is the basis of the first part of "Tiger Lilies". Here Lanier
had the opportunity of seeing at its best the life of the old South
just before it vanished in the cataclysm of the Civil War.
Of that life he afterwards wrote: "Nothing can be more pitiable than that
at the time when this amiable outcome of the old Southern civilization
became known to the world at large, it became so through being laid bare
by the sharp spasm of civil war. There was a time when all our eyes and faces
were distorted with passion; none of us either saw or showed true.
Thrice pitiable, one says again, that the fairer aspects of a social state,
which though neither perfect as its violent friends preached,
nor satanic as its violent enemies denounced, yet gave rise
to so many beautiful relations of honor and fidelity, should have now
gone to the past, to remain illuminated only by the unfavorable glare
of accidentally associated emotions in which no man can see clearly."**

--
* He was out of college the year 1858-9, being clerk in the Macon post-office.
The college records show that he received the highest marks
in his senior year, but shared the honors of graduation with one
whose record for the entire course was equal to his.
** `Florida: Its Scenery, Climate, and History', p. 232.
--

But while Lanier was thoroughly identified with this life,
he was at the time dreaming of a career which was not fostered by it --
a career in which music and poetry should be the dominating figures.
The scene in the first book of "Tiger Lilies" of a band of friends
gathered on the balcony of John Sterling's house -- a palace of art
reared by Lanier's imagination in the mountains of East Tennessee --
is strictly autobiographical. As they watch the sunset over the valley,