. . .
Sincerely yours,
Sidney Lanier.
In January, he began his lectures at Johns Hopkins. Who would have thought
that a dying man could give expression to such vigorous ideas
in such rhythmic and virile prose as are some of the passages
in the "English Novel"? There is not the intellectual strength in this book
that there is in the "Science of English Verse". There is more of a tendency
to go off in digressions, "to talk away across country",
and the whole lacks in unity and in scientific precision.
But there are passages in it that men will not willingly let die.
His discussion of the growth of personality, of the relations of Science,
Art, Religion, and Life, of Walt Whitman and Zola, and above all,
of George Eliot, are worthy of Lanier at his best. These passages
and the still more important one on the relation of art to morals
are too well known to be quoted; they will be considered in another chapter
dealing with Lanier's work as critic. They are mentioned here
only to show the range of Lanier's interest and the alertness of his mind
when his body was fast failing.
Frances E. Willard heard these lectures, and her words descriptive of them
indicate that even in those days of intense suffering
Lanier impressed her favorably. "It was refreshing," she says,
"to listen to a professor of literature who was something more
than a `raconteur' and something different from a bibliophile,
who had, indeed, risen to the level of generalization and employed
the method of a philosopher.
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