the most gentle, refined,
sweet, lovely manners, I think I may say, of any man I ever met,"
says Charles Heber Clarke. A letter from the daughter of the late
John Foster Kirk, former editor of "Lippincott's Magazine",
gives an impression of Lanier in the homes of his friends: --
"My first sight of Lanier was when he came into the room
with my father at dusk one evening (they had been walking
through the Wissahickon woods and came back to tea),
and his presence seemed something beautiful in the room,
even more from his manner than from his appearance, gracious and fine
as that was. He always seemed to me to stand for chivalry as well as poetry,
and his goodness was something you felt at once and never forgot.
He was at our house one day with his flute. He and my father
were going to Mr. Robert P. Morton's, in Germantown, to play together.
Pages:
247
248
249
250
251
252
253
254
255
256
257
258
259
260
261
262
263
264
265
266
267
268
269
270
271