,,transcriber',s ,,notes ,the original punctuation and spelling were retained1 with the exception of a few printer's mistakes4 ,the text contains also inconsistently spelled words4 ,the full list of both changes to the text and the inconsistencies in spelling can be found at the end of this file4 ,,books ,,by ,,james ,,huneker ,,published ,,by ,,charles ,,scribner',s ,,sons ,,unicorns4 #abmo1 net1 #a4ge ,,ivory ,,apes ,,and ,,peacocks4 #abmo1 net1 #a4ej ,,new ,,cosmopolis4 #abmo1 net1 #a4ej ,,the ,,pathos ,,of ,,distance4 #abmo1 net1 #b4jj ,,franz ,,liszt4 ,illustrated4 #abmo1 net1 #b4jj ,,promenades ,,of ,,an ,,impressionist4 #abmo1 net1 #a4ej ,,egoists3 ,a ,,book ,,of ,,supermen4 #abmo1 net1 #a4ej ,,iconoclasts3 ,a ,,book ,,of ,,dramatists4 #abmo1 net1 #a4ej ,,overtones3 ,a ,,book ,,of ,,temperaments4 #abmo1 net1 #a4ej ,,mezzotints ,,in ,,modern ,,music4 #abmo1 net1 #a4ej ,,chopin3 ,,the ,,man ,,and ,,his ,,music4 ,with ,portrait4 #abmo1 net1 #b4jj ,,visionaries4 #abmo1 net1 #a4ej ,,melomaniacs4 #abmo1 net1 #a4ej ,,unicorns ,,unicorns ,,by ,,james ,,huneker ,i would write on the lintels of the door-post1 ',whim4' --,emerson ,,new ,,york ,,charles ,,scribner',s ,,sons #aiag ,,copyright1 #aiag1 by ,,charles ,,scribner',s ,,sons ,published ,september1 #aiag ,,copyright1 #aijf1 ,,by ,,the ,,new ,,york ,,herald ,,company ,,copyright1 #aijg1 ,,by ,,the ,,ridgeway ,,company ,,copyright1 #aiji1 #aiaa1 #aiaf1 #aiag1 ,,by ,,the ,,sun ,,printing ,,and ,,publishing ,,co4 ,,copyright1 #aiad1 #aiae1 #aiaf1 #aiag1 ,,by ,,the ,,new ,,york ,,times ,,company ,,copyright1 #aiae1 #aiaf1 ,,by ,,puck ,,publishing ,,co4 ,,copyright1 #aiag1 ,,by ,,north ,,american ,,copyright1 #aiag1 ,,by ,,the ,,new ,,york ,,evening ,,mail ,,this ,,book ,,of ,,spleen ,,and ,,gossip ,,is ,,inscribed ,,to ,,my ,,friend ,,edward ,,ziegler ,come6 let us lay a crazy lance in rest ,and tilt at windmills under a wild sky4 --,john ,galsworthy4 ,he is a fribble1 a sonsy faddle1 whose conceits veer with the breeze like a creaking weather-vane4 ,as the sterile moon hath her librations1 so must he boast of his oscillations1 thinking them eternal verities4 ,a very cockatoo in his perched-up vanity and prodigious clatter4444 ,from ,the ,velvet ,cactus4 ,anonymous4 ,printed at the ,sign of the ,cat and ,cameo1 ,threadneedle ,street1 ,london4 ,a4,d4 #agbc4 ,rare4 ,,contents ,,chapter ,,page ,i4 ,,in ,,praise ,,of ,,unicorns #a ,,ii4 ,,an ,,american ,,composer3 ,,the ,,passing ,,of ,,edward ,,macdowell #f ,,iii4 ,,remy ,,de ,,gourmont3 ,,his ,,ideas4 ,,the ,,colour ,,of ,,his ,,mind #ah ,,iv4 ,,artzibashef #cc ,v4 ,a ,,note ,,on ,,henry ,,james #ec ,,vi4 ,,george ,,sand #fg ,,vii4 ,,the ,,great ,,american ,,novel #hb ,,viii4 ,,the ,,case ,,of ,,paul ,,cezanne #if ,,ix4 ,,brahmsody #ajf ,x4 ,,the ,,opinions ,,of ,j4-,k4 ,,huysmans #aaa ,,xi4 ,,style ,,and ,,rhythm ,,in ,,english ,,prose #aba ,,xii4 ,,the ,,queerest ,,yarn ,,in ,,the ,,world #aci ,,xiii4 ,,on ,,rereading ,,mallock #aea ,,xiv4 ,,the ,,lost ,,master #afa ,,xv4 ,,the ,,grand ,,manner ,,in ,,pianoforte ,,playing #aga ,,xvi4 ,,james ,,joyce #ahg ,,xvii4 ,,creative ,,involution #aie ,,xviii4 ,,four ,,dimensional ,,vistas #bjc ,,xix4 ,o4 ,w4 #bab ,,xx4 ,a ,,synthesis ,,of ,,the ,,seven ,,arts #bah ,,xxi4 ,,the ,,classic ,,chopin #bbh ,,xxii4 ,,little ,,mirrors ,,of ,,sincerity #bda ,,xxiii4 ,,the ,,reformation ,,of ,,george ,,moore #bfa ,,xxiv4 ,,pillowland #bgg ,,xxv4 ,,cross-,,currents ,,in ,,modern ,,french ,,literature #bhc ,,xxvi4 ,,more ,,about ,,richard ,,wagner #cjj ,,xxvii4 ,,my ,,first ,,musical ,,adventure #cag ,,xxviii4 ,,violinists ,,now ,,and ,,yesteryear #cbc ,,xxix4 ,,riding ,,the ,,whirlwind #cci ,,xxx4 ,,prayers ,,for ,,the ,,living #cec ,,unicorns ,,chapter ,i ,,in ,,praise ,,of ,,unicorns ,the ,lion and the ,unicorn were fighting for the crown3 ,the ,lion beat the ,unicorn all round the town4 444 ,in the golden book of wit and wisdom1 ,through the ,looking-,glass1 the ,unicorn rather disdainfully remarks that he had believed children to be fabulous monsters4 ,alice smilingly retorts3 ,do you know1 ,i always thought ,unicorns were fabulous monsters1 too8 ,i never saw one alive before6 ,well1 now that we have seen each other1 said the ,unicorn1 if you'll believe in me1 ,i'll believe in you4 ,is that a bargain8 ,yes1 if you like1 said ,alice4 ,no such ambiguous bargains are needed to demonstrate the existence of ,unicorns4 ,that is1 not for imaginative people4 ,a mythical monster1 a heraldic animal1 he figures in the dictionary as the ,monoceros1 habitat1 ,india2 and he is the biblical ,urus1 sporting one horn1 a goat beard and a lion's tail4 ,he may be all these things for practical persons2 no man is a genius to his wife4 ,but maugre that he is something more for dreamers of dreams2 though not the ,hippogriff1 with its liberating wings1 volplaning through the ,fourth ,dimension of ,space2 nor yet is he tender ,undine1 spirit of fountains1 of whom the ,unicorn asked3 ,by the waters of what valley has jealous mankind hidden the source of your secrets8 7,cousin german to the ,centaur of ,maurice de ,guerin1 he can speak in like cadence47 ,alice with her dreaming eyes of wonder was1 after the manner of little girls1 somewhat pragmatic4 ,she believed in ,unicorns only when she saw one4 ,yet we must believe without such proof4 ,has not the ,book of ,job put this question3 ,canst thou bind the ,unicorn with his band in the furrow8 ,as if a harnessed ,unicorn would be credible4 ,we prefer placing the charming monster1 with the prancing tiny hoofs of ivory 7surely ,chopin set him to musical notation in his capricious second ,etude in ,f2 ,chopin who1 if man were soulless1 would have endowed him with one7 in the same category as the ,chimera of ,the ,temptation of ,st4 ,antony1 which thus taunted the ,sphinx3 ,i am light and joyous6 ,i offer to the eyes of men dazzling perspectives with ,paradise in the clouds above4444 ,i seek for new perfumes1 for vaster flowers1 for pleasures never felt before4444 ,with ,unicorns we feel the nostalgia of the infinite1 the sorcery of dolls1 the salt of sex1 the vertigo of them that skirt the edge of perilous ravines1 or straddle the rim of finer issues4 ,he dwells in equivocal twilights2 and he can stare the sun out of countenance4 ,the enchanting ,unicorn boasts no favoured zone4 ,he runs around the globe4 ,he is of all ages and climes4 ,he knows that fantastic land of ,gautier1 which contains all the divine lost landscapes ever painted1 and whose inhabitants are the lovely figures created by art in granite1 marble1 or wood1 on walls1 canvas1 or crystal4 ,betimes he flashes by the nymph in the brake1 and dazzled1 she sighs with desire4 ,mallarme set him to cryptic harmonies1 and placed him in a dim rich forest 7though he called him a faun2 a faun in retorsion74 ,like the apocryphal ,sadhuzag in ,flaubert's cosmical drama of dreams1 which bore seventy-four hollow antlers from which issued music of ineffable sweetness1 our ,unicorn sings ravishing melodies for those who possess the inner ear of mystics and poets4 ,when angered he echoes the ,seven ,thunders of the ,apocalypse1 and we hear of desperate rumours of fire1 flood1 and disaster4 ,and he haunts those ivory gates of sleep whence come ineffable dreams to mortals4 ,he has always fought with the ,lion for the crown1 and he is always defeated1 but invariably claims the victory4 ,the crown is ,art1 and the ,lion1 being a realist born1 is only attracted by its glitter1 not the symbol4 ,the ,unicorn1 an idealist1 divines the inner meaning of this precious fillet of gold4 ,art is the modern philosopher's stone1 and the most brilliant jewel in this much-contested crown4 ,eternal is the conflict of the ,real and the ,ideal2 ,aristotle and ,plato2 ,alice and the ,unicorn2 the practical and the poetic2 butterflies and geese2 and rare roast-beef versus the impossible blue rose4 ,and neither the ,lion nor the ,unicorn has yet fought the battle decisive4 ,perhaps the day may come when1 weariness invading their very bones1 they may realise that they are as different sides of the same coveted shield2 matter and spirit1 the multitude and the individual4 ,then unlock the ivory tower1 abolish the tyrannies of superannuated superstitions1 and give the people vision1 without which they perish4 ,the divine rights of humanity1 no longer of kingly cabbages4 ,the dusk of the future is washed with the silver of hope4 ,the ,lion and the ,unicorn in single yoke4 ,strength and ,beauty should represent the fusion of the ,ideal and the ,real4 ,there should be no anarchy1 no socialism1 no ,brotherhood or ,sisterhood of mankind1 just the millennium of sense and sentiment4 ,what title shall we give that far-away time1 that longed-for ,utopia8 ,with ,alice and the ,faun we forget names1 so let us follow her method when in doubt1 and exclaim3 ,here then6 ,here then6 ,morose and disillusioned souls may cry aloud3 ,ah6 to see behind us no longer1 on the ,lake of ,eternity1 the implacable ,wake of ,time6 nevertheless1 we must believe in the reality of our ,unicorn4 ,he is ,pan4 ,he is ,puck4 ,he is ,shelley4 ,he is ,ariel4 ,he is ,whim4 ,he is ,irony4 ,and he can boast with ,emerson3 ,i am owner of the sphere1 ,of the seven stars and the solar year1 ,of ,caesar's hand and ,plato's brain1 ,of ,lord ,christ's heart and ,shakespeare's strain4 ,,chapter ,,ii ,,an ,,american ,,composer ,,the ,,passing ,,of ,,edward ,,macdowell ,whom the gods love----6 ,admirers of ,edward ,mac,dowell's ,sonata ,tragica may recall the last movement1 in which1 after a triumphant climax1 the curtain falls on tragic misery4 ,it was the very ,greek-like belief of ,mac,dowell that nothing is more sublimely awful than to heighten the darkness of tragedy by making it follow closely on the heels of triumph4 ,this he accomplished in his first sonata1 and fate has ironically transposed to the life of its composer the cruel and tragic drama of his own music4 ,despite occasional days brightened by a flitting hope1 the passing of ,edward ,mac,dowell has begun4 ,he is no longer an earth-dweller4 ,his body is here1 but his brain elsewhere4 ,not mad1 not melancholy1 not sunken in the stupor of indifference1 his mind is translated to a region where serenity1 even happiness1 dwells4 ,it is doubtless the temporary arrest of the dread mental malady before it plunges its victims into darkness4 ,luckily1 with the advent of that last phase1 the body will also succumb1 and the most poetic composer of music in ,america be for us but a fragrant memory4 ,irony is a much-abused word1 yet does it not seem the very summit of pitiless irony for a man of ,mac,dowell's musical and intellectual equipment and physical health to be stricken down at the moment when1 after the hard study of twenty-five years1 he has1 as the expression goes1 found himself8 ,and the gods were good to him--too good4 ,at his cradle poetry and music presided4 ,he was a born tone-poet4 ,he had also the painter's eye and the interior vision of the seer4 ,a mystic and a realist4 ,the practical side of his nature was shown by his easy grasp of the technics of pianoforte-playing4 ,he had a large1 muscular hand1 with a formidable grip on the keyboard4 ,much has been said of the idealist ,mac,dowell1 but this young man1 who had in his veins ,scotch1 ,irish1 and ,english blood1 loved athletic sports2 loved1 like ,hazlitt1 a fast and furious boxing-match4 ,the call of his soul won him for music and poetry4 ,otherwise he could have been a sea-captain1 a soldier1 or an explorer in far-away countries4 ,he had the physique2 he had the big1 manly spirit4 ,we are grateful1 selfishly grateful1 considering his life's tragedy1 that he became a composer4 ,here1 again1 in all this abounding vitality1 the irony of the skies is manifest4 ,never a dissipated man1 without a touch of the improvidence we ascribe to genius1 a practical moralist--rare in any social condition--moderate in his tastes1 though not a ,puritan1 he nevertheless has been mowed down by the ruthless reaper of souls as if his were negligible clay4 ,but he was reckless of the most precious part of him1 his brain4 ,he killed that organ by overwork4 ,not for gain--the money-getting ideal and this man were widely asunder--but for the love of teaching1 for the love of sharing with others the treasures in his overflowing storehouse1 and primarily for the love of music4 ,he1 ,american as he was--it is sad to speak of him in the past tense--and in these piping days of the pursuit of the gold piece1 held steadfast to his art4 ,he attempted to do what others have failed in1 he attempted to lead1 here in our huge1 noisy city1 antipathetic to aesthetic creation1 the double existence of a composer and a pedagogue4 ,he burned away the delicate neurons of the cortical cells1 and to-day he cannot say pianoforte without a trial4 ,he suffers from aphasia1 and locomotor ataxia has begun to manifest itself4 ,it would be tragedy in the household of any man2 it is doubly so in the case of ,edward ,mac,dowell4 ,he has just passed forty-five years and there are to his credit some sixty works1 about one hundred and thirty-two compositions in all4 ,these include essays in every form1 except music-drama--symphonic and lyric1 concertos and sonatas for piano1 little piano pieces of delicate workmanship1 charged with poetic meanings1 suites for orchestra and a romance for violoncello1 with orchestral accompaniment4 ,as a boy of fifteen ,mac,dowell went to the ,paris ,conservatoire1 there entering the piano classes of ,marmontel4 ,it was in #ahgf4 ,two years later ,i saw him at the same institution and later in comparing notes we discovered that we had both attended a concert at the ,trocadero1 wherein ,nicholas ,rubinstein1 the brilliant brother of ,anton1 played the ,b flat minor concerto of a youthful and unknown composer1 ,peter ,illyitch ,tschaikovsky by name4 ,this same concerto had been introduced to ,america in #ahgf by ,hans von ,buelow1 to whom it is dedicated4 ,rubinstein's playing took hold of young ,mac,dowell's imagination4 ,he saw there was no chance of mastering such a torrential style in ,paris1 or1 for that matter1 in ,germany4 ,he had enjoyed lessons from ,teresa ,carreno1 but the beautiful ,venezuelan was not then the virtuosa of to-day4 ,so ,mac,dowell1 who was accompanied by his mother1 a sage woman and deeply in sympathy with her son's aims1 went to ,frankfort1 where he had the benefit of ,karl ,heymann's tuition4 ,he was the only pianist ,i ever heard who could be compared to our ,rafael ,joseffy4 ,but his influences1 while marked in the development of his ,american pupil1 did not weaken ,mac,dowell's individuality4 ,studies in composition under ,joachim ,raff followed1 and then he journeyed to ,weimar for his baptism of fire at the hands of ,liszt4 ,that genial ,prospero had broken his wand of virtuoso and devoted himself to the culture of youthful genius and his own compositions4 ,he was pleased by the force1 the surety1 the brilliancy and the poetic qualities of ,mac,dowell's playing1 and he laughingly warned ,eugen d',albert to look to his laurels4 ,but music was in the very bones of ,mac,dowell1 and a purely virtuoso career had no attraction for him4 ,he married in #ahhd ,marian ,nevins1 of ,new ,york1 herself a pianist and a devoted propagandist of his music4 ,the pair settled in ,wiesbaden1 and it was the happiest period of ,mac,dowell's career4 ,he taught2 he played as guest in various ,german cities2 above all1 he composed4 ,his entire evolution is surveyed in ,mr4 ,lawrence ,gilman's sympathetic monograph4 ,it was in ,wiesbaden that he laid the foundation of his solid technique as a composer4 ,i once asked him during one of our meetings how he had summoned the courage to leave such congenial surroundings4 ,in that half-smiling1 half-shy way of his1 so full of charm and naivete1 he told me his house had burned down and he had resolved to return home and make enough money to build another4 ,he came to ,america in #ahhh and found himself1 if not famous1 at least well known4 ,to ,frank van der ,stucken belongs the glory of having launched the young composer1 and so long ago as #ahhf in the old ,chickering ,hall4 ,some would like to point to the fact that ,america was ,mac,dowell's artistic undoing1 but the truth is against them4 ,as a matter of musical history he accomplished his best work in the ,united ,states1 principally on his farm at ,peterboro1 ,n4 ,h4--hardly1 one would imagine1 artistic soil for such a dreamer in tones4 ,but life has a way of contradicting our theories4 ,teaching1 ,i have learned1 was not pursued to excess by ,mac,dowell1 who had settled in ,boston4 ,yet ,i wish there were sumptuary legislation for such cases4 ,why should an artist like ,mac,dowell have been forced into the shafts of dull routine8 ,it is the larger selfishness1 all this1 but ,i cling to it4 ,mac,dowell belonged to the public4 ,joseffy belongs to the public4 ,they doubtless did and do much good as teachers1 but the public is the loser4 ,besides1 if ,mac,dowell1 who was a virtuoso had confined himself to recitals he might not---- ,alas6 all this is bootless imagining4 ,he launched himself with his usual unselfishness into the advancement of his scholars1 and when in #ahif he was called to the chair of music at ,columbia the remaining seven years of his incumbency he gave up absolutely to his classes4 ,a sabbatical year intervened4 ,he went to ,switzerland for a rest4 ,then he made a tour of the ,west1 a triumphal tour2 and later followed the regrettable difference with ,columbia4 ,he resigned in #aijd1 and ,i doubt if he had had a happy day since--that is1 until the wave of forgetfulness came over him and blotted out all recollections4 ,as a pianist ,i may only quote what ,rafael ,joseffy once said to me after a performance of the ,mac,dowell ,d minor concerto by its composer3 ,what's the use of a poor pianist trying to compete with a fellow who writes his own music and then plays it the way ,mac,dowell does8 ,it was said jestingly1 but1 as usual1 when ,joseffy opens his mouth there is a grain of wisdom in the speech4 ,mac,dowell's ,french training showed in his pianism in the velocity1 clarity1 and pearly quality of his scales and trills4 ,he had the elegance of the salon player2 he knew the traditions4 ,but he was modern1 ,german and ,slavic in his combined musical interpretation and fiery attack4 ,his tone was large2 at times it was brutal4 ,this pianist did not shine in a small hall4 ,he needed space1 as do his later compositions4 ,there was something both noble and elemental in the performance of his own sonatas4 ,at his instrument his air of preoccupation1 his fine poetic head1 the lines of which were admirably salient on the concert stage1 and his passion in execution were notable details in the harmonious picture4 ,like ,liszt1 ,mac,dowell and his ,steinway were as the rider and his steed4 ,they seemed inseparable4 ,under the batons of ,nikisch1 ,gericke1 ,paur1 and ,seidl we heard him1 and for once at least the critics were unanimous4 ,when ,i first studied the ,mac,dowell music ,i called the composer a belated ,romantic4 ,a ,romantic he is by temperament1 while his training under ,raff further accentuated that tendency4 ,it is a dangerous matter to make predictions of a contemporary composer1 yet a danger critically courted in these times of rapid-fire judgments4 ,i have been a sinner myself1 and am still unregenerate1 for if it be sinful to judge hastily in the affirmative1 by the same token it is quite as grave an error to judge hastily in the negative4 ,so ,i shall dare the possible contempt of the succeeding critical generation1 which ,i expect--and hope--will not calmly reverse our dearest predictions1 and range myself on the side of ,mac,dowell4 ,and with this reservation2 ,i called him the most poetic composer of ,america4 ,he would be a poetic composer in any land2 yet it seems to me that his greatest1 because his most individual1 work is to be found in his four piano sonatas4 ,i am always subdued by the charm of his songs2 but he did not find his fullest expression in his lyrics4 ,the words seemed to hamper the bold wing strokes of his inspiration4 ,he did not go far enough in his orchestral work to warrant our saying3 ,here is something new6 ,he shows the influence of ,wagner slightly1 of ,grieg1 of ,raff1 of ,liszt1 in his first ,orchestral ,suite1 his ,hamlet and ,ophelia1 ,launcelot and ,elaine2 ,the ,saracens and ,lovely ,alda1 the ,indian ,suite1 and in the two concertos4 ,the form is still struggling to emerge from the bonds of the ,romantics--of classic influence there is little trace4 ,but the general effect is fragmentary4 ,it is not the real ,mac,dowell1 notwithstanding the mastery of technical material1 the genuine feeling for orchestral colour1 which is natural1 not studied4 ,there are poetic moods--,mac,dowell is always a poet--yet no path-breaker4 ,indeed1 he seemed as if hesitating4 ,i remember how we discussed ,brahms1 ,tschaikovsky1 and ,richard ,strauss4 ,the former he admired as a master builder2 the latter piqued his curiosity tremendously1 particularly ,also ,sprach ,zarathustra4 ,i think that ,tschaikovsky made the deepest appeal1 though he said that the ,russian's music sounded better than it was4 ,grieg he admired1 but ,grieg could never have drawn the long musical line we find in the ,mac,dowell sonatas4 ,the fate of intermediate types is inevitable4 ,music is an art of specialisation3 the ,wagner music-drama1 ,chopin piano music1 ,schubert songs1 ,beethoven symphony1 ,liszt symphonic poems1 and ,richard ,strauss tone-poems1 all these are unique4 ,mac,dowell has invented many lovely melodies4 ,that the ,indian duet for orchestra1 the ,woodland ,sketches1 ,new ,england ,idyls1 the ,sea ,pieces--,to the ,sea is a wonderful transcription of the mystery1 and the salt and savour of the ocean--will have a long life1 but not as long as the piano sonatas4 ,by them he will stand or fall4 ,mac,dowell never goes chromatically mad on his harmonic tripod1 nor does he tear passion to tatters in his search of the dramatic4 ,if he recalls any ,english poet it is ,keats1 and like ,keats he is simple and sensuous in his imagery1 and a lover of true romance2 not the sham ecstasies of mock mediaeval romance1 but that deep and tender sentiment which we encounter in the poetry of ,keats--in the magic of a moon half veiled by flying clouds2 in the mystery and scent of old and tangled gardens4 ,i should call ,mac,dowell a landscape-painter had ,i not heard his sonata music4 ,those sonatas1 the ,tragica1 ,eroica1 ,norse1 and ,keltic1 with their broad1 coloured narrative1 ballad-like tone1 their heroic and chivalric accents1 epic passion1 and feminine tenderness4 ,the psychology is simple if you set this music against that of ,strauss1 of ,loeffler1 or of ,debussy4 ,but it is noble1 noble as the soul of the man who conceived it4 ,elastic in form1 orchestral in idea1 these sonatas--which are looser spun in the web than ,liszt's--will keep alive the name of ,mac,dowell4 ,this statement must not be considered as evidence that ,i fail to enjoy his other work4 ,i do enjoy much of it1 especially the ,indian ,orchestral ,suite2 but the sonatas stir the blood1 above all the imagination4 ,when the ,tragica appeared ,i did not dream of three such successors4 ,now ,i like best the ,keltic1 with its dark magic and its tales of ,deirdre and the great ,cuchullin4 ,this fourth sonata is as ,keltic as the combined poetic forces of the neo-,celtic renascence in ,ireland4 ,i believe ,mac,dowell1 when so sorely stricken1 was at the parting of the ways4 ,he spoke vaguely to me of studies for new symphonic works1 presumably in the symphonic-poem form of ,liszt4 ,he would have always remained the poet1 and perhaps have pushed to newer scenes1 but1 like ,schumann1 ,donizetti1 ,smetana and ,hugo ,wolf1 his brain gave way under the strain of intense study4 ,the composition of music involves and taxes all the higher cerebral centres4 ,the privilege was accorded me of visiting the sick man at his hotel several weeks ago1 and ,i am glad ,i saw him1 for his appearance dissipated the painful impression ,i had conjured up4 ,our interview1 brief as it was1 became the reverse of morbid or unpleasant before it terminated4 ,with his mental disintegration sunny youth has returned to the composer4 ,in snowy white1 he looks not more than twenty-five years old1 until you note the grey in his thick1 rebellious locks4 ,there is still gold in his moustache and his eyes are luminously blue4 ,his expression suggests a spirit purged of all grossness waiting for the summons4 ,he smiles1 but not as a madman2 he talks hesitatingly1 but never babbles4 ,there is continuity in his ideas for minutes4 ,sometimes the word fits the idea2 oftener he uses one foreign to his meaning4 ,his wife1 of whose devotion1 almost poignant in its earnestness1 it would be too sad to dwell upon1 is his faithful interpreter4 ,he moves with difficulty4 ,he plays dominoes1 but seldom goes to the keyboard4 ,he reads slowly and1 like the unfortunate ,friedrich ,nietzsche1 he rereads one page many times4 ,i could not help recalling what ,mrs4 ,elizabeth ,foerster-,nietzsche told me in ,weimar of her brother4 ,one day1 noticing that she silently wept1 the poet-philosopher exclaimed3 ,but why do you weep1 little sister8 ,are we not very happy8 ,mac,dowell is very happy and his wife is braver than ,nietzsche's sister4 ,one fragment of his conversation ,i recall4 ,with glowing countenance he spoke of the thunderbolt in his wonderfully realistic piano poem1 ,the ,eagle4 ,there had been a lightning-storm during the afternoon4 ,then he told me how he had found water by means of the hazel wand on his ,new ,hampshire farm--a real happening4 ,as ,i went away ,i could not help remembering that the final words ,i should ever hear uttered by this friend were of bright fire and running water and dream-music4 ,the above appeared in the ,new ,york ,herald1 ,june #bd1 #aijf1 and is reprinted by request4 ,edward ,mac,dowell died ,january #bc1 #aijh4 ,,chapter ,,iii ,,remy ,,de ,,gourmont ,,his ,,ideas4 ,,the ,,colour ,,of ,,his ,,mind ,je dis ce que je pense--,r4 ,,de ,g4 ,i ,those were days marked by a white stone when arrived in the familiar yellow cover a new book1 with card enclosed from ,remy de ,gourmont1 #ga1 rue des ,saints-,peres1 ,paris4 ,sometimes ,i received as many as two in a year4 ,but they always found me eager and grateful1 did those precious little volumes bearing the imprint of the ,mercure de ,france1 with whose history the name of ,de ,gourmont is so happily linked4 ,and there were post-cards too in his delicate handwriting on which were traced sense and sentiment2 yes1 this man of genius possessed sentiment1 but abhorred sentimentality4 ,his personal charm transpired in a friendly salutation hastily pencilled4 ,he played exquisitely upon his intellectual instrument1 and knew the value of time and space4 ,so his post-cards are souvenirs of his courtesy1 and it was through one1 which unexpectedly fell from the sky in #ahig1 ,i began my friendship with this distinguished ,french critic4 ,his sudden death in #aiae at ,paris 7he was born #aheh71 caused by apoplexy1 was the heroic ending of a man of letters4 ,like ,flaubert he was stricken while at his desk4 ,i can conceive no more fitting end for a valiant soldier of literature4 ,he was a moral hero and the victim of his prolonged technical heroism4 ,de ,gourmont was incomparable4 ,thought1 not action1 was his chosen sphere1 but ranging up and down the vague and vast territory of ideas he encountered countless cerebral adventures2 the most dangerous of all4 ,an aristocrat born1 he was1 nevertheless1 a convinced democrat4 ,the latch was always lifted on the front door of his ivory tower4 ,he did live in a certain sense a cloistered existence1 a ,benedictine of arts and letters2 but he was not1 as has been said1 a sour hermit nursing morose fancies in solitude4 ,de ,gourmont1 true pagan1 enjoyed the gifts the gods provide1 and had1 despite the dualism of his nature1 an epicurean soul4 ,but of a complexity4 ,he never sympathised with the disproportionate fuss raised by the metaphysicians about ,instinct and ,intelligence1 yet his own magnificent cerebral apparatus was a battle-field over which swept the opposing hosts of ,instinct and ,intelligence1 and in a half-hundred volumes the history of this conflict is faithfully set down4 ,as personal as ,maurice ,barres1 without his egoism1 as subtle as ,anatole ,france1 ,de ,gourmont saw life steadier and broader than either of these two contemporaries4 ,he was one who said vast things simply4 ,he was the profoundest philosopher of the three1 and never1 after his beginnings1 exhibited a trace of the dilettante4 ,life soon became something more than a mere spectacle for him4 ,he was a meliorist in theory and practice1 though he asserted that ,christianity1 an ,oriental-born religion1 has not become spiritually acclimated among ,occidental peoples4 ,but he missed its consoling function2 religion1 the poetry of the poor1 never had for him the prime significance that it had for ,william ,james2 a legend1 vague1 vast1 and delicious4 ,old frontiers have disappeared in science and art and literature4 ,we have ,maeterlinck1 a poet writing of bees1 ,poincare1 a mathematician opening our eyes to the mystic gulfs of space2 solid matters resolved into mist1 and the law of gravitation questioned4 ,the new horizons beckon ardent youth bent on conquering the secrets of life4 ,and there are more false beacon-lights than true4 ,but if this is an age of specialists a man occasionally emerges who contradicts the formula4 ,de ,gourmont was at base a poet2 also a dramatist1 novelist1 raconteur1 man of science1 critic1 moralist of erudition1 and1 lastly1 a philosopher4 ,both formidable and bewildering were his accomplishments4 ,he is a poet in his ,hieroglyphes1 ,oraisons mauvaises1 ,le ,livre des ,litanies1 ,les ,saintes du ,paradis1 ,simone1 ,divertissements--his last appearance in singing robes 7#aiad72 he is a raconteur--and such tales--in ,histoires magiques1 ,prose moroses1 ,le ,pelerin du silence1 ,d'un ,pays lointain1 ,couleurs2 a novelist in ,merlette--his first book--,sixtine1 ,le ,fantome1 les ,chevaux de ,diomede1 ,le ,songe d'une ,femme1 ,une ,nuit au ,luxembourg1 ,un ,coeur virginal2 dramatist in ,theodat1 ,phenissa1 ,le vieux ,roi1 ,lilith2 as master critic of the aesthetics of the ,french language his supremacy is indisputable2 it is hardly necessary to refer here to ,le ,livre des ,masques1 in two volumes1 the five volumes of ,promenades litteraires1 the three of ,promenades philosophiques2 as moralist he has signed such works as l',idealisme1 ,la ,culture des ,idees1 ,le ,chemin de ,velours2 historian and humanist1 he has given us ,le ,latin mystique2 grammarian and philologist1 he displays his learning in ,le ,probleme du ,style1 and ,esthetique de la ,langue francaise1 and incidentally flays an unhappy pedagogue who proposed to impart the secret of style in twenty lessons4 ,he edited many classics of ,french literature4 ,his chief contribution to science1 apart from his botanical and entomological researches1 is ,physique de l',amour1 in which he reveals himself as a patient1 thorough observer in an almost new country4 ,and what shall we say to his incursions into the actual1 into the field of politics1 sociology and hourly happenings of ,paris life2 his ,epilogues 7three volumes71 ,dialogues des ,amateurs1 the collected pages from his monthly contributions to ,mercure de ,france8 ,nothing human was alien to him1 nor inhuman1 for he rejected as quite meaningless the latter vocable1 as he rejected such cliches as organic and inorganic4 ,years before we heard of a pluralistic universe ,de ,gourmont was a pragmatist1 though an idealist in his conception of the world as a personal picture4 ,intensely interested in ideas1 as he was in words1 he might have fulfilled ,lord ,acton's wish that some one would write a ,history of ,ideas4 ,at the time of his death the ,french thinker was composing a work entitled ,la ,physique des ,moeurs1 in which he contemplated a demonstration of his law of intellectual constancy4 ,a spiritual cosmopolitan1 he was like most ,frenchmen an ardent patriot4 ,the little squabble in the early eighties over a skit of his1 ,le ,jou-jou--patriotisme 7#ahhc71 cost him his post at the ,national ,library in ,paris4 ,as a philosopher he deprecated war2 as a man1 though too old to fight1 he urged his countrymen to victory1 as may be noted in his last book1 ,pendant l',orage 7#aiaf74 ,but the philosopher persists in such a sorrowful sentence as3 ,in the tragedy of man peace is but an entr'acte4 ,to show his mental balance at a time when literary men1 artists1 and even philosophers1 indulged in unseemly abuse1 we read in ,jugements his calm admission that the war has not destroyed for him the intellectual values of ,goethe1 ,schopenhauer1 or ,nietzsche4 ,he owes much to their thought as they owed much to ,french thought2 ,goethe has said as much2 and of ,voltaire and ,chamfort1 ,schopenhauer was a disciple4 ,without being a practical musician1 ,de ,gourmont was a lover of ,beethoven and ,wagner4 ,he paid his compliments to ,romain ,rolland1 whose style1 both chalky and mucilaginous1 he dislikes in that overrated and spun-out series ,jean-,christophe4 ,another little volume1 ,la ,belgique litteraire1 was published in #aiae1 which1 while it contains nothing particularly new about ,georges ,rodenbach1 ,emile ,verhaeren1 ,van ,lerberghe1 ,camille ,lemonnier1 and ,maurice ,maeterlinck1 is excellent reading4 ,the ,french critic was also editor of the ,revue des ,idees1 and judging from the bibliography compiled by ,pierre de ,querlon as long ago as #aijc1 he was a collaborator of numerous magazines4 ,he wrote on ,emerson1 ,english humour1 or ,thomas a ,kempis with the same facility as he dissected the mystic ,latin writers of the early centuries after ,christ4 ,indeed1 such versatility was viewed askance by the plodding crowd of college professors1 his general adversaries4 ,but his erudition could not be challenged2 only two other men matched his scholarship1 ,anatole ,france and the late ,marcel ,schwob4 ,and we have only skimmed the surface of his accomplishments4 ,remy de ,gourmont is the ,admirable ,crichton of ,french letters4 ,,ii ,prodigious incoherence might be reasonably expected from this diversity of interests1 yet the result is quite the reverse4 ,the artist in this complicated man banished confusion4 ,he has told us that because of the diversity of his aptitudes man is distinguished from his fellow animals1 and the variety in his labours is a proof positive of his superiority to such fellow critics as the mentally constipated ,brunetiere1 the impressionistic ,anatole ,france1 the agile and graceful ,lemaitre1 and the pedantic philistine ,faguet4 ,but if ,de ,gourmont always attains clarity with no loss of depth1 he sometimes mixes his genres2 that is1 the poet peeps out in his reports of the psychic life of insects1 as the philosopher lords it over the pages of his fiction4 ,a mystic betimes1 he is a crystal-clear thinker4 ,and consider the catholicity evinced in ,le ,livre des ,masques4 ,he wrote of such widely diverging talents as ,maeterlinck1 ,mallarme1 ,villiers de l',isle ,adam1 and ,paul ,adam2 of ,henri de ,regnier and ,jules ,renard2 of ,huysmans and ,jules ,laforgue2 the mysticism of ,francis ,poictevin's style and the imagery of ,saint-,pol-,roux he defined1 and he displays an understanding of the first symbolist poet1 ,arthur ,rimbaud1 while disliking the personality of that abnormal youth4 ,but why recite