"That love of man for man,
    That joyed in all sweet possibilities: that faith
    Which hallowed love and life. . . .
    So he, Heaven-taught in his large-heartedness,
    Smiled with his spirit's eyes athwart the veil
    That human loves too oft keep closely drawn. . . .
    So hearts leaped up to breathe his freer atmosphere,
    And eyes smiled truer for his radiance clear,
    And souls grew loftier where his teachings fell,
    And all gave love. . . .
                              Aye, the patience and the smile
    Which glossed his pain; the courtesy;
    The sweet quaint thoughts which gave his poems birth."*

--
* Poem by Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull, read at the presentation of the Lanier bust to Johns Hopkins University.
--

She speaks, too, of "his winning tenderness with souls perplexed"; "his eagerness for lofty converse"; "his oneness with all master-minds"; "his thirst for lore"; "his gratitude for that the Lord had made the earth so good!"

In the house of this same friend, Mme. Blanc (Th. Bentzon) first realized the dead poet's personality; she there caught something of the afterglow of his presence: --

"The morning that I spent with Mrs. Turnbull was almost as interesting as an interview with Sidney Lanier himself would have been, so fully does his memory live in that most aesthetic interior, where poetry and music are held in perpetual honor, and where domestic life has all the beauty of a work of art. The hero of Mrs. Turnbull's novel, `A Catholic Man', is none other than Sidney Lanier, and that scrupulously faithful presentment of a `universal man' was of the greatest assistance to me.

"The beautiful mansion on Park Avenue has almost the character of a temple, where nothing profane or vulgar is allowed admission. Passing through the reception rooms, I was introduced into a private parlor out of which opened a music-room, from whose threshold I recognized the man whom I had come to seek, -- the poet himself, as he was represented in his latest years, by the German sculptor, Ephraim Keyser. . . . By way of contrast, Mrs. Turnbull exhibits a glorified Lanier, crowned with his ultimate immortality. He appears in a symbolic picture, ordered by this American art patroness, from the Italian painter Gatti, where are grouped all the great geniuses of the past, present, and future, -- the latter emerging vaguely from the mists of the distance, and including a large number of women. This innumerable multitude of the elite of all ages encircles a mountain which is dominated by Jesus Christ; and from this figure of the Christ emanates the light which Mrs. Turnbull has caused to be shed upon the figures of the picture, with more or less brilliancy according to her own preferences. Designating a tall, draped figure who walks in the front rank of the poets, the lady said to me: `This is Sidney Lanier;' and when I, despite my admiration for the poet of the marshes, ventured to offer a few modest suggestions, she went on to develop the thesis, that what exalts a man is less what he has done than what he has aspired to do."

     . . . . .

"Mrs. Turnbull had too much tact to multiply her personal anecdotes of Sidney Lanier, but she pictured him to me as he loved to sit by the fireside, where he had always his own special place; coming, of an evening, unannounced, into the room where we then were, rising like a phantom beside her husband and herself, in the hour between daylight and dark, and pouring forth those profound, unexpected, and delightful things which seem to belong to him alone, which characterize his correspondence also, and all his literary remains."*

--
* `Revue des Deux Mondes', 1898. Translated for `Littell's Living Age', May 14 and May 21, 1898.
--

The quality of affection in Lanier reached its climax in his home life. There he was seen and known at his best. An early aspiration of his was "to show that the artist-life is not necessarily a Bohemian life, but that it may coincide with and BE the home-life." Such poems as "Baby Charley" and "Hard Times in Elfland", and the story of "Bob" reveal the playful and affectionate father, while "My Springs", "In Absence", "Laus Mariae" and many published and unpublished letters are but variations of the oft-recurring theme: --

    When life's all love, 't is life: aught else, 't is naught.

A letter written to his wife will serve to give the spirit which prevailed in the home: --

                                   January 1, 1875.

A thousand-fold Happy New Year to thee, and I would that thy whole year may be as full of sweetness as my heart is full of thee.

All day I dwell with my dear ones there with thee. I do so long for one hearty romp with my boys again! Kiss them most fervently for me, and say over their heads my New Year's prayer, that whether God may color their lives bright or black, they may continually grow in a large and hearty manhood, compounded of strength and love.

Let us try and teach them, dear wife, that it is only the small soul that ever cherishes bitterness; for the climate of a large and loving heart is too warm for that frigid plant. Let us lead them to love everything in the world, above the world, and under the world adequately; that is the sum and substance of a perfect life. And so God's divine rest be upon every head under the roof that covers thine this night, prayeth thy

                                   Husband.