I was professor of natural science, and often took him to ramble with me,
observing and studying whatever we saw, but also talking about everything
either of us cared for. About the same time I was licensed to preach,
and spent my Saturdays and Sundays in preaching to feeble churches
and in schoolhouses, court houses, and private houses,
within forty or more miles of the college; trying to make
my Sunday night services come within twenty-five miles of home,
so that I could drive to the college in time for my Monday morning
sunrise lecture. Every now and then I would invite Lanier to go with me.
During such drives we were constantly engaged without interruption
in our conversation. In these ways, and in listening frequently
to his marvelous flute-playing, we were much together.
We were both young and fond of study."

The first letter written by Lanier to his father from college announces
his admission to the sophomore class: "I have just done
studying to-night my first lesson, to wit, forty-five lines of Horace,
which I `did' in about fifteen minutes." Other letters show
that he was a very hard student and intensely conscientious.
At one time having violated one of his father's regulations, that he was not
under any circumstances to borrow money from his college mates, he wrote:
"My father, I have sinned. With what intensity of thought,
with what deep and earnest reflection have I contemplated this lately!
My heart throbs with the intensity of its anguish. . . .
If by hard study and good conduct I can atone for that,
God in heaven knows that I shall not be found wanting. . . .
Not a night passes but what the supplication, God bless my parents,
ascends to the great mercy seat." At another time he writes
for the following books: Olmsted's Philosophy, Blair's Rhetoric,
Cicero de Oratore, and an Analytical Geometry. He already has