this litany of new talent literally made visible and vocal by our critic8 ,it is a pleasure to record the fact that most of his swans remained swans and did not degenerate into tame geese4 ,in this book he shows himself a profound psychologist4 ,insatiably curious1 he yet contrived to drive his chimeras in double harness and safely4 ,his best fiction is ,sixtine and ,une ,nuit au ,luxembourg1 if fiction they may be called4 ,never will their author be registered among best-sellers4 ,sixtine deals with the adventures of a masculine brain4 ,ideas are the hero4 ,in ,un ,coeur virginal we touch earth1 fleshly and spiritually4 ,this story shocked its readers4 ,it may be considered as a sequel to ,physique de l',amour4 ,it shows mankind as a gigantic insect indulging in the same apparently blind pursuit of sex sensation as a beetle1 and also shows us the female of our species endowed with less capacity for modesty than the lady mole1 the most chaste of all animals4 ,disconcerting1 too1 is the psychology of the heroine's virginal soul1 not1 however1 cynical2 cynicism is the irony of vice1 and ,de ,gourmont is never cynical4 ,but a master of irony4 ,une ,nuit au ,luxembourg has been done into ,english4 ,it handles with delicacy and frankness themes that in the hands of a lesser artist would be banished as brutal and blasphemous4 ,the author knows that all our felicity is founded on a compromise between the dream and reality1 and for that reason while he signals the illusion he never mocks it2 he is too much an idealist4 ,in the elaborately carved cups of his tales1 foaming over with exquisite perfumes and nectar1 there lurks the bitter drop of truth4 ,he could never have said with ,proudhon that woman is the desolation of the just2 for him woman is often an obsession4 ,yet1 captain of his instincts1 he sees her justly2 he is not subdued by sex4 ,with a gesture he destroys the sentimental scaffolding of the sensualist and marches on to new intellectual conquests4 ,in ,lilith1 an ,adamitic ,morality1 he reveals his ,talmudic lore4 ,the first wife of our common ancestor is a beautiful hell-hag1 the accomplice of ,satan in the corruption of the human race4 ,thus mediaeval play is epical in its ,rabelaisian plainness of speech4 ,perhaps the ,manichean in ,de ,gourmont fabricated its revolting images4 ,he had traversed the ,baudelairian steppes of blasphemy and black pessimism2 ,baudelaire1 a poet who was a great critic4 ,odi profanum vulgus6 was ,de ,gourmont's motto1 but his soul was responsive to so many contacts that he emerged1 as ,barres emerged1 a citizen of the world4 ,anarchy as a working philosophy did not long content him1 although he never relinquished his detached attitude of proud individualism4 ,he saw through the sentimental equality of ,j4,j4 ,rousseau4 ,rousseau it was who said that thinking man was a depraved animal4 ,perhaps he was not far from the truth4 ,man is an affective animal more interested in the immediate testimony of his senses than in his intellectual processes4 ,his metaphysic may be but the reverberation of his sensations on the shore of his subliminal self1 the echo of the sounding shell he calls his soul4 ,and our critic had his scientific studies to console him for the inevitable sterility of soul that follows egoism and a barren debauch of the sensations4 ,he did not tarry long in the valley of excess4 ,his artistic sensibility was his saviour4 ,without being a dogmatist1 ,de ,gourmont was an antagonist of absolutism4 ,a determinist1 7which may be dogmatism a rebours71 a relativist1 he holds that mankind is not a specially favoured species of the animal scale2 thought is only an accident1 possibly the result of rich nutrition4 ,an automaton1 man has no free will1 but it is better for him to imagine that he has2 it is a sounder working hypothesis for the average human4 ,the universe had no beginning1 it will have no end4 ,there is no first link or last in the chain of causality4 ,everything must submit to the law of causality2 to explain a blade of grass we must dismount the stars4 ,nevertheless1 ,de ,gourmont no more than ,renan1 had the mania of certitude4 ,humbly he interrogates the sphinx4 ,there are no isolated phenomena in time or space4 ,the mass of matter is eternal4 ,man is an animal submitting to the same laws that govern crystals or brutes4 ,he is the expression of matter in physique and chemistry4 ,repetition is the law of life4 ,thought is a physiological product2 intelligence the secretion of matter and is amenable to the law of causality4 7,this sounds like ,taine's famous definition of virtue and vice47 ,and who shall deny it all in the psychochemical laboratories8 ,it is not the rigid old-fashioned materialism1 but a return to the more plastic theories of ,lamarck and the transformism of the ,dutch botanist1 ,hugo de ,vries4 ,for ,de ,gourmont the ,darwinian notion that man is at the topmost notch of creation is as antique and absurd as most cosmogonies2 indeed1 it is the ,asiatic egocentric idea of creation4 ,jacob's ladder repainted in ,darwinian symbols4 ,voila l'ennemi6 said ,de ,gourmont and put on his controversial armour4 ,what blows1 what sudden deadly attacks were his6 ,quinton has demonstrated to the satisfaction of many scientists that bird life came later on our globe than the primates from whom we stem4 ,the law of thermal constancy proves it by the interior temperature of birds4 ,man preceded the carnivorous and ruminating animals1 of whom the bodily temperature is lower than that of birds4 ,the ants and bees and beavers are not a whit more automatic than mankind4 ,automatism1 says ,ribot1 is the rule4 ,thought is not free1 wrote ,william ,james1 when to it an affirmation is added2 then it is but the affirmation of a preference4 ,l'homme1 asserts ,de ,gourmont1 varie a l'infini sa mimique4 ,sa superiorite1 c'est la diversite immense de ses aptitudes4 ,he welcomed ,jules de ,gaultier and his theory of ,bovaryisme2 of the vital lie1 because of which we pretend to be what we are not4 ,that way spells security1 if not progress4 ,the idea of progress is another necessary illusion1 for it provokes a multiplicity of activities4 ,our so-called free will is naught but the faculty of making a decision determined by a great and varied number of motives4 ,as for morality1 it is the outcome of tribal taboos2 the insect and animal world shows deepest-dyed immorality1 revolting cruelty1 and sex perversity4 ,rabbits and earthworms through no fault of their own suffer from horrible maladies4 ,from all of which our critic deduces his law of intellectual constancy4 ,the human brain since prehistoric times has been neither diminished nor augmented2 it has remained like a sponge1 which can be dry or saturated1 but still remains itself4 ,it is a constant4 ,in a favourable environment it is enriched4 ,the greatest moment in the history of the human family was the discovery of fire by an anthropoid of genius4 ,prometheus then should be our god4 ,without him we should have remained more or less simian1 and probably of arboreal habits4 ,,iii ,a synthetic brain is ,de ,gourmont's1 a sower of doubts1 though not a ,no-,sayer to the universe4 ,he delights in challenging accepted truths4 ,of all modern thinkers a master of ,vues d'ensembles1 he smiles at the pretensions1 usually a mask for poverty of ideas1 of so-called general ideas4 ,he dissociates such conventional grouping of ideas as ,glory1 ,justice1 ,decadence4 ,the shining ribs of disillusion shine through his psychology2 a psychology of nuance and finesse4 ,disillusioning reflections1 these4 ,not to be put in any philosophical pigeonhole1 he is as far removed from the eclecticism of ,victor ,cousin as from the verbal jugglery and metaphysical murmurings of ,henri ,bergson4 ,the world is his dream2 but it is a tangible dream1 charged with meaning1 order1 logic4 ,the truest reality is thought4 ,action spoils4 7,goethe said3 ,thought expands1 action narrows47 ,our abstract ideas are metaphysical idols1 says ,jules de ,gaultier4 ,the image of the concrete is ,de ,gourmont's touchstone4 ,theophile ,gautier declared that he was a man for whom the visible world existed4 ,he misjudged his capacity for apprehending reality4 ,the human brain1 excellent instrument in a priori combinations is inept at perceiving realities4 ,the ,sultan of the ,epithet1 as ,de ,goncourt nicknamed le bon ,theo1 was not the ,emperor of ,thought1 according to ,henry ,james1 and for him it was a romantic fiction spun in the rich web of his fancy4 ,a vaster1 greyer world is adumbrated in the books of ,de ,gourmont4 ,he never allowed symbolism to deform his representation of sober1 every-day life4 ,he pictured the future domain of art and ideas as a fair and shining landscape no longer a series of little gardens with high walls4 ,a hater of formulas1 sects1 schools1 he teaches that the capital crime of the artist1 the writer1 the thinker1 is conformity4 7,yet how serenely this critic swims in classic currents67 ,the artist's work should reflect his personality1 a magnified reflection4 ,he must create his own aesthetic4 ,there are no schools1 only individuals4 ,and of consistency he might have said that it is oftener a mule than a jewel4 ,sceptical in all matters1 though never the fascinating sophist that is ,anatole ,france1 ,de ,gourmont criticised the thirty-six dramatic situations1 reducing the number to four4 ,man as centre in relation to himself2 in relation to other men2 in relation to the other sex2 in relation to ,god1 or ,nature4 ,his ecclesiastical fond may be recognised in ,le ,chemin de ,velours with its sympathetic exposition of ,jesuit doctrine1 and the acuity of its judgments on ,pascal and the ,jansenists4 ,the latter section is as an illuminating foot-note to the history of ,port-,royal by ,sainte-,beuve4 ,the younger critic has the supple intellect of the supplest-minded ,jesuit4 ,his bias toward the order is unmistakable4 ,there are few books ,i reread with more pleasure than this ,path of ,velvet4 ,certain passages in it are as silky and sonorous as the sound of ,eugene ,ysaye's violin4 ,the colour of ,de ,gourmont's mind is stained by his artistic sensibility4 ,a maker of images1 his vocabulary astounding as befits both a poet and philologist1 one avid of beautiful words1 has variety4 ,the temper of his mind is tolerant1 a quality that has informed the finer intellects of ,france since ,montaigne4 ,his literary equipment is unusual4 ,a style as brilliant1 sinuous1 and personal as his thought2 flexible or massive1 continent or coloured1 he discourses at ease in all the gamuts and modes major1 minor1 and mixed4 ,a swift1 weighty style1 the style of a ,latinist2 a classic1 not a romantic style4 ,his formal sense is admirable4 ,the tenderness of ,anatole ,france is absent1 except in his verse1 which is less spontaneous than volitional4 ,a pioneer in new aesthetic pastures1 ,de ,gourmont is a poet for poets4 ,he has virtuosity1 though the gift of tears nature--possibly jealous because of her prodigality--has denied him4 ,but in the curves of his overarching intellect there may be found wit1 gaiety1 humour1 the ,gallic attributes1 allied with poetic fancy1 profundity of thought1 and a many-sided comprehension of life1 art1 and letters4 ,he is in the best tradition of ,french criticism only more versatile than either ,sainte-,beuve or ,taine2 as versatile as ,doctor ,brandes or ,arthur ,symons1 and that is saying much4 ,with ,anatole ,france he could have exclaimed3 ,the longer ,i contemplate human life1 the more ,i believe that we must give it1 for witnesses and judges1 ,irony and ,pity4444 ,,chapter ,,iv ,,artzibashef ,i ,once upon a time ,maurice ,maeterlinck wrote3 ,whereas1 it is far away from bloodshed1 battle-cry1 and sword-thrust that the lives of most of us flow on1 and the tears of men are silent to-day1 and invisible1 and almost spiritual4444 ,this is a plea for his own spiritualised art1 in which sensations are attenuated1 and emotions within emotions1 the shadow of the primal emotions1 are spun into crepuscular shapes4 ,but literature refused to follow the example of the ,belgian dreamer1 and since the advent of the new century there has been a recrudescence of violence1 a melodramatic violence1 that must be disconcerting to ,maeterlinck4 ,it is particularly the case with ,russian poetry1 drama1 and fiction4 ,that vast land of promise and disillusionment is become a trying-out place for the theories and speculations of western ,europe2 no other nation responds so sensitively to the vibrations of the ,time-,spirit1 no other literature reflects with such clearness the fluctuations of contemporary thought and sensibility4 ,the ,slav is the most emotional among living peoples4 ,not that mysticism is missing2 indeed1 it is the key-note of much ,russian literature2 but it was the clash of events2 the march of ideas which precipitated young ,russia into the expression of revolt1 pessimism1 and its usual concomitant1 materialism4 ,there were bloodshed1 battle-cries1 and sword-thrusts1 and tears1 tangible1 not invisible1 in the uprising of ten years ago4 ,the four great masters1 ,gogol1 ,dostoievsky1 ,turgenev1 and ,tolstoy1 still ruled the minds of the intellectuals1 but a younger element was the yeast in the new fermentation4 ,tchekov1 with his epical ennui1 with his tales of mean1 colourless lives1 ,gorky and his disinherited barefoot brigade1 the dramatic ,andreiev1 the mystic ,sologub1 and ,kuprin1 ,zensky1 ,kusmin1 ,ivanov1 ,ropshin1 ,zaitzeff1 ,chapygin1 ,serafimovitch 7,i select a few of the romancers7--not to mention such poets as ,block1 ,reminsov1 and ,ivanov--are the men who are fighting under various banners but always for complete freedom4 ,little more than a decade has passed since the appearance of a young man named ,michael ,artzibashef who1 without any preliminary blaring of trumpets1 has taken the centre of the stage and still holds it4 ,he is as ,slavic as ,dostoievsky1 more pessimistic than ,tolstoy1 though not the supreme artist that was ,turgenev4 ,of ,gogol's overwhelming humour he has not a trace2 instead1 a corroding irony which eats into the very vitals of faith in all things human4 ,gorky1 despite his bitter nickname1 is an incorrigible optimist compared with ,artzibashef4 ,one sports with ,nietzsche1 the other not only swears by ,max ,stirner1 but some of his characters are ,stirnerism incarnate4 ,his chosen field in society is the portrayal of the middle-class and proletarian4 ,to ,andre ,villard1 his friend and one of his translators1 the new ,russian novelist told something of his life1 a life colourless1 dreary1 bare of dramatic events4 ,born in a small town in southern ,russia 7#ahgh71 ,michael ,artzibashef is of ,tatar1 ,french1 ,georgian1 and ,polish blood4 ,his great-grandfather on the maternal side was the ,polish patriot ,kosciusko4 ,his father1 a retired officer1 was a small landowner4 ,in the lad there developed the seeds of tuberculosis4 ,his youth was a wretched one4 ,at school he was unhappy because of its horrors--he has written of them in his first story1 ,pasha ,tumanow--and he drifted from one thing to another till he wrote for a literary weekly in the provinces founded by a certain ,miroliuboff1 to whom he ascribes his first lift in life4 ,fellow contributors at the time were ,maxim ,gorky1 ,leonid ,andreiev1 ,kuprin1 and other young men who1 like ,artzibashef1 have since arrived4 ,his first successful tale was ,ivan ,lande4 ,it brought him recognition4 ,this was in #aijd4 ,but the year before he had finished ,sanine1 his masterpiece1 though it did not see publication till #aijh4 ,this was three years after the revolution of #aije1 so that those critics were astray who spoke of the book as a naturally pessimistic reaction from the fruitless uprising4 ,pessimism was born in the bones of the author and he needed no external stimulus to provoke such a realistic study as ,sanine4 ,whether he is happier1 healthier1 whether he has married and raised a family1 we know not4 ,personal as his stories are said to be1 their art renders them objective4 ,the world over ,sanine has been translated4 ,it is a significant book1 and incorporates the aspirations of many young men and women in the ,russian ,empire4 ,it was not printed at first because of the censorship1 and in ,germany it had to battle for its life4 ,it is not only written from the standpoint of a professed immoralist1 but the ,russian censor declared it pernicious because of its defamation of youth1 its suicidal doctrine1 its depressing atmosphere4 ,the sex element1 too1 has aroused indignant protests from the clergy1 from the press1 from society itself4 ,in reply to his critics ,artzibashef has denied libelling the younger generation4 ,sanine1 he says1 is the apology for individualism3 the hero of the novel is a type4 ,in its pure form this type is still new and rare1 but its spirit is in every frank1 bold1 and strong representative of the new ,russia4 ,and then he adds his own protest against the imitators of ,sanine1 who flooded the literary world with pornographic writings4 ,now1 whatever else it may be1 ,sanine is not pornographic1 though ,i shall not pretend to say that its influence has been harmless4 ,we should not forget ,werther and the trail of sentimental suicides that followed its publication4 ,but ,sanine is fashioned of sterner stuff than ,goethe's romance1 and if it be dangerous1 then all the better4 ,test all things1 and remember that living itself is a dangerous affair4 ,never has the world needed precepts of daring1 courage1 individualism more than in this age of cowardly self-seeking1 and the sleek promises of altruism and its soulless well-being4 ,sanine is a call to arms for individualists4 ,and recall the ,russian saying3 ,self-conceit is the salt of life4 ,,ii ,that ,artzibashef denies the influence of ,nietzsche