The Montgomery advertiser., 1907-12-18
ION SIDNEY LANIER
CLIFFORD LANIER's MACON LEC-
 TURF LITERARY EVENT.
He Spoke on the Life and Poetry of Sidney Lanier, His Brother, and
 the SOuth's Famous Poet.

The lecture delivered few days ago at Wesleyan College, Macon, Ga. py Clifford A. Lanier of Montgomery on the life and poetry of his brother, Sid ney Lanfer, has been called by the Macon papers the chief literary event of the season in that city.
 A large crowd of several hundred people heard the lecture, which was
 under the auspices of the Daughters of the Confederacy. The Wesleyan young | ladies In full chorus sang Sidney La : nier's beautiful ballad Trees and the Master" and Mrs. Walter Lamar gave splendid rendition of The Tourna- ment."
 MT. Clifford Lanier was presented | to the audience as lone worthy of his distinguished brother and of himself Of the lecture the Macon Telegraph says,
 MT, Lanier was very warmly greet ed, and delivered an address which. though pretty steadily serious in tone, won and held the attention of his au' dience from the start His subject was Sidney Lanier and Some Thoughts or Poetry"
 Discussing the arts in detailed fash ion, he spoke of poetry as sweeping | the vast harp of our Hymnal, one cief of which may be the exquisite cuitiva- ton of the masters, renderd by Jen- ny Lind, Neillson and Patti, down to the barbaric melody of the wild camp
 meeting hymns, chanting Way Down ter Egypt Land," or Desc Bones Shall
 Rise Ergin."
 Speaking of his brother. he said: Finding Ill health debarred him from the practice of law and other
 bread winning pursuits; made patient by sickness. by deep thinking and by & singularly practical conception of hn GtI
 of music and the poetic art. Filled with enthusiasm, buoyant of hope. he desired to live life at its highest and
 best. I think his deepest thought was to be of some little good to man.
 The speaker then proceeded to de- velop his subject. first with regard to his famous brothers life and personal
 ny and afterwards, and chiefly. with regard to his art. He recounted sev- eral extremely interesting events in the life of Sidney as boy and man, incidents Illustrating his humor, his intelligent
 patriotism his fine sensibility to the meaning of the great words, duty, hon.
 or. aspiration, love. In the last word, indeed. he summed up Lanier's charac- ter and his philosophy of life alike
 On the more critical side the lectur- CT presented seriatim a number of the
 thoughts concerning art and poetry that have been recorded by the think CTS of all time from Aristotle to Lanier himself, showing how, though often apparently differing, all of these were
 as one as touching the central genius
 and function of poetry, and illustrat--
 ing the way in which much that IS best in these ideas came to focus in Laniers life and works. He read sym
 pathetically several of his brothers
 choicer lyrics and quoted freely from
 others, concluding with "The Crystaf as an admirable example of the doe
 urine that poetry and religion are suot- ly but fundamentally one.
 The lecture contained many memor- able passages and pictures that iiiumi- mated for all who heard 1t the nIe os the "gray- -jacketed campaign smirched Southern soldier" as he lay In camp playing the flute, the Peabody ,or orchss- 1ss tra musician, the Johns Hopkins rec
 t,,rar the husband and father, the poet.
 At it's conclusion a public reception
 was held in the Wesleyan a,aons parlors, had the pleasure of meeting and greet ing Mr. Lanier.