by loss of sleep.

"As the sermon progressed, and the immortal words of Christian doctrine came
to our hearts and comforted us, sweet influences born of the liberal sunlight
which lay warm upon the grass, of the moving leaves and trembling flowers,
seemed to steal over the General's soul. Presently his eyelids
gradually closed, and he fell gently asleep. Not a muscle of him stirred,
not a nerve of his grand countenance twitched; there was
no drooping of the head, nor bowing of the figure. . . .
As he slumbered so, sitting erect, with arms folded upon his chest,
in an attitude of majestic repose, such as I never saw assumed
by mortal man before; as the large and comfortable word
fell from the preacher's lips; as the lazy cannon of the enemy anon
hurled a screaming shell to within a few hundred yards of where we sat,
as finally a bird flew into a tree overhead and sat and piped
small blissful notes in unearthly contrast with the roar of the war engines;
it seemed to me as if the present earth floated off through the sunlight,
and the antique earth returned out of the past, and some majestic god
sat on a hill, sculptured in stone, presiding over a terrible yet sublime
contest of human passion."

A pleasant interlude in Lanier's soldier life was a two weeks' visit
to Macon in the spring of 1863. The city had not yet felt
any of the calamities of war, although high prices prevailed.
Mrs. Clay, wife of Senator Clement C. Clay, was a visitor in the city
at that time, waiting for a summons to join her husband in Richmond.
She writes, in recalling those days: "Spring was in its precious beauty.
Gardens glowed with brilliant blossoms. Thousands of fragrant odors mingled
in the air, the voices of myriad birds sang about the foliaged avenues."*
It was then that Lanier met Miss Mary Day, at the home of their friend,