while admitting his indebtedness to ,nietzsche's forerunner1 ,max ,stirner1 need not particularly concern us4 ,there are evidences scattered throughout the pages of ,sanine that prove a close study of ,nietzsche and his idealistic superman4 ,artist as is ,artzibashef1 he has densely spun into the fabric of his work the ideas that control his characters1 and whether these ideas are called moral or immoral does not matter4 ,the chief thing is whether they are propulsive forces in the destiny of his puppets4 ,that he paints directly from life is evident3 he tells us that in him is the debris of a painter compelled by poverty to relinquish his ambitions because he had not money enough to buy paper1 pencil1 colour4 ,such a realistic brush has seldom been wielded as the brush of ,artzibashef4 ,i may make one exception1 that of ,j4-,k4 ,huysmans4 ,the ,frenchman is the greater artist1 the greater master of his material1 and1 as ,havelock ,ellis puts it1 the master of the intensest vision of the modern world2 but ,huysmans lacks the all-embracing sympathy1 the tremulous pity1 the love of suffering mankind that distinguishes the young ,russian novelist1 a love that is blended with an appalling distrust1 nay1 hatred of life4 ,both men prefer the sordid1 disagreeable1 even the vilest aspects of life4 ,the general ideas of ,artzibashef are few and profound4 ,the leading motive of his symphony is as old as ,ecclesiastes3 ,the thing that hath been1 it is that which shall be4 ,it is not original1 this theme1 and it is as eternal as mediocrity2 but it has been orchestrated anew by ,artzibashef1 who1 like his fellow countrymen1 ,tschaikovsky and ,moussorgsky1 contrives to reveal to us1 if no hidden angles of the truth1 at least its illusion in terms of terror1 anguish1 and deadly nausea produced by mere existence4 ,with such poisoned roots ,artzibashef's tree of life must soon be blasted4 ,his intellectual indifferentism to all that constitutes the solace and bravery of our daily experience is almost pathological4 ,the aura of sadism hovers about some of his men4 ,after reading ,artzibashef you wonder that the question1 ,is life worth living8 will ever be answered in the affirmative among these humans1 who1 as old ,homer says1 hasten hellward from their birth4 ,the corollary to this leading motive is the absolute futility of action4 ,a paralysis of the will overtakes his characters1 the penalty of their torturing introspection4 ,it was ,turgenev1 in an essay on ,hamlet1 who declared that the ,russian character is composed of ,hamlet-like traits4 ,man is the only animal that cannot live in the present2 a ,norwegian philosopher1 ,soeren ,kierkegaard1 has said that he lives forward1 thinks backward2 he aspires to the future4 ,an idealist1 even when close to the gorilla1 is doomed to disillusionment4 ,he discounts to-morrow4 ,russian youth has not always the courage of its chimera1 though it fraternises with the phantasmagoria of its soul4 ,its ,golden ,street soon becomes choked with fog4 ,the political and social conditions of the country must stifle individualism1 else why should ,artzibashef write with such savage intensity8 ,his pen is the pendulum that has swung away from the sentimental brotherhood of man as exemplified in ,dostoievsky1 and from the religious mania of ,tolstoy to the opposite extreme1 individual anarchy4 ,where there is repression there is rebellion4 ,max ,stirner represents the individualism which found its vent in the ,prussia of #ahdh2 ,nietzsche the reaction from the ,prussia of #ahgj2 ,artzibashef forestalled the result of the #aije insurrection in ,russia4 ,his prophetic soul needed no proof2 he knew that his people1 the students and intellectuals1 would be crushed4 ,the desire of the clod for the cloud was extinguished4 ,happiness is an eternal hoax4 ,only children believe in life4 ,the last call of the devil's dinner-bell has sounded4 ,in the scenery of the sky there is only mirage4 ,the moonlit air is a ruse of that wily old serpent1 nature1 to arouse romance in the breast of youth and urge a repetition of the life processes4 ,we graze ,schopenhauer1 overhear ,leopardi1 but the ,preacher has the mightiest voice4 ,naturally1 the novelist says none of these things outright4 ,the phrases are mine1 but he points the moral in a way that is all his own4 ,what1 then1 is the remedy for the ills of this life8 ,is its misery irremediable8 ,why must mankind go on living if the burden is so great8 ,even with wealth comes ennui or disease1 and no matter how brilliant we may live1 we must all die alone4 ,pascal said this better4 ,in several of his death-bed scenes the dying men of ,artzibashef curse their parents1 mock at religion1 and--here is a novel nuance--abuse their intellectual leaders4 ,semenow the student1 who appears in several of the stories1 abuses ,marx and ,nietzsche4 ,of what use are these thinkers to a man about to depart from the world8 ,it is the revolt of stark humanity from the illusions of brotherly love1 from the chiefest illusion--self4 ,artzibashef offers no magic draft of oblivion to his sufferers4 ,with a vivid style that recalls the ,tolstoy of ,the ,death of ,ivan ,illitch he shows us old and young wrestling with the destroyer1 their souls emptied of all earthly hopes save one4 ,shall ,i live8 ,not ,god's will be done1 not the roseate dream of a future life1 only--why must ,i die8 though the poor devil is submerged in the very swamp of life4 ,but life1 life1 even a horrible hell for eternity1 rather than annihilation6 ,in the portrayal of these damned creatures ,artzibashef is elemental4 ,he recalls both ,dante and ,dostoievsky4 ,he has told us that he owes much to ,tolstoy 7also to ,goethe1 ,hugo1 ,dostoievsky1 and much to ,tchekov71 but his characters are usually failures when following the tenets of ,tolstoy1 the great moralist and expounder of non-resistance4 ,he simply explodes the torpedo of truth under the ark of socialism4 ,this may be noted in ,ivan ,lande--now in the ,english volume entitled ,the ,millionaire--where we see step by step the decadence of a beautiful soul obsessed by the love of his fellows4 ,it is in the key of ,tolstoy1 but the moral is startling4 ,not thus can you save your soul4 ,max ,stirner is to the fore4 ,don't turn your other cheek if one has been smitten1 but smite the smiter1 and heartily4 ,however1 naught avails1 you must die1 and die like a dog1 a star1 or a flower4 ,better universal suicide4 ,success comes only to the unfortunate4 ,and so we swing back to ,eduard von ,hartmann1 who1 in his philosophy of the unconscious1 counsels the same thing4 7,a ferocious advocate of pessimism and a disciple of ,arthur ,schopenhauer1 by name ,mainlander1 preached world destruction through race suicide47 ,but all these pessimists seem well fed and happy when compared to the nihilists of ,artzibashef4 ,he portrays every stage of disillusionment with a glacial calmness4 ,not even annihilation is worth the trouble of a despairing gesture4 ,cui bono8 ,revolutionist or royalist--your career is1 if you but dare break the conspiracy of silence--a burden or a sorrow4 ,happiness is only a word4 ,love a brief sensation4 ,death a certainty4 ,for such nihilism we must go to the jungles of ,asia1 where in a lifelong silence1 some fanatic fatidically stares at his navel1 the circular symbol of eternity4 ,,iii ,but if there is no philosophical balm in ,gilead1 there is the world of the five senses1 and a glorious world it may prove if you have only the health1 courage1 and contempt for the ,chinese wall with which man has surrounded his instincts4 ,there are no laws1 except to be broken1 no conventions that cannot be shattered4 ,there is the blue sky1 brother1 and the air on the heath1 brother6 ,drop the impedimenta and lead a free1 roving life4 ,how the world would wag without work no one tells us4 ,not didactic1 the novelist disdains to draw a moral4 ,there is much ,stirner1 some ,nietzsche in ,sanine1 who is a handsome young chap1 a giant1 and a blond barbarian4 ,it is the story of the return of the native to his home in a small town4 ,he finds his mother as he left her1 older1 but as narrow as ever1 and his sister ,lydia1 one of the most charming girls in ,russian fiction4 ,sanine is surprised to note her development4 ,he admires her--too much so for our ,western taste4 ,however1 there is something monstrous in the moral and mental make-up of this hero1 who is no hero4 ,he may be a type1 but ,i don't believe in types2 there are only humans4 ,his motto might be3 ,what's the difference8 ,he is passive1 not with the fatalism of ,oblomov1 ,gontcharov's hero2 not with the apathy of ,charles ,bovary1 or the timid passivity of ,frederic ,moreau2 he displays an indifference to the trivial things of life that makes him seem an idler on the scene4 ,when the time arrives for action he is no skulker4 ,his sister has been ruined by a frivolous officer in garrison1 and she attempts suicide4 ,her brother rescues her1 not heroically1 but philosophically1 and shows her the folly of believing in words4 ,ruined6 ,very well1 marry and forget6 ,however1 he drives the officer to suicide by publicly disgracing him4 ,he refuses a duel1 punches his head1 and the silly soldier with his silly code of honour blows out his brains4 ,a passive role is ,sanine's in the composition of this elaborate canvas1 the surface simplicity of which deceives us as to its polyphonic complexity4 ,he remains in the background while about him play the little destinies of little souls4 ,yet he is always the fulcrum for a climax4 ,i have not yet made up my mind whether ,sanine is a great man or a thorough scoundrel4 ,perhaps both4 ,a temperamental and imaginative writer is ,artzibashef4 ,i first read him 7#aiaa7 in ,french1 the translation of ,jacques ,povolozky1 and his style recalled1 at times1 that of ,turgenev1 possibly because of the language4 ,in the ,german translation he is not so appealing2 again perhaps of the difference in the tongues4 ,as ,i can't read ,russian1 ,i am forced to fall back on translations1 and they seldom give an idea of personal rhythm1 unless it be a ,turgenev translating into ,russian the ,three ,tales of his friend ,flaubert4 ,nevertheless1 through the veil of a foreign speech the genius of ,artzibashef shines like a crimson sun in a mist4 ,of course1 we miss the caressing cadence and rich sonorousness of the organ-toned ,russian language3 ,the ,english versions are excellent1 though1 naturally enough1 occasionally chastened and abbreviated4 ,i must protest here against the omission of a chapter in ,breaking ,point which is a key to the ending of the book4 ,i mean the chapter in which is related the reason why the wealthy drunkard goes to the monastery1 there to end his days4 ,years ago ,mr4 ,howells said that we could never write of ,america as ,dostoievsky did of ,russia1 and it was true enough at the time2 nor1 would we ever tolerate the nudities of certain ,gallic novelists4 ,well1 we have1 and ,i am fain to believe that the tragic issues of ,american life should be given fuller expression1 and with the same sincerity as ,artzibashef's1 whose strength is his sincerity1 whose sincerity is a form of his genius4 ,the very air of ,america makes for optimism2 our land of milk and honey may never produce such prophets of pessimism as ,artzibashef1 unless conditions change4 ,but the lesson for our novelists is the courageous manner--and artistic1 too--with which the ,russian pursues the naked soul of mankind and dissects it4 ,he notes1 being a psychologist as well as a painter1 the exquisite recoil of the cerebral cells upon themselves which we call consciousness4 ,profoundly human in his sympathies1 without being1 in the least sentimental1 he paints full-length portraits of men and women with a flowing brush and a fine sense of character values4 ,but he will never bend the bow of ,balzac4 ,vladimir ,sanine is not his only successful portrait4 ,in the book there are several persons3 the disgraced student ,yourii1 who is self-complacent to the point of morbidity2 his lovely sister1 and her betrothed4 ,the officers are excellently delineated and differentiated1 while the girls1 ,sina ,karsavina and her friend the teacher1 are extremely attractive4 ,karsavina is a veracious personality4 ,the poor little homeless ,hebrew who desires light on the mystery of life could not be bettered by ,dostoievsky2 for that matter ,artzibashef is partially indebted to ,dostoievsky for certain traits of ,ivan ,lande--who is evidently patterned from ,prince ,myshkin in ,the ,idiot4 ,wherever ,sanine passes1 trouble follows4 ,he is looked on as possessing the evil eye1 yet he does little but lounge about1 drink hard1 and make love to pretty girls4 ,but as he goes he snuffs out ideals like candles4 ,as ,artzibashef is a born story-teller1 it must not be supposed that the book is unrelieved in its gloom4 ,there are plenty of gay episodes1 sensational1 even shocking2 a picnic1 a shooting-party1 and pastorals done in a way which would have extorted the admiration of ,turgenev4 ,thomas ,hardy has done no better in his peasant life4 ,there are various gatherings1 chiefly convivial1 a meeting of would-be intellectuals for self-improvement--related with blasting irony--and drinking festivals which are masterly in their sense of reality2 add to these pages of nature descriptions1 landscapes1 pictures of the earth in all seasons and guises1 revealing a passionate love of the soil which is truly ,russian4 ,you fairly smell the frosty air of his ,winter days4 ,little cause for astonishment that ,sanine at its appearance provoked as much controversy1 as much admiration and hatred as did ,fathers and ,sons of ,turgenev4 ,vladimir ,sanine is not as powerful as ,bazarov the anarchist1 but he is a pendant1 he is an anarch of the new order1 neither a propagandist by the act1 but a philosophical anarch who lazily mutters3 ,let the world wag2 ,i don't care so that it minds its own business and lets me alone4 ,with few exceptions most latter-day fiction is thin1 papery1 artificial1 compared with ,artzibashef's rich1 red-blooded genius4 ,i have devoted so much attention to ,sanine that little space is left for the other books1 though they are all significant4 ,revolutionary ,tales contains a strong companion picture to ,sanine1 the portrait of the metal-worker ,schevyrjoy1 who is a revolutionist in the literal sense4 ,his hunted life and death arouse a terrific impression4 ,the end is almost operatic4 ,a captivating little working girl figures in one episode4 ,it may be remarked in passing that ,artzibashef does not paint for our delectation the dear dead drabs of yesteryear1 nor yet the girl of the street who heroically brings bread to her starving family 7as does ,sonia in ,crime and ,punishment74 ,few outcasts of this sort are to be found in his pages1 and those few are unflinchingly etched1 as1 for example1 the ladies in ,the ,millionaire4 ,this story1 which is affiliated in ideas with ,sanine1 is ,tolstoyian in the main issue1 yet disconcertingly different in its interpretation4 ,wealth1 too1 may become an incitement to self-slaughter from sheer disgust4 ,the story of ,pasha ,tumanow is autobiographical1 and registers his hatred of the ,russian grammar schools where suicides among the scholars are anything but infrequent4 ,morning ,shadows relates the adventures of several young people who go to ,petrograd to seek fame1 but with tragic conclusions4 ,the two girl students end badly1 one a suicide1 the other a prisoner of the police as an anarchist caught red-handed4 ,a stupefying narrative in its horrid realism and sympathetic handling4 ,the doctor gives us a picture of a pogrom in a tiny ,russian province town4 ,you simply shudder at the details of the wretched ,jews shot down1 ripped open1 maltreated1 and driven into the wilderness4 ,it is a time for tears2 though ,i cannot quite believe in this doctor1 who1 while not a ,jew1 so sympathises with them that he lets die the ,chief of ,police that ordered the massacre4 ,another story of similar intensity1 called ,nina in the ,english translation1 fills us with wonder that such outrages can go unpunished4 ,but ,i am only interested in the art of the novelist1 not in political conditions or their causes4 ,perhaps the most touching story in ,revolutionary ,tales is ,the ,blood ,stain1 confessedly beloved by its author4 ,again we are confronted by the uselessness of all attempts to right injustice4 ,might is right1 ever was1 ever will be4 ,again the victims of lying propagandists and the cruel law lie on stretchers1 with white eyes staring upward4 ,in these eyes there was a look1 a sad1 questioning look of horror and despair4 ,always despair1 in life or death1 is the portion of these poor4 ,this was written in #aiae1 before the ,new ,russia was born4 ,since the beginning of the war ,artzibashef has served in the field and hospitals4 ,he has written several plays1 one of which1 ,war1 has been translated4 ,it is a terrific arraignment of war4 ,his latest story1 ,the ,woman ,standing in the ,midst1 has not yet appeared here4 ,without suggesting a rigid schematology1 there is a composition plan in his larger work that may be detected if the reader is not confused by the elliptical patterns and the massive mounds of minor details in his novel ,breaking ,point4 ,the canvas is large and crowded1 the motivation subtly managed4 ,as is the case with his novels1 the drama plays in a provincial town1 this time on the steppes1 where the inhabitants would certainly commit suicide if the place were half as dreary as depicted4 ,some of them do so1 and you are reminded of that curious1 nervous disease1 indigenous to ,siberia1 named by psychiatrists myriachit1 or the epidemic of imitation4 ,a man1 a sinister rascal1 ,naumow1 preaches the greyness and folly of living1 and this ,naumowism sets by