Nor did Lanier live apart from the life in Macon. Although in later years he felt strongly the contrast between himself and his environment, he always spoke of his native place with the greatest affection, and it was among Macon people that he found some of his best friends in his adopted city. Its natural beauty appealed to him from the beginning -- the river Ocmulgee, the large forests of oak-trees stretching in every direction, the hills above the city, for which he often yearned, from the plains of Texas, or the flats of Florida, or the crowded streets of Baltimore. The climate was agreeable. Describing this section, Lanier said: "Surely, along that ample stretch of generous soil, where the Appalachian ruggednesses calm themselves into pleasant hills before dying quite away in the seaboard levels, a man can find such temperances of heaven and earth -- enough of struggle with nature to draw out manhood, with enough of bounty to sanction the struggle -- that a more exquisite co-adaptation of all blessed circumstances for man's life need not be sought."*

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* `Music and Poetry', p. 134.
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Macon was the capital of Middle Georgia, the centre of trade for sixty miles around. There was among the citizens an aggressive public spirit, which made it the rival in commercial life of the older cities, Savannah and Augusta; before the War it was a more important city than Atlanta. It was one of the first towns to push the building of railroads; it became "the keystone of the roads grappling with the ocean at the east and with the waters beyond the mountains at the west." The richer planters and merchants lived on the hills above the city -- in their costly mansions with luxuriant flower gardens -- while the professional men and the middle classes lived in the lower part of the city. Social lines were not, however, so sharply drawn here as in cities like Richmond or Charleston. Middle Georgia was perhaps the most democratic section of the South. It was a democracy, it is true, working within the limitations of slavery,* and greatly tempered with the feudal ideas of the older States, but it was a life which gave room for the development of well-marked individual types. There were many Georgia "Crackers" in the surrounding country; they were even recognized more than in other States as part of the social structure. While still a young boy Lanier was delivery clerk in the Macon post-office, and entertained the family at nights by "mimicry of their funny speech." In later life he wrote dialect poems, setting forth the humor of these people, and drew upon their speech for illustrations of philological changes in language.

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* In Macon a great many citizens had no slaves at all, and even those who had them had only a few. In 1850 the white population was 3323, while there were only 2352 slaves. In 1859, when the population had grown to 8000, the proportion was maintained. [Despite this statement by Mr. Mims, if these numbers are correct, it would appear that Macon had a significantly higher percentage of slaves than most areas of the South. -- A. L., 1998.]
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In Macon hospitality was regarded as an indispensable, even sacred duty. Cordiality and kindness in all the ordinary relations of men and women made up for whatever deficiencies there were in art and literature. Professor Le Conte, who lived in Macon during the boyhood of Lanier, speaking of some weeks he spent there during a college vacation, says, "Oh, the boundless hospitality of those times -- a continual round of entertainments, musicales, and evening parties, . . . horseback rides and boat rides during the day and piano-playing, singing, fluting, and impromptu cotillions and Virginia reels in the evening!"* The Lanier House, a hotel owned by Sterling Lanier from 1844 to 1854, was the centre of this social life. Here many distinguished men were entertained and many receptions were held. The proprietor was a typical "mine host", endeavoring to throw around his guests some of the atmosphere of the finer Southern homes. In 1851 President Fillmore and his Secretary of the Navy, John P. Kennedy, visited Macon and were entertained at this hotel. Macon was not without its cultivated people. Young ladies studied music in New York and brought into the private life of the city an atmosphere of musical culture. Now and then students were sent to the universities of the East. A group of professional and business men -- E. A. Nisbet, Washington Poe, Charles Day, Colonel Whittle, L. Q. C. Lamar (in his earlier days) -- had the refinement and cordiality characteristic of the old regime.

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* `The Autobiography of Joseph Le Conte'.
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The religious spirit ran high in Macon. While the Presbyterian church had a better educated clergy and proportionately a greater number of educated personages among the laity, the Methodist and Baptist churches dominated the life of the community. Revivals that recall the Great Awakening in New England in the time of Jonathan Edwards were frequent. The most popular preacher in Macon -- George F. Pierce, afterwards bishop in the Southern Methodist church -- is said to have preached the terrors of the law so plainly that the editor of a long extinct Universalist paper said he could smell fire and brimstone half a mile from the church. The type of religion that prevailed was emotional, but in an earlier stage of society it was a great barrier against immorality. The clergy did not raise the question of the ethics of slavery, -- on the other hand they defended it on biblical grounds, -- but they did enjoin upon masters the duty of kindness to slaves. Many of them were not cultivated men, but they laid the foundation for a better civilization in a stern and righteous social life which flowered in the next generation. "The only burning issues were sprinkling versus immersion, freewill versus predestination," and over these questions the churches fought with energy. Divided though they were on many points, they agreed in resisting the forces of modern thought that were making for a more liberal theology.

Although the people of Macon were thoroughly alive to the commercial, social, and religious welfare of the community, they provided no adequate school system. Lanier was schooled "in small private one-roomed establishments, taught by a Mrs. Anderson, a Mr. Hancock, or by that dear old eccentric dominie, `Jake' Danforth. One of these schools stood in a grove of oak and hickory-nut trees and was called the 'Cademy. Sidney was bright in studies, but while parsing, reading, writing, and figuring, he was also chucking nuts from the tops of the tall trees, sympathizing with the dainty half-angel, half-animal flying squirrels, and drinking deep draughts of the love of nature from the cool, solacing oaks."*

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* Article by Clifford Lanier, in `Gulf States Historical Magazine', July, 1903.
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Lanier was undoubtedly influenced by the life in Macon; positively influenced in that much of this life became a part of his own, and negatively in that he reacted against many conditions and ideals that prevailed there. All the time there was developing in him his own genius. He did not remember a time when he could not play upon almost any musical instrument. "When he was seven years old he made his first effort at music upon an improvised reed cut from the neighboring river bank, with cork stopping the ends and a mouth hole and six finger holes extemporized at the side. With this he sought the woods to emulate the trills and cadences of the song birds." Santa Claus's gift one year took the form of a small, yellow, one-keyed flute, on which simple instrument he would "practice with the passion of a virtuoso." Like Schumann, he organized an orchestra among his friends and young playmates. Simultaneously he was receiving his first initiation into the joy of literature. He would frequently retire from playing with his brother and other companions to the library of his father, where he followed with absorbing interest the stories of Sir Walter Scott, the romances of Froissart, the adventures of Gil Blas, and other stories that his boyish mind delighted in. He was already producing among his playmates a sense of the distinction of his personality, that caused them to reverence him as one above them.