The Austin weekly statesman. (Austin, Tex.) 1883-1898, 1893-04-19

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treated it we'll. Passing by with but
a notice of the two other poets of the
South, Edgar Allen Poe and Timrod,
he came to Lanier. OF the incidents
of Lanier's life, his devotion to his art
and his heroic battle with insidious
disease we need not speak here-they
are contained in Mr.. Wards "Me-
mortal"
1t is the lecturers view of the poet
which most interests us. "Tiger
Lilies" novel, Was Lanier's first
published work. Its teaching, which
is partially shown in the following
beautiful simile of the agJhOr Up. 49):
"In the old poisoning days Owe
heard) d delicate kind of Venetian
glass was used by the suspicious,
in it, would instantly shiver into
a thousand pieces. 1t is 80 with that
dainty world which an Imaginative
woman builds up in her soul, out of
things that surround her. One drop
of poison concealed in whatever wine
of pleasure does straightway jail
the whole delicate fabric into destruc-
ton. And it would eem that there
is no rebuilding of the old. soul world
after this. If she still have pure aspi-
rations there is for her only waiting
here, co see what the most blessed
Christ may do for her hereafter. And,
at nrst, there is not even this. The
Cry is then, Fall upon me,
ye mountains, and crush me
out of sight - AS IL
apparent, says DR.. Galloway, the
philosophy of the novel is the same
al Olivia's plaintive lines in the Vicar
of Wakefield, a philosophy that, de-
spite its wide acceptance, strikes me
as utterly false aud the proper anti.
dote which, strange to say,is given by
Shelley:
THE sin that by God is rgiven
| By man is cursed Away"
The next publication of Lanier's
exclusive of the 1877 volume of poems)
The Science of English Verse, ap.
peared in 1880, but was first delivered
in lecture form to the students OF
Johns.Hopkins. He has here given
us, says DIR. Galloway, the best work.
ing theory for English verse from
C9dmon down to Tennyson--in brief,
has reduced to almost perfect order
the previously existing chaos.
Lanier's econd course of lectures at
the Johns Hopkins university, de.
livered in the winter and spring of
1881, were published in 1888, under
the title of "The English Novel and
the Principles of Its Develop
ment." He POUNDS the growth of
novel on the "enormous growth
in the personality of man." and that
the increasing completely of relations
of life have developed the novel out of
the Greek drama through the transit
ton form of the Elizabethan drama.
His theses, said the lecturer, though
the truth; they are but one factor of
several. He called attention to
Lanier's assertion that art is to be
pursued, not for arts sake, but for Its
moral bearing in the issues of life.
Whenever there ID q contest as be-
tween artists and moral beauty, un-
less the moral side prevail, all is lost.
Let any sculptor hew us out the most
ravishing combination of tender curve
and spheric softness that ever stood
for woman, yet, If the lip have GER
tain fullness that hints of the flesh,
if the brow be insincere, If in the i'm
mUtest particular the physical beauty
suggest moral ug.iness, that scuIp-
tor-unless he be portraying a moral
ugliness for moral purpose-may as
we'll give over his marble for paving
stones"
Lanier set himself against the
agnosticism which not only permits
religion, but also philosophy and his
tory as witneeseth his ecknowled
ment. And against the commercial
spirit which made Leigh Hunt regard
America Gas great empire with a
vast counter stretching around its
Shores" Lanier raised his voice. He
also preached against the intolerance
which neither knowledge nor grace
has banished from us. DR.. Galloway
quoted his poem entitled Remon-
STRANGE, which only dearth of space
torbids US to reproduce here.
Turning from Lanier's view of the
, ills of life to his views of its beauty,
we find that he was a passionate lover
of music and the greatest flute player
. in the world. He had great and sim
cere love for nature in her visible
forms. 1t Is evidenced by 80 many
poems that quotation is impossible.
His treatment of woman, in which
he is as high-souled as Browning in
/ his unsurpassed "Another Way OF
( Loving" is depicted in the Symphony
and Laus Mariae, and also passim in
his prose and verse His final word
for love ia given in "in Absence:'
| \"When life's all love, tits life; aught