the ears three or four impressionable young men who make their exit with a bare bodkin or its equivalent4 ,naumow recalls a character in ,the ,possessed1 also the sinister hero of ,the ,synagogue of ,satan by the dramatic ,polish writer ,stanislaw ,przybyszewski4 ,to give us a central point the chorus of the novel is a little student who resembles a goldfinch1 and has a birdlike way of piping about matters philosophical4 ,there are oceans of talk throughout the novels1 talks about death4 ,really1 you wonder how the ,russians contrive to live at all till you meet them and discover what normal people they are4 7,it should not be forgotten that art must contain as an element of success a slight deformation of facts47 ,the student watches the comedy and tragedy of the town1 his brain flaming with noble ideas for the regeneration of mankind6 ,alas6 ,naumow bids him reflect on the uselessness of suffering from self-privation so that some proletarian family may eat roast larks in the thirtieth century4 ,eventually he succumbs to the contagion of resemblance1 takes to drink1 and hangs himself to a nail in the wall1 his torn gum shoes1 clinging to his feet1 faithful to the last--they1 ,dickens-like1 are shown from the start4 ,there is a nihilistic doctor--the most viable character of all about whose head hovers the aura of apoplexy--a particularly fascinating actress1 an interesting consumptive1 two wretched girls betrayed by a young painter 7a ,sanine type1 i4 e41 ,max ,stirnerism in action71 while the officers of the garrison and club life are cunningly pictured4 ,a wealthy manufacturer1 with the hallmarks of ,mr4 ,rogozhin in ,dostoievsky's ,the ,idiot1 makes an awful noise till he luckily vanishes in a monastery4 ,suicide1 rapine1 disorder1 drunkenness1 and boredom permeate nearly every page4 ,breaking ,point is the most poignant and intolerable book ,i ever read4 ,it is the prose complement of ,tschaikovsky's so-called ,suicide ,symphony4 ,browning is reversed4 ,here the devil is in heaven4 ,all's wrong in the world6 ,yet it compels reflection and rereading4 ,why8 ,because1 like all of his writings1 it is inevitable1 and granting the exaggeration inherent in the nature of the subject1 it is lifelike1 though its philosophy is dangerously depressing4 ,the little city of the steppes is the cemetery of the ,seven ,sorrows4 ,however1 in it1 as in ,sanine1 there is many an oasis of consolation where sanity and cheerfulness and normal humans may be enjoyed4 ,but ,i am loath to believe that young ,russia1 ,holy ,russia1 as the mystagogues call her1 has lost her central grip on the things that most count2 above all1 on religious faith4 ,then needs must she pray as prayed ,des ,esseintes in ,huysmans's novel ,a ,rebours3 ,take pity1 ,o ,lord1 on the ,christian who doubts1 on the sceptic who desires to believe1 on the convict of life who embarks alone1 in the night1 beneath a sky no longer lit by the consoling beacons of ancient faith4 ,,chapter ,v ,a ,,note ,,on ,,henry ,,james ,i ,in company with other distinguished men who have passed away during the progress of the war1 the loss of ,henry ,james was passably chronicled4 ,news from the various battle-fields took precedence over the death of a mere man of literary genius4 ,this was to be expected4 ,nor need the fact be disguised that his secession from ,american citizenship may have increased the coolness which prevailed1 still prevails1 when the name of ,mr4 ,james is mentioned in print4 ,more ,english than the ,english1 he only practised what he preached1 though tardily in the matter of his ,british naturalisation4 ,that he did not find all the perfections in his native land is a personal matter2 but that he should be neglected in favour of mediocrity is simply the penalty a great artist pays for his devotion to art4 ,there is no need of indignation in the matter4 ,time rights such critical wrongs4 ,consider the case of ,stendhal4 ,the fiction of ,henry ,james is for the future4 ,james seceded years ago from the ,english traditions1 from ,fielding1 ,dickens1 ,thackeray1 and ,george ,eliot4 ,the ,wings of a ,dove1 ,the ,ambassadors1 ,the ,golden ,bowl are fictions that will influence future novelists4 ,in our own days we see what a power ,james has been2 a subtle breath on the waters of creation2 ,paul ,bourget1 ,edith ,wharton1 even ,joseph ,conrad1 and many minor ,english novelists4 ,his later work1 say1 beginning with ,the ,tragic ,muse1 is the prose equivalent of the seven arts in a revolutionary ferment4 ,a marked tendency in the new movements is to throw overboard superfluous technical baggage4 ,the ,james novel is one of grand simplifications4 ,as the symphony was modified by ,liszt into the symphonic poem and later emerged in the shape of the tone-poem by ,richard ,strauss1 so the novel of manners evolved from ,flaubert's ,sentimental ,education1 which1 despite its heavenly length1 contains in solution all that the newer men have accomplished4 ,zola patterned after it in the prodigious ,rougon-,macquart series2 ,daudet found therein the impressionism of his ,sapho anticipated2 ,maupassant and ,huysmans delved patiently and practised characteristic variations4 ,flaubert is the father of realism as he is part parent of symbolism4 ,his excessive preoccupation with style and his attaching esoteric significance to words sound the note of symbolism4 ,now ,henry ,james disliked ,sentimental ,education--like other great critics he had his blind side--yet he did not fail to benefit by the radical formal changes introduced by ,flaubert1 changes as revolutionary as those of ,wagner in the music-drama4 ,i call the later ,james novel a simplification4 ,all the conventional chapter endings are dispensed with2 many are suspended cadences4 ,the accustomed and thrice-barren modulations from event to event are swept away2 unprepared dissonances are of continual occurrence4 ,there is no descriptive padding--that bane of second-class writers2 nor are we informed at every speech of the name of a character4 ,this elliptical method ,james absorbed from ,flaubert1 while his sometime oblique psychology is partly derived from ,stendhal2 indeed1 without ,stendhal both ,meredith and ,james would have been sadly shorn of their psychological splendour4 ,nor is the shadow of ,turgenev missing1 not to mention that of ,jane ,austen4 ,possibly the famous third manner of ,james was the result of his resorting to dictation2 the pen inhibits where speech does not4 ,these things make difficult reading for a public accustomed to the hypnotic passes of successful fiction-mongers4 ,in ,james nothing is forestalled1 nothing is obvious1 one is for ever turning the curve of the unexpected4 ,the actual story may be discouraging in its bareness1 yet the situations are seldom fantastic4 7,the ,turn of the ,screw is an exception47 ,you rub your eyes as you finish2 for with all your credulity1 painful in its intensity1 you have assisted at a pictorial evocation2 both picture and evocation reveal magic in their misty attenuations4 ,and there is ever the triumph of poetic feeling over banal sentiment4 ,the portraiture in ,milly ,theale and ,maggie ,verver is clairvoyant4 ,milly's life is a miracle1 her ending1 art superlative4 ,the ,wings of a ,dove is filled with the faintly audible tread of destiny behind the arras of life4 ,the reverberations are almost microphonic with here and there a crescendo or a climax4 ,the spiritual string music of ,henry ,james is more thrilling to the educated ear than the sound of the big drum and the blaring of trumpets4 ,the implacable curiosity of the novelist concerning causes that do not seem final has been amply dealt with by ,mr4 ,brownell4 ,the question whether his story is worth the telling is a critical impertinence too often uttered2 what most concerns us now in the ,james case is his manner1 not his matter4 ,all the rest is life4 ,as far as his middle period his manner is limpidity itself2 the later style is a jungle of inversions1 suspensions1 elisions1 repetitions1 echoes1 transpositions1 transformations1 neologisms1 in which the heads of young adjectives despairingly gaze from afar at the verbs which come thundering at the close of sentences leagues long4 ,it is bewildering1 but more bewildering is this peculiarly individual style when draughted into smooth journalistic prose4 ,nothing remains4 ,henry ,james has not spoken4 ,his dissonances cannot be resolved except in the terms of his own matchless art4 ,his meanings evaporate when phrased in our vernacular4 ,this may prove a lot of negating things1 or it may not4 ,why prose should lag behind its sister arts ,i can't say2 possibly because every pothouse politician is supposed to speak it4 ,for that matter any one who has dipped into the well of ,english undefiled1 seventeenth-century literature1 must realise that nowadays we write a parlous prose4 ,however1 it is not a stately prose that ,james essayed4 ,the son of a metaphysician and moralist--the writings of ,henry ,james1 the elder1 are far from negligible--the brother of the greatest ,american psychologist1 the late ,william ,james of brilliant memory1 it need hardly be added that character problems are of more interest to this novelist than the external qualities of rhetorical sonority1 or the fascination of glowing surfaces4 ,you can no more read aloud a page of ,james than you can read aloud ,de ,goncourt4 ,for ,flaubert1 who modelled his magnificent prose harmonies on the ,old ,testament1 ,shakespeare1 ,bossuet1 and ,chateaubriand1 the final test of noble prose is the audible reading thereof4 ,flaubert called it spouting4 ,the ,james prose appeals rather to the inner ear4 ,nuance and overtones not dazzling tropical hues or rhythmical variety4 ,henry ,james is a law unto himself4 ,his novels may be a precursor of the books our grandchildren will enjoy when the hurly-burly of noisy adventure1 cheap historical vapidities1 and still cheaper drawing-room struttings shall have vanished4 7,but1 like the poor1 the stupid reader we shall always have with us47 ,in the fiction of the future a more complete synthesis will be attained4 ,an illuminating essay by ,arthur ,symons places ,george ,meredith among the decadents1 the murderers of their mother tongue1 the men who shatter syntax to serve their artistic ends4 ,henry ,james belonged to this group for a longer time than the majority of his critics suspected4 ,in his ruthless disregard of the niceties and conventionalities of sentence-structure ,i see the outcome of his dictation4 ,yet no matter how crabbed and involved is his page1 a character always emerges from the smoke of his muttered enchantments4 ,the chief fault is not his obscurity 7his prose1 like the prose in ,browning's ,sordello1 is packed with too many meanings71 but that his character always speaks in purest ,jacobean4 ,so do the people in ,balzac's crowded1 electric world4 ,so the men and women of ,dickens and ,meredith4 ,it is the fault--or virtue--of all subjective genius2 however1 not a fault or virtue of ,flaubert or ,turgenev or ,tolstoy4 ,all in all1 ,henry ,james is a distinctly ,american novelist1 a psychologist of extraordinary power and divination4 ,he has pinned to paper the soul of the cosmopolitan4 ,the obsession of the moral problem that we feel in ,hawthorne is not missing4 ,be his manner never so cryptic1 his deep-veined humanity may be felt by those who read him aright4 ,his ,americans abroad suffer a deep-sea change2 a complete gamut of achieved sensibility divides ,daisy ,miller from ,maggie ,verver4 ,henry ,james is a faithful ,secretary to ,society--the phrase is ,balzac's--to the ,american afloat from his native mooring as well as at home4 ,and his exquisite notations are the glory of ,english fiction4 ,,ii ,before me lies an autograph letter from ,henry ,james to his friend ,doctor ,rice4 ,it is dated ,december #bf1 #aijd1 and the address #ba ,east ,eleventh ,street4 ,it thus concludes3 ,i am not one of ',the ,bostonians1' but was born in this city ,april #ae1 #ahdc4 ,believe me1 truly yours1 ,henry ,james4 ,although he died a naturalised ,englishman1 there seems to be some confusion as to his birthplace in the minds of his ,english critics4 ,in ,ford ,madox ,hueffer's critical study1 ,henry ,james1 we read on page #ie that the life of ,james began in ,new ,england in #ahdc4 ,he was born in ,america in #ahdc1 then a land where culture was rare6 ,that delightful condescension in foreigners is still extant4 ,now this isn't such a serious matter1 for ,henry ,james was a citizen of the world2 but the imputation of a ,new ,england birthplace does matter1 because it allows the ,english critic--and how many others8--to perform variations on the theme of ,puritanism1 the ,puritanism of his art4 ,james as a temperamental ,puritan--one is forced to capitalise the unhappy word6 ,apart from the fact that there is less ,puritanism in ,new ,england than in the ,middle ,west1 ,james is not a ,puritan4 ,he does not possess the famous ,new ,england conscience4 ,he would have been the first to repudiate the notion4 ,for him the ,puritan temperament has a faintly acrid perfume4 ,to ascribe to ,puritanism the seven deadly virtues and refinement1 sensibility1 intellectuality1 is a common enough mistake4 ,james never made that mistake4 ,he knew that all the good things of life are not in the exclusive possession of the ,puritans4 ,he must not be identified with the case he studies4 ,strictly speaking1 while he was on the side of the angels1 like all great artists1 he is not a moralist2 indeed1 he is our first great immoralist1 a term that has supplanted the old-fashioned amoralist4 ,and he wrote the most unmoral short story in the ,english language1 one that also sets the spine trilling because of its supernatural element as never did ,poe1 or ,de ,maupassant4 ,another venerable witticism1 which has achieved the pathos of distance1 was made a quarter of a century ago by ,george ,moore4 ,mr4 ,moore said3 ,henry ,james went to ,france and read ,turgenev4 ,w4 ,d4 ,howells stayed at home and read ,henry ,james4 ,to lend poignancy to this mild epigram ,mr4 ,hueffer misquotes it1 substituting the name of ,de ,maupassant for ,turgenev's4 ,a rather uncanny combination--,henry and ,guy4 ,a still more aged wheeze bobs up in the pages of ,mr4 ,hueffer4 ,need we say that it recites the ancient saw about ,william ,james1 the fictionist1 and his brother ,henry1 the psychologist4 ,none of these things is in the least true4 ,with the prudishness and peanut piety of puritanism ,henry ,james has nothing in common4 ,he did not alone read ,turgenev1 he met him and wrote of him with more sympathy and understanding than he did of ,flaubert or ,baudelaire2 and ,mr4 ,howells never wrote a page that resembled either the ,russian's or the ,american's fiction4 ,furthermore1 ,james is a masterly psychologist and a tale-teller4 ,to the credit of his latest ,english critics this is acknowledged1 and generously4 ,mr4 ,hueffer is an accomplished craftsman in many literary fields1 he writes with authority1 though too often in a superlative key4 ,but how ,james would have winced when he read in ,mr4 ,hueffer's book that he is or was the greatest of living men4 ,this surely is a planet-struck phrase4 ,the ,hueffer study is stuffed with startling things4 ,he bangs ,balzac over the head4 ,he tells the truth about ,flaubert1 whose ,sentimental ,education is an entire ,human ,comedy4 ,he thinks ill of big business1 that business and whatever takes place 'down-town' or in the city is simply not worth the attention of any intelligent being4 ,it is a manner of dirty little affairs incompetently handled by men of the lowest class of intelligence4 ,but all this in a volume about the most serene and luminous intelligence of our times4 ,mr4 ,hueffer also goes for ,james as critic4 ,he once dared to couple the name of the odious ,george ,eliot with ,flaubert's4 ,it does rather take the breath away1 but1 after all1 didn't the tolerant and catholic critic who was ,henry ,james say that no one is constrained to like any particular kind of writing8 ,as to the cats and monkeys1 monkeys and cats--all human life is there1 of ,the ,madonna of the ,future1 we need not take the words as a final message2 nor are the other phrases quoted3 ,the soul is immortal certainly--if you've got one1 but most people haven't6 ,pleasure would be right if it were pleasure right through1 but it never is4 ,mr4 ,hueffer says that ,james found ,english people who were just people singularly nasty1 and who can say him nay after reading ,the ,sacred ,fount8 ,but he ends on the right note3 ,and for a man to have attained to international rank with phrases intimately national is the supreme achievement of writers--a glory that is reserved only for the ,dantes1 the ,goethes1 and the ,shakespeares1 who none the less remain supremely national4 ,neither ,mr4 ,hueffer nor ,miss ,west is in doubt as to the essential ,americanism of ,henry ,james4 ,he is almost as ,american as ,howells1 who is our ,anthony ,trollope1 plus style and vision4 ,and ,trollope1 by the way1 will loom larger in the future despite his impersonality and microscopic manner4 ,the ,james art is ,cerebral ,comedy1 par excellence4 ,to alter his own words1 he plays his intellectual instrument to perfection4 ,he is a portraitist doubled by a psychologist4 ,his soul is not a solitary pool in a midnight forest1 but an unruffled lake1 sun-smitten or cloud-shadowed2 yet in whose depths there is a moving mass of exquisite living things4 ,his pages reverberate with the under hum of humanity4 ,we may not exactly say of him as ,hazlitt said of ,walter ,scott3 ,his works1 taken altogether1 are almost like a new edition of human nature4 ,but we can follow with the coda of that same dictum3 ,this is indeed to be an author4 ,many more than the dozen superior persons