The Wilmington morning star., 1940-02-04
U. D. C. CHAPTERS
ENDORSE LANIER
FOR HALL OF FAME
BY MRS. A. T. ST. AMAND
of the Cape Fear Chap

federacy has been promoting the
name of Sidney Lanier for the
Hal lof Fame. AS this Is the year
elections will be made the Daugh-
ters are expecting him to pe elected
this year. As poet, literateur, flut-
list and music critic his praises have
been sung and the movement is
constantly gaining support from
unexpected sources. This week the
Man About Manhattan" has made
two references to Lanier claiming
that he once lived for a short while
in New York and stating that, with
the exception of Poe, Lanier was
the greatest poet the south ever
had. Some writers have attributed
Lanier as being greater than Poe.
However hat may be, Lanier was
a remarkably prolific and sweet
singing poet.
AS a music critic a musician
claims Lanier ranked with the
greatest, saying, "Lanier was the
first great and perhaps the last
thoroughly competent, musical
critic the south has ever produced"
AS flutist he held his audiences
%spellbound with the wonder Of his
gift. He says Of himself, Music
means harmony, harmony means
love, love means-God!" He lived
in sweet sounds; forever conscious
Of a ceaseless flow of melody which,
if cast aside for a time, would flow
again as naturally as before.
Sidney Lanier was born in
Macon, Ga, February 3, 1912. AS a
child his earliest passion was for
music. He learned to play, almost
without instruction, on every kind
Of instrument he could find. His
devotion to music was so intense
that he rather alarmed his parents.
At the age Of nineteen he enlisted
in the Confederate army. He spent
his first year in Virginia where he
had al opportunity to improve his
skill n the use of hsi flute and in
literary pursuits. A transfer to the
signal service was due perhaps to
his ability to play the flute which
had impressed his mates.
In 1854 Lanier was captured and
kept in Point Lookout prison,
with his flute, for five years. 1t
vas while in prison that consump.
ton took such heavy toll that when
he was released he was a broken
man with only a twenty dollar
gold piece and his inseparable COM
panion-his magic flute. Perhaps
it was the flute ore than any
other thing, that prolonged his life
sixteen years until his death in
1881.
Lanier's search for health took
him many places but it was in the
city Of Baltimore as flutist in the
famous Peabody orchestra and as
lecturer on English literature at
Johns Hopkins university that he
began to win fame which has con-
tinued to grow to this day. He had
written poems during his service
in the Confederacy and he contin.
ued steadily to write each one
showing a decided growth in ideals
and beauty. At his death his last
poems had shown a decided bios
soming into the fullest and best
work of all.
These columns have treated of
Lanier as poet and as idealist,
therefore, it is expedient to speak
of the fluist who loved music for
the beauty there was in it and
was not hampered with mechanics
of music. MI. Asger Hamerik, his
director for six years in the Pea.
body Symphony orchestra says:
His human nature was like an
enchanted instrument, a magic
flute, needing but a breath of a
touch to send its beauty out into
the world. In his hands the flute
40 longer remained a mere material
instrument; it's tones developed
colors warmth, and a low sweet.
ness Of unspeakable poetry; they
were not only true and pure, but
poetic, suggestive of the depths
and heights Of being and of the
delights which the earthly ear
never hears and the earthly eye
never Sees"
Others speak Of his music and
poetry being so closely intermingled
that they were almost inseparable.
Henry Van Dyke says, There is
no dividing line between the two
arts in his mind" Gamaliel Brad.
ford says, II sometimes think his
real heart went even more into
music than into poetry, and even
in the latter it was perhaps the
musical element that appealed to
him most" DR.. George Armstrong
says, He was the first to harmon.
lie the twin arts Of music and
poetry in the practice as we'll as in
his critical analysis of their laws.
He was admittedly the most in.
spired flute player America has
produced"
M. E. Tydings says, Musical gen.
ius. who with his silver flute sway.
ed men as Orpheus swayed trees.
Soldier, poet, lawyer lit~erateur, lee.
turer at Baltimore's great univer.
sity, and withal a Christian gentle
man, who died with a thousand