The Ocala banner. (Ocala, Marion County, Fla.) 1883-194?, 1914-05-29
GRADUATING EXERCISES
Continued from Page Three.)

IL seems SO small business in COM
parison with other things which 1t
seems to me might do. What Is the
providence of music In the economy
of the world?"
His earliest passion was for music.
and as a child he learned to play al
most without instruction on every IN
strument he could find. He devoted
himself TO the flute In difference to his
father who feared for him the power
full fascination OF the violin. In after
years more than one listener remark
ed the strange violin effects which he
CONQUERED from the flute. His devo-
tioA to music rather alarmed than
pleased his friends, and. while it was
here that he first discovered that he
possessed decided genius, he for some
time shared the early notion of his
parents that 1t was an unworthy pur-
suit, and he rather depressed his taste.
He did not know by what inheritance
1t had come to him. nor did he realize
how worthy is the art.
The breaking out of the war sum-
moned Lanier from books to the army,
and during those years of strife he
played the part of a true soldier of
the south. Lanier's constitution was
delicate; the exposures and hardships
OF war developed the seeds of tuberco-
losis, which he fought heroically
through young manhood and into mid
die life, and to which he finally sue
cumbed.
In December 1867 he was married
to Miss Mary Day. Their marriage was
ideal, his affections toward his wife
Is expressed in several poems What
could be more beautiful than the love
voiced in the Evening Song" on in
the poem called "My Springs" in
which he commentaries the beauty
Of her eyes?
Dear eyes, dear eyes, and rare com
plete,
Being heavenly-sweet and earthly
sweet,
I marvel that God made you mine;
For when he frowns it's then We
shine" ,...,..
During the last ten years of his life,
although suffering from great bodily
weakness and in the clutches OF a
fatal malady, he claimed for himself
the privilege of devotion to the twin
arts, music and poetry. In 1873, in
letter to his wife from San Antonio,
whittier he had gone in search of
health, he wrote:
Were it not for some circum-
stances which make such PROPOSE
ton seem absurd in the highest de,
gree, | would think that / am shortly
to die, and that my spirit hath been
singing it's swan-song before dissolu-
ton. All day my soul has been cut
ting swiftly into the great space OF
the subtle, unspeakable deep, driven
by wind after wind of heavenly mel
ody. The inner spirit and essence of.
all wind-songs, bird-songs, passion
songs, folk-songs. country-songs, sex
songs, soul-songs and body-songs hath
blown upon me in quick gusts like the
breath of passion, and sailed me into
a sea of vast dreams, whereof each
wave is at once vision and a mel
ody."
Again in the fall of the same year
he wrote from Baltimore to his faith
err, who would have had him return
to his home in Macon, practice law
with him and share his income:
81 have given your last letter the
fullest and most careful considera-
tion. After doing so feel that Macon
is not the place for me. If you could
taste the delicious crystalline air and
the champagne breeze that I've just
been rushing about in. l am equally
quiz bhdI III punt. VI SAiAAS~eC '0e
would agree with me that my chance
for life is ten times as great here as
in Macon. Then, as to business, why
should /, nay, how can settle myself
down to a third-rate struggling law
yer for the balance of my little life,
as long as there is certainty almost
absolute that l can do something so
much better? My dear father, think
how for twenty years, through power
ty, through pain, through WEAKNESS,
through sickness, through all discour-
agement of being wholly unacquainted
with literary people and literary ways,
/ say, think how in spite of all these
depressing circumstances, and of
thousand more which could emu
merate, these two figures of music
and Doetry have steadily kent in my