mentioned by ,huysmans enjoy the ,james novels4 ,his swans are not always immaculate1 but they are not swans of the cesspool1 to quote ,landor4 ,there is never an odour of leaking gas in his premises1 as he once remarked of the ,d',annunzio fiction4 ,he has the cosmopolitan soul4 ,there is no slouch in his spiritual gait4 ,like ,renan1 he abhorred the horrible mania of certitude to be found in the writing of his realistic contemporaries4 ,he does not always dot the i's of his irony1 a subrisive irony4 ,but the spiritual antennae which he puts forth so tentatively always touch real things1 not conjectural4 ,and what tactile sense he boasts4 ,he peeps into the glowing core of emotion1 but seldom describes it4 ,his ears are for overtones1 not the brassy harmonies of the obvious1 of truths1 flat and flexible4 ,yet what novelist has kept his ear so close to quotidian happenings1 and with what dignity and charm in his crumbling cadences8 ,not even that virtuoso of the ugly1 ,huysmans1 than whom no writer of the past century ever rendered surfaces into such impeccable truth1 with such implacable ferocity1 is as clairvoyant as ,james4 ,fustian and thunder form no part of the ,james stories1 which are like a vast whispering gallery1 the dim reverberations of which fill the listening ear4 ,he is an auditive as well as a visualist1 to employ the precious classification of the psychiatrists4 ,his astute senses tell him of a world which we are only beginning to comprehend4 ,he is never obscure1 never recondite2 but1 like ,browning1 he sends a veritable multiplex of ideas along a single wire4 ,mr4 ,howells has rightly said of him that it is not well to pursue the meanings of an author to the very heart of darkness4 ,however1 readers as a rule like their fiction served on a shiny plate2 above all1 they don't like a story to begin in one key and end in another4 ,if it's to be pork and molasses or hog and hominy 7,george ,meredith's words71 then let it be these delectable dishes through every course4 ,but ,james is ever in modulation4 ,he tosses his theme ballwise in the air1 and while its spirals spin and bathe in the blue he weaves a web of gold and lace1 and it is marvellously spun4 ,he is more atmospheric than linear4 ,his theme is shown from a variety of angles1 but the result is synthetic4 ,elizabeth ,luther ,cary has pointed out that he is not a remorseless analyst4 ,he does not take the mechanism of his marionette apart1 but lets us examine it in completeness4 ,as a psychologist he stands midway between ,stendhal and ,turgenev4 ,he interprets feeling1 rather than fact4 ,like our sister planet1 the moon1 he has his rhythmic moments of libration2 he then reveals his other side1 a profoundly human1 emotional one4 ,he is not all frosty intellect4 ,but he holds in horror the facile expression of the sentiments4 ,it's only too easy to write for those avid of sentimentalism1 or to express what ,thomas ,huxley calls sensualistic caterwauling4 ,in the large1 generous curve of his temperament there is room for all life1 but not for a lean or lush statement of life4 ,you may read him in a state of mellow exasperation1 but you cannot deny his ultimate sincerity4 ,there is no lack of substance in his densely woven patterns1 for patterns there are1 though the figure be difficult to piece out4 ,his route of emerald is elliptical2 follow him who dare6 ,a wingy mystery4 ,he is all vision4 ,he does not always avoid naked issues4 ,his thousand and one characters are significantly vital4 ,his is not the shadow land of ,american fiction2 simply his supreme tact of omission has dispensed with the entire banal apparatus of fiction as commonly practised4 ,to use a musical example3 his prose is like the complicated score of some latter-day composer1 and his art1 like music1 is a solvent4 ,he discards lumbering descriptions1 antique melodramatics1 set developments and denouements1 mastodonic structures4 ,the sharp savour of character is omnipresent4 ,his very pauses are eloquent4 ,he evokes4 ,his harmonic tissue melts into remoter harmonic perspectives4 ,he composes in every tonality4 ,continuity of impression is unfailing4 ,when reading him sympathetically one recalls the saying of ,maurice ,barres3 ,for an accomplished spirit there is but one dialogue1 that between our two egos--the momentary ego that we are and the ideal one toward which we strive4 ,for ,jacobeans this interior dialogue1 with its secondary intention marches like muted music through the pages of the latter period4 ,henry ,james will always be a touchstone for the tasteless4 ,,chapter ,,vi ,,george ,,sand ,thou large-brained woman and large-hearted man1 self-called ,george ,sand6 --,,mrs4 ,,browning4 ,i ,who reads ,george ,sand nowadays8 was asked at the time of her centenary 7she was born1 #ahjd2 died1 #ahgf74 ,paris responded in gallant phrases4 ,she was declared one of the glories of ,french literature4 ,nevertheless1 we are more interested in the woman1 in her psychology1 than in her interminable novels4 ,the reason is simple2 her books were built for her day1 not to endure4 ,she never created a vital character4 ,her men and women are bundles of attributes1 neither flesh nor blood nor good red melodrama4 ,she was a wonderful journalist1 one is tempted to say the first of her sex1 and the first feminist4 ,mary ,wollstonecraft ,godwin was a shriller propagandist1 yet she accomplished no more for the cause than her ,french neighbour1 not alone because she didn't smoke big cigars or wear trousers1 but on general principles4 ,in a word1 ,mrs4 ,godwin didn't exactly practise what she preached and ,george ,sand did4 ,for her there was no talk of getting the vote2 her feminism was a romantic revolt1 not economic or political rebellion4 ,george ,sand should be enshrined as the patron saint of female suffragism4 ,by no means a deep thinker1 for she reflected as in a mirror the ideas of the intellectual men she met1 she had an enormous vogue4 ,her reputation was worldwide4 ,we know more about her now1 thanks to the three volumes recently published by ,vladimir ,karenine 7the pen-name of a ,russian lady1 ,mme4 ,komaroff1 the daughter of ,dmitri ,stassow74 ,this writer has brought her imposing work 7thus far over #a1gjj pages7 down to #ahdh1 and1 as much happened in the life of her heroine after that1 we may expect at least two more fat volumes4 ,her curiosity has been insatiable4 ,she has read all the historical and critical literature dealing with ,sand4 ,she has at first-hand from friends and relatives facts hitherto unpublished1 and she is armed with a library of documents4 ,more1 she has read and digested the hundred-odd stories of the fecund writer1 and actually analyses their plots1 writes at length of the characters1 and incidentally throws light on her own intellectual processes4 ,mme4 ,karenine is not a broad critic4 ,she is a painstaking historian4 ,while some tales of ,sand are worth reading--,the ,devil's ,pool1 ,letters of a ,voyager1 even ,consuelo1 above all1 her autobiography--the rest is a burden to the spirit4 ,her facility astounds1 and also discourages4 ,she confesses that with her writing was like the turning on of a water-tap1 the stream always flowed1 a literary hydrant4 ,awaken her in the night and she could resume her task4 ,she was of the centrifugal temperament1 hence the resultant shallowness of her work4 ,she had charm4 ,she had style1 serene1 flowing1 also tepid and fatuous1 the style detested by ,charles ,baudelaire1 and admired by ,turgenev and ,renan and ,lamennais4 ,baudelaire remarked of this best seller that she wrote her chefs d'oeuvre as if they were letters1 and posted them4 ,the style coulant1 praised by bourgeois critics1 he abhorred1 as it lacked accent1 relief1 individuality4 ,she is the ,prudhomme of immorality1 he said--not a bad definition--and she is stupid1 heavy1 and a chatterer4 ,she loves the proletarian1 and her sentiment is adapted to the intelligent wife of the concierge and the sentimental harlot4 ,which shows that even such a versatile critic as ,baudelaire had his prejudices4 ,the sweetness and nobility of her nature were recognised by all her associates4 ,nietzsche is no less impolite4 ,she derives from ,rousseau--he might have added ,byron1 also--she is false1 artificial1 inflated1 exaggerated2 444 her style is of a variegated wall-paper pattern4 ,she betrays her vulgarity in her ambition to expose her generous feelings4 ,she is1 like all the ,romantics1 a cold1 insufferable artist4 ,she wound herself up like a timepiece and--wrote4 ,nietzsche1 like his great master1 ,schopenhauer1 was never a worshipper of the irresponsible sex4 ,and her immorality8 ,pere ,didon said that her books are more immoral than ,zola's1 because more insidious1 tinted as they are with false ideas and sentiments4 ,george ,sand immoral8 ,what bathos6 ,how futile her fist-shakings at conventional morality4 ,as well say ,marie ,corelli or ,ouida is immoral4 ,this literature of gush and gabble is as dangerous to the morals of our time as the ,ibsen plays or ,a,esop's fables4 ,unreality1 cheap socialism1 and sentiment of the downtrodden shop girl are the stigmata of the ,sand school4 ,she has written many memorable pages1 many beautiful pages2 such masters as ,sainte-,beuve1 ,balzac1 ,delacroix1 ,flaubert1 ,ballanche1 ,heine1 ,dostoievsky1 and ,turgenev have told us so4 ,her idyllic stories are of an indubitable charm4 ,but her immorality1 like her style1 is old-fashioned--there is a dating mark even in immorality1 for if1 as ,ibsen maintained1 all truths stale and die after two decades1 how much less life may be allowed a lie8 ,your eternal verities1 then1 may be as evanescent as last year's mist4 ,mme4 ,karenine does not belong to the ,school of ,moral ,rehabilitation1 so prevalent here and in ,england4 ,she does not spare her subject2 indeed1 makes out a worse case than we had supposed4 ,she is not a prude and1 if critically she is given to discovering a masterpiece under every bush planted by that indefatigable gardener1 ,george ,sand1 she is quite aware of ,george's flagrant behaviour4 ,the list of lovers is a longer one than given by earlier biographers4 ,dumas fils1 a close observer of the novelist1 asserts that she had no temperament at all1 thus corroborating the earlier testimony of ,heine4 ,this further complicates the problem4 ,she was not1 then1 a perverse pursuer of young genius1 going about seeking whom she could devour1 and indulging in what ,mother ,church calls morose delectation6 ,a cold devil--a la ,felicien ,rops4 ,i doubt this4 ,maternal she was4 ,i once described her as a maternal nymphomaniac1 a metaphysical ,messalina4 ,she presided at numerous artistic accouchements2 she was1 pre-eminently1 the critical midwife to many poets1 pianists1 painters1 composers1 and thinkers4 ,if she made some of them unhappy1 she brought into the life of others much happiness4 ,matthew ,arnold believed in her1 so did the ,brownings1 ,elizabeth and ,robert2 ,george ,eliot admired her2 she1 too1 was rowing in the same kind of a moral galley1 but with heavier oars and through the ,sargossian seas of ,british prudery4 ,in contact with the finest minds of her times1 ,george ,sand was neither a moral monster nor yet the arrant ,bohemian that legend has fashioned of her4 ,she was a fond mother1 and a delightful grandmother4 ,she had the featherbed temperament1 and soothed masculine nerves exacerbated by the cruel exigencies of art4 ,jules ,laforgue would have said of her3 ,stability1 thy name is ,woman6 ,she died in the odour of domestic sanctity1 mourned by her friends1 and the idol of the literary world4 ,how account for her uprightness of character1 her abundant virtues--save one8 ,she was as true as the compass to her friends1 to her family4 ,either she has been slandered or else she is an anomaly in the moral world4 ,in either case we need a new transvaluation of morals4 ,she was not made of the stuff of courtesans1 she refused to go to the devil4 ,like ,aspasia1 she was an immoralist4 ,as an artist she could have had social position4 ,but she didn't crave it2 she didn't crave notoriety2 paradoxical as it may sound1 notoriety was thrust upon her4 ,at ,nohant1 her chateau in ,berri1 there was usually a conglomeration of queer people3 ,socialists1 reformers1 crazy dreamers1 artists1 and poets1 occasionally working men in their blouses4 ,of that mystic crew ,matthew ,arnold could have repeated his famous ,what a set6 which he despairingly uttered about the ,shelley-,godwin gatherings4 ,,ii ,george ,sand was a normal woman4 ,she preferred the society of men2 with women she was always on her guard1 a cat sleeping with one eye open4 ,her friendship with ,mme4 ,d',agoult1 the elective affinity of ,liszt1 soon ended4 ,she never summered in soft ,sapphic seas1 nor hankered after poetic ,leucadian promontories4 ,she never did approvingly quote the verse of ,baudelaire beginning3 ,lo6 the ,lesbians their sterile sex advancing4 ,she was a woman from top to toe4 ,nor did she indulge often in casual gallant adventures4 ,her affairs were romantic4 ,with the author of ,carmen her spiritual thermometer registered at its lowest4 ,she endured him just eight days1 and ,merimee is responsible for the tasteless anecdote which he tells as his reason for leaving her4 ,he saw her of a cold morning making the fire1 her head in curl-papers1 and attired in an old dressing-gown4 ,no passion could survive that shock1 and selfish ,prosper at once grew frigid4 ,a ,french expression may suit ,george3 ,she always had her heart en compote4 ,and she was incorrigibly naive--they called it ,idealism in those days--witness her affair with ,doctor ,pagello in ,venice4 ,the first handsome ,italian she met she fell in love with and allowed poor sick ,alfred de ,musset to return to ,paris alone1 although she had promised his mother to guard him carefully4 ,he was suffering from an attack of delirium tremens in ,venice4 ,he had said of himself3 ,i am not tender1 ,i am excessive4 ,he was4 ,his name1 unlike ,keats's1 is writ in absinthe1 not water4 ,nevertheless1 you can reread him4 ,but the separation didn't kill him4 ,he was twenty-two1 ,george six years older4 ,their affair struggled along about six months4 ,alfred consoled himself with ,rachel and many others4 ,he was more poet than artist1 more artist than man2 and a pretty poor specimen of a man4 ,he wrote the history of his love for ,george4 ,she followed suit4 ,this sphinx of the ink-well was a journalist born4 ,she used her lovers for copy2 and for that matter ,byron and ,goethe did the same4 ,george always discoursed of her thirst for the infinite4 ,it was only a species of moral indigestion4 ,every romance ended in disillusionment4 ,the one with ,chopin lasted the longest1 nearly ten years4 ,she first met the ,pole in #ahcf1 not in #ahcg1 as the ,chopinists believe4 ,liszt introduced them4 ,later ,chopin quarrelled with ,liszt about her4 ,chopin did not like her at first2 blue stockings were not to the taste of this conventional man of the world4 ,yet he succumbed4 ,he died of the liaison itself1 rather than from the separation in #ahdg4 ,sand divined the genius of ,chopin before many of his critical contemporaries4 ,she had the courage--and the wisdom--to write that one of his ,tiny ,preludes contained more genuine music than much of ,meyerbeer's mighty ,trumpetings4 ,and ,meyerbeer ruled the world of music when she said this4 ,the immediate cause of this separation ,i hinted at in my early study of ,chopin4 ,solange ,sand1 the daughter of ,george1 was a thoroughly perverse girl4 ,she not only flirted with ,chopin1 seeking to lure him from her mother--truly a ,gallic triangle--but she so contrived matters that her mother was forced to allow the intriguing girl to marry her lover1 ,clesinger1 the sculptor4 ,the knowledge of this ,mme4 ,sand kept from ,chopin for a while because she feared that he would side with ,solange4 ,he promptly did so1 being furious at the deception4 ,he it was who broke with ,george1 possibly aided thereto by her nagging4 ,he saw much of ,solange1 and pecuniarily helped her young and unhappy household4 ,he announced by letter to ,george the news that she was a grandmother2 they occasionally corresponded4 ,clesinger did not get on with his mother-in-law4 ,she once boxed his ears4 ,he drank1 gambled1 and brutally treated ,solange4 ,george ,sand suffered the agony of seeing in her daughter's life a duplicate of her own4 ,her husband1 ,francois-,casimir ,dudevant1 a debauched country squire1 drank1 was unfaithful1 and beat her betimes4 ,he treated his dogs better4 ,no wonder she ran away to ,paris1 there to live with ,jules ,sandeau4 7,she had married in #ahbb1 and brought her husband five hundred thousand francs47 ,but1 rain or shine1 joy or sorrow1 she did her daily stunt at her desk4 ,she was a journalist and wrote by the sweat of her copious soul4 ,she was the rare possessor of the ,will-to-,sit-,still1 as metaphysicians would say4 ,she thought with her nerves and felt with her brain4 ,she was1 morally speaking1 magnificently disorganised4 ,she was a subtle mixer of praise and poison1 and her autobiography is stuffed with falsehoods4 ,she couldn't help falsifying facts1 for she was an incurable sentimentalist4 ,heine has cruelly said that women writers write with one eye on the paper1 the other on some man2 all except the ,countess ,hahn-,hahn1 who had one eye4 ,george ,sand wrote with both eyes fixed on a man1 or men4 ,charity should cover a multitude of her missteps4 ,in her case we don't know all4 ,we know too much4 ,still1 ,i believe she was more sinned against than sinning4 ,,iii ,since the fatal day when our earliest ancestors left the ,garden of ,eden1 when ,adam digged and ,eve span1 there have been a million things that women were told they shouldn't attempt1 that is1 not without the penalty of