sensitive
souls, "with what unspeakable care I would have brushed this present
garment of mine in days gone by, if I had dreamed that the time would
come when so great a thing as a visit to _you_ might hang upon the
little length of its nap! Behold, it is not only in man's breast that
pathos lies, and the very coat lapel that covers it may be a tragedy."

The poetic temperament is commonly supposed to be at variance with
domestic tranquillity. The domestic life of Lanier is a contradiction
to that popular belief. He ends one of his letters to his wife with
this petition,--"Let us lead them (the children) to love everything
in the world, above the world, and under the world adequately; that is
the sum and substance of a perfect life. And so God's divine rest be
upon every head under the roof that covers thine this night, prayeth
thy husband."

In his letter to Gibson Peacock, January 6, 1878, we have a charming
picture of the delight of a man who has at last found a place to nest
his family, after some years of forlorn wanderings and uncertainties:

"...I have also moved my family into our new home, have had a
Christmas tree for the youngsters, have looked up a cheap school for
Harry and Sidney, have discharged my daily duties as first flute of
the Peabody Orchestra, have written a couple of poems and part of an
essay on Beethoven and Bismarck, have accomplished at least a hundred
thousand miscellaneous nothings.... We are in a state of supreme
content with our new home; it really seems to me as incredible that
myriads of people have been living in their own homes heretofore; as
to the young couple with a first baby it seems impossible that a great
many other couples have had similar prodigies. Good heavens! how I
wish that the whole world had a home.

"I confess that I am a little nervous about the gas bills, which must
come in, in the course of time; and there are the water rates, and
several sorts of imposts and taxes; but then the dignity of being
liable to such things is a very supporting consideration. No man is a
Bohemian who has to pay a water tax and a street tax. Every day when I
sit down in my dining-room--_my_ dining-room! I find the wish growing
stronger that each poor soul in Baltimore, whether saint or sinner,
could come and dine with me. How I would carve out the merry-thoughts
for the old hags! How I would stuff the big wan-eyed rascals till
their rags ripped again! There was a knight of old times w