Perhaps you know that, with us of the younger generation in the South
since the war, pretty much the whole of life has been merely not dying."
==

The selection of Mr. Lanier to write the Centennial Cantata
first brought his name into general notice; but its publication,
in advance of the music by Dudley Buck, was the occasion
of an immense amount of ridicule, more or less good-humored. It was written
by a musician to go with music under the new relations of poetry to music
brought about by the great modern development of the orchestra,
and was not to be judged without its orchestral accompaniment.
The criticism it received pained our poet, but did not at all affect his faith
in his theories of art. To his father he wrote from New York, May 8, 1876:

==
"My experience in the varying judgments given about poetry . . .
has all converged upon one solitary principle, and the experience
of the artist in all ages is reported by history to be of precisely
the same direction. That principle is, that the artist shall put forth,
humbly and lovingly, and without bitterness against opposition,
the very best and highest that is within him, utterly regardless
of contemporary criticism. What possible claim can contemporary criticism
set up to respect -- that criticism which crucified Jesus Christ,
stoned Stephen, hooted Paul for a madman, tried Luther for a criminal,
tortured Galileo, bound Columbus in chains, drove Dante into a hell of exile,
made Shakespeare write the sonnet, `When in disgrace with fortune
and men's eyes', gave Milton five pounds for `Paradise Lost',
kept Samuel Johnson cooling his heels on Lord Chesterfield's doorstep,
reviled Shelley as an unclean dog, killed Keats, cracked jokes on Glueck,
Schubert, Beethoven, Berlioz, and Wagner, and committed so many other