losing their womanliness1 or interfering with their family duties4 ,but they continued1 did these same refractory females1 to overcome obstacles1 leap social hurdles1 make mock of antique taboos1 and otherwise disport themselves as if they were free individuals1 and not petticoated with absurd prejudices4 ,they loved4 ,they married4 ,they became mothers4 ,george ,sand was in the vanguard of this small army of protestants against the prevailing moral code 7for woman only74 ,her unhappy marriage was a blazing bonfire of revolt4 ,the misunderstood woman at last had her innings4 ,sand stood for all that was wicked and hateful in the eyes of law and order4 ,yet1 compared with the feminine fiction of our days1 ,sand's is positively idyllic4 ,she is one parent of the ,woman movement1 unpalatable as her morals may prove to churchgoers4 ,she acted in life what so many of our belligerent ladies urge others to do--and never attempt on their own account4 ,george was brave4 ,and ,george was polyandrous4 ,if she hadn't much temperament1 she had the courage to throw her bonnet over the windmill when she saw the man she liked1 and if she suffered later1 she1 being an artist1 made a literary asset of these sufferings4 ,she is the true ancestor of the ,new ,woman4 ,her books were considered so immoral by her generation that to be seen reading them was enough to damn a man4 ,other males1 other tales4 ,she dared to live her own life1 as the ,ibsenites say1 and she was the original ,ibsen girl1 proof-before-all-letters4 ,i haven't the slightest doubt that to-day she would speak to street crowds1 urging the vote for woman4 ,why shouldn't woman vote8 she might be supposed to argue4 ,there will be less dyspepsia in ,america when women desert the kitchen for the halls of legislation4 ,men1 perforce1 are better cooks4 ,so1 by all means1 let woman vote4 ,will it not be an acid test applied to our alleged democratic institutions8 ,george ,sand believed herself to be a social-democrat4 ,she trusted in ,pierre ,leroux's mysticism1 trusted in the phalanstery of ,fourier1 in the doctrines of ,saint-,simon1 the latter especially because of her intimacy with ,franz ,liszt2 nevertheless1 she might shudder at the emancipation of ideas in our century1 and1 as she had a sensitive soul1 modern democracy might prove for her a very delirium of ugliness4 ,she was always aesthetic4 ,she could portray with a tender pen the stammering litany of young caresses1 but she couldn't face a fact in her fiction4 ,her ,indianas1 ,lelias1 and the other romantic insurgents against society are ,byronic1 ,laras in petticoats4 ,all rose-water and rage1 they are as rare in life as black lightning on a blue sky4 ,her stories are as sad and as ridiculous as a nightcap4 ,,iv ,george ,sand was not beautiful4 ,edouard ,grenier declares that she was short and stout4 ,her eyes were wonderful1 but a little too close together4 ,do you recall ,heine's phrase1 ,femme avec l'oeil sombre8 ,black they were1 those eyes1 and they reminded ,grenier at once of unpolished marble and velvet4 ,her nose was thick and not overshapely4 ,she spoke with great simplicity and her manner was very quiet4 ,with these rather negative physical attractions she conquered men like ,napoleon4 ,even prim ,president ,thiers tried to kiss her and her indignation was epical4 ,he is said to have giggled in a silly way when reproved4 ,it seems incredible4 7,did you ever see the ,bonnat portrait of this philistine statesman87 ,liszt never wholly yielded to her4 ,merimee despised her in his chilly fashion4 ,michel de ,bourges treated her rudely4 ,poor ,alfred de ,musset--who1 when he was short of money1 would dine in an obscure tavern1 and1 with a toothpick in his mouth1 would stand at the entrance of some fashionable boulevard cafe--seems to have loved her romantically1 the sort of love she craved4 ,what was her attraction8 ,she had brains and magnetism1 but that she could have loved all the lovers she is credited with is impossible4 ,there is1 to begin at the beginning1 ,jules ,sandeau1 who was followed by ,de ,musset2 after him the deluge3 ,doctor ,pagello--who was jilted when he followed her to ,paris2 ,michel de ,bourges1 ,pierre ,leroux1 ,felicien ,mallefille1 ,chopin1 ,merimee1 ,manceau1 and the platonic friendship with ,flaubert4 ,this was her sanest friendship2 the correspondence proves it4 ,she went to the ,magny dinners with ,flaubert1 ,goncourt1 ,renan1 ,zola1 ,turgenev1 and ,daudet4 ,her influence on the grumbling giant of ,croisset was tonic4 ,it was she who should have written ,sentimental ,education4 ,but where is that sly old voluptuary1 ,sainte-,beuve1 or the elder ,dumas 7the ,pasha of many tales71 or ,liszt1 who was her adorer for a brief period1 notwithstanding ,mme4 ,karenine's denial8 ,she denies the ,leroux affair1 too4 ,are these all8 ,who dare say8 ,dumas fils carried a bundle of ,chopin's letters from ,warsaw and ,sand buried them at ,nohant4 ,this story1 doubted by ,doctor ,niecks1 has been corroborated since by ,mme4 ,karenine4 ,what a loss for inquisitive critics6 ,george was named ,lucile ,aurore ,dupin1 and she was descended from a choice chain of rowdy and remotely royal ancestors4 ,in her mature years she became optimistic1 proper1 matronly4 ,she was a cheerful milch cow for her two children4 ,it is delicious comedy to read the warnings to her son ,maurice against actresses4 ,solange she gave up as hopelessly selfish1 wicked for the sheer sake of wickedness1 a sort of inverted and evil art-for-art4 ,nearly all the facts of the quarrel with ,solange are to be found in ,samuel ,rocheblave's ,george ,sand et ,sa ,fille4 ,after ,solange left ,clesinger she formed a literary partnership with the ,marquis ,alfieri1 nephew of the great ,italian poet4 ,soli opened a salon in ,paris1 to which came ,gambetta1 ,jules ,ferry1 ,floquet1 ,taine1 ,herve1 ,henry ,fouquier1 and ,weiss1 the critic who describes her as having the curved ,hebraic nose of her mother and hair cold black4 ,she1 too1 must write novels4 ,she died at ,nohant1 her mother's old home1 in #ahii4 ,maurice ,sand1 her brother1 died ten years earlier4 ,jules ,claretie tells an amusing story about ,sand4 ,in #ahgj1 when she was old and full of honours1 she went one day to visit the ,minister of ,instruction4 ,there1 being detained in the antechamber1 she fell into a pleasant conversation with a well-groomed1 decorated old gentleman4 ,after ten minutes' chat the unknown consulted his watch1 arose1 and bowed to ,mme4 ,sand4 ,if ,i could always find such a charming companion ,i would visit the ,ministry often1 he gallantly said1 and went away4 ,the novelist called an attendant4 ,who is that amiable gentleman8 she asked4 ,ah1 that is ,m4 ,jules ,sandeau of the ,french ,academy4 ,and he1 her first flame in ,paris1 inquired the name of the lady4 ,what a lot of head-shaking and moralising must have ensued6 ,the story is pretty enough to have been written in the candied thunder of ,sand herself4 ,de ,lenz1 author of several rather neglected volumes about musicians1 did not like ,sand because she was rude to him when introduced by ,chopin4 ,he asked her concierge1 ,what is ,madame properly called--,dudevant8 ,ah1 ,monsieur1 she has many names1 was the reply4 ,but it is her various names1 and not her novels1 that interest us1 and will intrigue the attention of posterity4 ,,chapter ,,vii ,,the ,,great ,,american ,,novel ,i ,when the supreme master of the historical novel modestly confessed that he could do the big bow-wow strain1 but to ,jane ,austen must be accorded the palm of exquisite craftsmanship1 there was then no question upon the critical map of the so-called great ,american novel4 ,sir ,walter ,scott--to whom such authors of historical novels as ,chateaubriand and his ,martyrs1 the ,salammbo of ,flaubert1 and that well-nigh perfect fiction1 ,the ,history of ,henry ,esmond1 by ,thackeray1 yield precedence--might have achieved the impossible3 the writing of a library1 epitomising the social history of ,these ,states--as ,walt ,whitman would say4 ,after ,scott no name but ,balzac's occurs to the memory2 ,balzac1 who laid all ,france under his microscope 7and ,france is all of a piece1 not the checker-board of nationalities we call ,america74 ,even the mighty ,tolstoy would have balked the job4 ,and if these giants would have failed1 what may be said of their successors8 ,the idea of a great ,american novel is an absolute1 and nature abhors an absolute1 despite the belief of some metaphysicians to the contrary4 ,yet the notion still obtains and inquests are held from time to time1 and the opinions of contemporary novelists are taken toll of2 as if each man and woman could give aught else but their own side of the matter1 that side which is rightfully enough personal and provincial4 ,the question is1 after all1 an affair for critics1 and the great ,american novel will be in the plural2 thousands perhaps4 ,america is a chord of many nations1 and to find the key-note we must play much and varied music4 ,while a novelist may be cosmopolitan at his own risk1 a critic should be ever so4 ,consider the names of such widely contrasted critical temperaments as ,sainte-,beuve1 ,taine1 ,de ,gourmont1 ,matthew ,arnold1 ,brandes1 ,swinburne1 ,arthur ,symons1 ,havelock ,ellis1 ,henry ,james1 ,gosse1 and ,w4 ,c4 ,brownell2 all cosmopolitan as well as national4 ,the sublime tenuities of ,henry ,james1 like the black music of ,michael ,artzibashef1 are questions largely temperamental4 ,but the ,russian is all ,slavic1 and no one would maintain that ,mr4 ,james shows a like ingrained nationalism4 ,nevertheless1 he is ,american1 though dealing only with a certain side of ,american life1 the cosmopolitan phase4 ,at his peril an ,american novelist sails eastward to describe the history of his countrymen abroad4 ,with the critic we come upon a different territory4 ,he may go gadding after new mud-gods 7the newest god invented by man is always the greatest71 for the time being1 and return to his native heath mentally refreshed and broadened by his foreign outing4 ,not so the maker of fiction4 ,once he cuts loose his balloon he is in danger of not getting home again4 ,mr4 ,james is a splendid case for us2 he began in ,america and landed in ,england1 there to stay4 ,our other felicitous example of cosmopolitanism is ,henry ,blake ,fuller1 the author of ,the ,chevalier ,pensieri ,vani and ,the ,chatelaine de la ,trinite1 who was so widely read in the nineties4 ,after those charming excursions into a rapidly vanishing ,europe ,mr4 ,fuller reversed the proceeding of ,james2 he returned to ,america and composed two novels of high artistic significance1 ,the ,cliff ,dwellers and ,with the ,procession1 which1 while they continued the realistic tradition of ,william ,dean ,howells1 were also the forerunners of a new movement in ,america4 ,it is not necessary to dwell now on ,the ,last ,refuge1 or on that masterly book of spiritual parodies1 ,the ,puppet-,booth4 ,but ,mr4 ,fuller did not write the great ,american novel4 ,neither did ,mr4 ,howells1 nor ,mr4 ,james4 ,who has8 ,no one4 ,is there such a thing8 ,without existing it might be described in ,celtic fashion1 this mythical work1 as pure fiction4 ,let us admit for the sake of argument that if it were written by some unknown monster of genius1 it would1 like ,lewis ,carroll's ,snark1 turn into a ,boojum4 ,henry ,james has said that no one is compelled to admire any particular sort of writing2 that the province of fiction is all life1 and he has also wisely remarked that when you have no taste you have no discretion1 which is the conscience of taste1 and may we add1 when you have no discretion you perpetrate the shocking fiction with which ,america is deluged at this hour4 ,we are told that the new writers have altered the old canons of bad taste1 but plus ca change1 plus c'est la meme chose4 ,a liquorish sentimentality is the ever-threatening rock upon which the bark of young ,american novelists goes to pieces4 7,pardon the mixed metaphor47 ,be sentimental and you will succeed6 ,we agree with ,dostoievsky that in fiction1 as well as in life1 there are no general principles1 only special cases4 ,but these cases1 could they not be typical8 even if there are not types1 only individuals4 ,and are men and women so inthralled by the molasses of sentimentalism in life8 ,have the motion-pictures hopelessly deranged our critical values8 ,i know that in ,america charity covers a multitude of mediocrities1 nevertheless1 ,i am loath to believe that all one reads in praise of wretched contemporary fiction is meant in earnest4 ,well1 chacun a ses degouts6 ,the thrilling detective story1 the romantic sonorities of the ice cream-soda woman novelist8--with a triple-barrelled name1 as ,rudyard ,kipling put it once upon a time--or that church of ,heavenly ,ennui1 the historical novel--what a cemetery of ideas1 all of them6 ,an outsider must be puzzle-pated by this tumult of tasteless writing and worse observation4 ,however1 history in fiction may be a cavalcade of shining shadows1 brilliant1 lugubrious1 dull1 or joyful happenings2 but where ,thackeray succeeded multitudes have failed4 ,who shall bend the bow of that ,ulysses8 ,native talent1 subtle and robust1 we possess in abundance2 thus far it has cultivated with success its own parochial garden--which is as it should be4 ,the ,united ,states of ,fiction4 ,america is ,cosmopolis4 ,,ii ,as to the ,puritanism of our present novels one may dare to say in the teeth of youthful protestants that it is non-existent4 ,the pendulum has swung too far the other way4 ,and as literary artists are rare1 the result has not been reassuring4 ,zola seems prudish after some experiments of the younger crowd4 ,how badly they pull off the trick4 ,how coarse and hard and heavy their touch4 ,most of these productions read like stupid translations from a dull ,french original4 ,they are not immoral1 only vulgar4 ,as old ,flaubert used to say3 such books are false1 nature is not like that4 ,how keenly he saw through the humbug of free love--a romantic tradition of ,george ,sand's epoch--may be noted in his comment that ,emma ,bovary found in adultery all the platitudes of marriage4 ,ah6 that much-despised1 stupid1 venerable institution1 marriage6 ,how it has been flouted since the days of ,rousseau--the father of false romanticism and that stupefying legend1 the equality of mankind4 7,o6 the beautiful word1 equality1 invented for the delectation of rudimentary minds47 ,a century and more fiction has played with the theme of concubinage4 ,if the ,nacquet divorce bill had been introduced a decade or so before it was in ,france1 what would have become of the theatre of ,dumas fils1 or later1 of the misunderstood woman in ,ibsen's plays8 ,all such tribal taboos make or unmake literature4 ,so1 merely as a suggestion to ambitious youngsters1 let the novelist of the future in search of a novelty describe a happy marriage1 children1 a husband who doesn't drink or gamble1 a wife who votes1 yet loves her home1 her family1 and knows how to cook4 ,what a realistic bombshell he would hurl into the camp of sentimental socialists and them that believe a wedding certificate is like ,balzac's ,la ,peau de ,chagrin--a document daily shrinking in happiness4 ,absurdities make martyrs1 but of all the absurd and ineffectual martyrdoms that of running off with another's wife is usually the crowning one4 ,i don't call this very popular pie1 said the little boy in ,richard ,grant ,white's story2 and the man in the case is usually the first to complain of his bargain in pastry4 ,however1 categories are virtually an avowal of mental impuissance1 and all marriages are not made in heaven4 ,in the kingdom of morality there are many mansions4 ,when too late you may sport with the shade--not in the shade--of ,amaryllis1 and perhaps elbow epigrams as a lean consolation4 ,that is your own affair4 ,paul ,verlaine has told us that j'ai vecu enormement1 though his living enormously did not prove that he was happy4 ,far from it4 ,but he had at least the courage to relate his terrors4 ,american novelists may agree with ,dostoievsky that everything in the world always ends in meanness2 or with ,doctor ,pangloss that all is for the best in the best of possible worlds4 ,an affair of temperament4 ,but don't mix the values4 ,don't confuse intellectual substances4 ,don't smear a fact with treacle and call it truth4 ,above all1 don't preach4 ,impiety is an indiscretion1 yet1 don't be afraid to tell the truth4 ,from ,jane ,austen and ,walter ,scott1 the parents of the modern ,english novel1 to many modern instances1 fiction has thrived best on naked truth4 ,all the rest is sawdust1 tripe-selling1 and sentimentalism4 ,didn't ,mr4 ,roundabout declare in one of his famous papers that ,figs are sweet1 but fictions are sweeter8 ,in our land we can't get the latter sweet enough4 ,altruism1 ,brotherhood of ,man ,uplifting4 ,these are the shibboleths of the nouvelles couches sociales4 ,prodigious6 ,,iii ,j4-,k4 ,huysmans declared that in the land of books there are no schools2 no idealism1 realism1 symbolism2 only good writers and bad4 ,whistler said the same about painting and painters4 ,setting aside the technical viewpoint of such dicta1 we fancy that our best sellers do not preoccupy themselves with the mere writing of their fictions1 but they have developed a formidable faculty of preaching4 ,old-fashioned fiction that discloses personal charm1 that delineates manners1 or stirs the pulse of tragedy--not melodrama1 is vanishing from publishers' lists4 ,are there not as many charming men and women perambulating the rind of the planet as there were in the days when ,jane ,austen1 or ,howells1 or ,turgenev wrote8 ,we refuse to believe there are not2 but there is little opportunity1 in a word1 no market1 for the display of these qualities4 ,the novel with a purpose1 generally an unpleasant purpose1 has usurped the rule of the novel of character and manners4 ,boanerges1 not ,balzac1 now occupies the pasteboard pulpit of fiction4 ,i quoted ,henry ,james to the effect that all life is the province of the novelist4 ,nevertheless1 the still small garden wherein is reared the tender solitary flower does but ill represent the vaster1 complicated forest of common humanity4 ,the ivory tower of the cultivated egoist is not to be unduly admired2 rather ,zola's ,la ,terre with its foul facts than a palace of morbid art4 ,withal1 the didactic side of our fiction is overdone4 ,i set it down to the humbug about the masses being opposed to the classes4 ,truly a false antithesis4 ,as if the ,french bourgeois were not a product of the revolution 7poor bourgeois1 always abused by the novelist74 ,as if a poor man suddenly enriched didn't prove1 as a rule1 the hardest taskmaster to his own class4 ,consider the new-rich4 ,what a study they afford the students of manners4 ,a new generation has arisen4 ,its taste1 intelligence1 and culture2 its canned manners1 canned music--preferably pseudo-,african--canned art1 canned food1 canned literature2 its devotion to the mediocre--what a field for our aspiring young secretaries to society4 ,cheap prophylactics1 political and religious--for religion is fast being butchered to make the sensational evangelists' holiday--are in vogue4 ,they affect our fiction-mongers1 who burn to avenge wrongs1 write novels about the downtrodden masses1 and sermons on social evils--evils that have always existed1 always will exist4 ,like the knife-grinder1 story they have none to tell4 ,why write fiction1 or what they are pleased to call fiction8 ,why not join the brave brigade of agitators and pamphleteers8 ,the lay preachers are carrying off the sweepstakes4 ,for them ,mr4 ,howells is a superannuated writer4 ,would there were more like him in continence of speech1 wholesomeness of judgment1 nobility of ideals1 and in the shrewd perception of character4 ,fiction1 too1 is a fine art1 though this patent fact has escaped the juvenile ,paul ,prys1 who are mainly endeavouring to arouse class against mass4 ,it's an old dodge1 this equality theory1 as old as ,beelzebub1 ,lord of ,flies4 ,when all fruit fails1 welcome envy and malicious slandering4 ,when you have nothing else to write about1 attack your neighbour1 especially if he hath a much-coveted vineyard4 ,max ,stirner1 least understood of social philosophers1 wrote1 ,mind your own business1 and he forged on the anvil of experience a mighty leading motive for the conduct of life4 ,but our busy little penmen don't see in this golden motto a sufficient sentimental appeal4 ,it doesn't flatter the masses4 ,mr4 ,bryan a few years ago told us that we were all middle class4 ,what is middle class8 ,in ,carlyle's day it was a gig-man2 in ours is it the owner of a flivver8 ,but in the case of ,snob vs4 ,mob1 ,snob always wins4 ,this twaddle about democratic art is the bane of our literature4 ,there is only good art4 ,whether it deals with such democratic subjects as ,l',assommoir or ,germinie ,lacerteux1 or such aristocratic themes as those of ,d',annunzio and ,paul ,bourget1 it is the art thereof that determines the product4 ,i hold no brief for the sterile fiction that is enrolled under the banner of ,art for ,art4 ,i go so far as to believe that a novelist with a beautiful style often allows that style to get in the way of human nature4 ,stained-glass windows have their use1 but they falsify the daylight4 ,a decorative style may suit pseudo-mediaeval romances1 but for twentieth-century realism it is sadly amiss4 ,nor is the arterio-sclerotic school of psychological analysis to be altogether commended4 ,it has been well-nigh done to death by ,stendhal1 ,meredith1 ,james1 and ,bourget2 and it is as cold as a star4 ,flaubert urged as an objection to writing a novel1 proving something that the other fellow can prove precisely the opposite4 ,in either case selection plays the role4 ,the chief argument against the novel with a purpose--as the jargon goes--is its lack of validity either as a document or as art4 ,a novel may be anything1 but it must not be polemical4 ,zola has been1 still is1 the evil genius of many talented chaps who sling ink1 not to make a genuine book1 but to create a sensation4 ,such writers lack patience1 art1 and direction4 ,they always keep one eye on the box-office4 ,indeed1 the young men and women of the day1 who are squandering upon paper their golden genius1 painfully resemble in their productions the dime novels once published by the lamented ,beadle or the lucubrations in the ,saturday weeklies of long ago4 ,but in those publications there was more virility4 ,the heroes then were not well-dressed namby-pambies2 the villains were villainous2 the detectives detected real crimes1 and were not weavers of metaphysical abstractions like your latter-day miracle-workers of an impossible ,scotland ,yard2 and the girls were girls1 neither neurasthenic1 nor did they outgolf all creation4 ,the new novelists still deal with the same raw material of melodrama4 ,their handling of love-episodes has much of the blaring-brass quality of old-fashioned ,italian opera4 ,they loudly twang the strings of sloppy sentiment1 which evoke not music1 but mush and moonshine4 ,and these are our motion-masters to-day4 ,,iv ,there can be no objection to literature and life coming to grips4 ,letters should touch reality4 ,many a sturdy blow has been struck at abuses by penmen masquerading behind fiction4 ,no need to summon examples4 ,as for realism--,i deny there are commonplace people4 ,only those writers are commonplace that believe in the phrase4 ,it is one of the paradoxes of art that the commonplace folk of ,thackeray1 ,flaubert1 or ,anthony ,trollope who delight us between covers would in life greatly bore us4 ,the ennui is artistically suggested1 though not experienced by the reader4 ,it is the magic of the novelist1 his style and philosophy1 that make his creations vital4 ,dostoievsky says there are no old women--to be sure he puts the expression in the mouth of the sensualist ,karamazov--and as a corollary ,i maintain that nothing is uninteresting if painted by a master hand1 from carrots to ,chopin4 ,as for the historical novel1 there is ,sentimental ,education as a model1 if you desire something epical in scale and charged with the modern ironic spirit4 ,a ,flaubertian masterpiece1 this book1 with its daylight atmosphere2 the inimitable sound1 shape1 gait1 and varied prose rhythms of its sentences1 its marvellous gallery of portraits executed in the ,dutch manner of ,hals and ,vermeer1 its nearness to its environment1 and its fidelity to the pattern of life4 ,it is a true historical novel1 for it is real--to employ the admirable simile of ,mr4 ,howells4 ,no need to transpose the tragic gloom of ,artzibashef to ,america2 we are an optimistic people1 thanks to our air and sky1 political conditions1 and the immigration of sturdy peasant folk4 ,yet we1 too1 have our own peculiar gloom and misery and social problems to solve4 ,we are far from being the shadow-land of fiction1 as a certain ,english critic said4 ,when ,i praise the dissonantal art of ,michael ,artzibashef it is not with the idea that either his style or his pessimism should be aped4 ,that way unoriginality lies4 ,but ,i do contend that in the practice of his art1 its sincerity1 its profundity1 he might be profitably patterned after by the younger generation4 ,art should elevate as well as amuse4 ,must fiction always be silly and shallow8 ,it need be neither sordid nor didactic4 ,william ,james put the matter in a nutshell when he wrote that the whole atmosphere of present-day ,utopian literature tastes mawkish and dish-watery to people who still keep a sense of life's more bitter flavours4 ,and on this fundamentally sound note ,i must end my little sermon--for ,i find that ,i have been practising the very preaching against which ,i warned embryo novelists4 ,but1 then1 isn't every critic a lay preacher8 ,,chapter ,,viii ,,the ,,case ,,of ,,paul ,,cezanne ,the case of painter ,paul ,cezanne4 ,is he a stupendous nobody or a surpassing genius8 ,the critical doctors disagree1 an excellent omen for the reputation of the man from ,provence4 ,we do not discuss a corpse1 and though ,cezanne died in #aijf he is still a living issue among artists and writers4 ,every exhibition calls forth comment3 fair1 unfair1 ignorant1 and seldom just4 ,yet the ,cezanne question1 is it so difficult to resolve8 ,like ,brahms1 the ,frenchman is often misrepresented2 ,brahms1 known now as a ,romantic writing within the walls of accepted forms1 neither a pedant nor a revolutionist2 ,cezanne1 not a revolutionist1 not an innovator1 vastly interested in certain problems1 has been made chef d'ecole and fathered with a lot of theories which would send him into one of his famous rages if he could hear them4 ,either a revolutionist or a plagiarist6 cried ,paul ,gauguin--whose work was heartily detested by ,cezanne2 but truth is ever mediocre1 whether it resides at the bottom of a well or swings on the cusps of the new moon4 ,what is the truth about ,cezanne8 ,the question bobs up every season4 ,his so-called followers raise a clamour over the banality of representation in art1 and their master is the one man in the history of art who squandered on canvas startling evocations of actuality1 whose nose was closest to the soil4 ,huysmans was called an eye by ,remy de ,gourmont4 ,paul ,cezanne is also an eye4 ,in #aija ,i saw at the ,champs de ,mars ,salon a picture by ,maurice ,denis entitled ,hommage a ,cezanne1 the idea of which was manifestly inspired by ,manet's ,hommage a ,fantin-,latour4 ,the canvas depicted a still life by ,cezanne on a chevalet and surrounded by ,bonnard1 ,denis1 ,redon1 ,roussel1 ,serusier1 ,vuillard1 ,mellerio1 and ,vollard4 ,himself 7as they say in ,irish7 is shown standing and apparently unhappy1 embarrassed4 ,then came the brusque apotheosis of #aijd at the ,autumn ,salon1 the most revelatory of his unique gift thus far made4 ,puvis de ,chavannes had a special ,salle1 so had ,eugene ,carriere2 ,cezanne held the place of honour4 ,the critical press was hostile or half-hearted4 ,poor ,cezanne1 with his naive vanity1 seemed dazzled by the uproarious championship of les jeunes1 and1 to give him credit for a peasant-like astuteness1 he was rather suspicious and always on his guard4 ,he stolidly accepted the frantic homage of the youngsters1 looking all the while like a bourgeois ,buddha4 ,in ,the ,sun of #aija1 #aijd1 and #aijf 7the latter the year of his death7 appeared my articles on ,cezanne1 among the first1 if not the first1 that were printed in this country4 ,since then he has been hoisted to the stars by his admirers1 and with him have mounted his prices4 ,why not8 ,when juxtaposed with most painters his pictures make the others look like linoleum or papier-mache4 ,he did not occupy himself1 as did ,manet1 with the manners1 ideas1 and aspects of his generation4 ,in the classic retort of ,manet he could have replied to those who taunted him with not finishing his pictures3 ,sir1 ,i am not a historical painter4 ,nor need we be disconcerted1 in any estimate of him1 by the depressing snobbery of collectors who don't know ,b from a bull's foot1 but who go off at half-trigger when a hint is dropped about the possibilities of a painter appreciating in a pecuniary sense4 ,cezanne is the painting idol of the hour1 as were ,manet and ,monet a decade ago4 ,these fluctuations must not distract us1 because ,cabanel1 ,bouguereau and ,henner1 too1 were idolised once upon a time1 and served to make a millionaire's holiday by hanging in his marble bathroom4 ,it is the undeniable truth that ,cezanne has become a tower of strength in the eyes of the younger generation of artists which intrigues critical fancy4 ,sincerity is strength2 ,cezanne is sincere to the core2 but even stark sincerity does not necessarily imply the putting forth of masterpieces4 ,before he attained his original1 synthetic power he patiently studied ,delacroix1 ,courbet1 and several others4 ,he achieved at times the foundational structure of ,courbet1 but his pictures1 so say his enemies1 are sans composition1 sans linear pattern1 sans personal charm4 ,but ,popularity is for dolls1 cried ,emerson4 ,cezanne's was a twilight soul4 ,and a humourless one4 ,his early modelling in paint was quasi-structural4 ,always the architectural sense1 though his rhythms are elliptical at times and he betrays a predilection for the asymmetrical4 ,nevertheless1 a man who has given to an art in two dimensions the illusion of a third2 tactile values are here raised to the nth degree4 ,his colour is personal and rhythmic4 ,huysmans was clairvoyant when1 nearly a half-century ago1 he spoke of ,cezanne's work as containing the prodromes of a new art4 ,he was absorbed in the handling of his material1 not in the lyric1 dramatic1 anecdotic1 or rhetorical elements4 ,his portraits are vital and charged with character4 ,and he often thinks profoundly on unimportant matters4 ,when you are young your foreground is huddled3 it is the desire for more space that begets revolutionists2 not unlike a big man elbowing his way in a crowd4 ,laudable then are all these sporadic outbursts2 and while a creative talent may remain provincial1 even parochial1 as was the case with ,cezanne1 a critic must be cosmopolitan or nothing4 ,an artist may stay rooted in his own bailiwick his life long1 yet paint like an angel2 but a provincial critic is a contradiction in terms4 ,he reminds one of a razor so dull that it can't cut butter4 ,let us therefore be hospitable to new ideas2 even ,cabanel has his good points4 ,the tang of the town is not in ,cezanne's portraits of places4 ,his leaden landscapes do not arouse to spontaneous activity a jaded retina fed on ,fortuny1 ,monticelli1 or ,monet4 ,as for the groups of bathing women1 how they must wound the sensibility of ,george ,moore1 ,professor of ,energy at the ,university of ,erotica4 ,there is no sex appeal4 ,merely women in their natural pelt4 ,it is related of the ,empress ,eugenie that in front of ,courbet's ,les ,baigneuses 7,salon1 #ahec7 she asked3 ,est-ce aussi une percheronne8 ,of the heavy-flanked ,percheron breed of horse are the ladies on the canvases of ,cezanne4 ,the remark of the ,empress appealed to the truculent vanity of ,courbet4 ,it might not have pleased ,cezanne4 ,with beauty1 academic or operatic1 he had no traffic4 ,if you don't care for his graceless nudes you may console yourself that there is no disputing tastes--with the tasteless4 ,they are uglier than the females of ,degas1 and twice as truthful4 ,we have seen some of his still-life pieces so acid in tonal quality as to suggest that divine dissonance produced on the palate by a slightly stale oyster1 or akin to the rancid note of an oboe in a score by ,stravinski4 ,but what thrice-subtle sonorities1 what colour chords are in his best work4 ,i once wrote in the ,promenades of an ,impressionist that his fruits and vegetables savour of the earth4 ,chardin interprets still-life with realistic beauty2 when he painted an onion it revealed a certain grace4 ,vollon would have dramatised it4 ,when ,cezanne painted one you smelt it4 ,a feeble witticism1 to be sure1 but it registered the reaction on the sounding-board of my sensibility4 ,the supreme technical qualities in ,cezanne are volume1 ponderability1 and an entrancing colour scheme4 ,what's the use of asking whether he is a sound draughtsman8 ,he is a master of edges and a magician of tonalities4 ,huysmans spoke of his defective eyesight2 but disease boasts its discoveries1 as well as health4 ,the abnormal vision of ,cezanne gave him glimpses of a reality denied to other painters4 ,he advised ,emile ,bernard to look for the contrasts and correspondences of tones4 ,he practised what he preached4 ,no painter was so little affected by personal moods1 by those variations of temperament dear to the artist4 ,had ,cezanne the temperament that he was always talking about8 ,if so it was not decorative in the accepted sense4 ,an unwearying experimenter1 he seldom finished a picture4 ,his morose landscapes were usually painted from one scene near his home at ,aix4 ,i visited the spot4 ,the pictures do not resemble it2 which simply means that ,cezanne had the vision and ,i had not4 ,a few themes with polyphonic variations filled his simple life4 ,art submerged by the apparatus4 ,and he had the centripetal1 not the centrifugal temperament4 ,in his rigid1 intense ignorance there was no room for climate1 personal charm1 not even for sunshine4 ,think of the blazing blue sky and sun of ,provence2 the romantic1 semitropical riot of its vegetation1 its gamuts of green and scarlet1 and search for this mellow richness and misty golden air in the pictures of our master4 ,you won't find them1 though a mystic light permeates the entire series4 ,the sallow-sublime4 ,he did not paint portraits of ,provence1 as did ,daudet in ,numa ,roumestan1 or ,bizet in ,l',arlesienne4 ,he sought for profounder meanings4 ,the superficial1 the facile1 the staccato1 and the brilliant repelled him4 ,not that he was an abstract painter--as the jargon goes4 ,he was eminently concrete4 ,he plays a legitimate trompe-l'oeil on the optic nerve4 ,his is not a pictorial illustration of ,provence1 but the slow1 patient delineation by a geologist of art of a certain hill on old ,mother ,earth1 shamelessly exposing her bare torso1 bald rocky pate1 and gravelled feet4 ,the illusion is not to be escaped4 ,as drab as the orchestration of ,brahms1 and as austere in linear economy2 and as analytical as ,stendhal or ,ibsen1 ,cezanne never becomes truly lyrical except in his still-life4 ,upon an apple he lavishes his palette of smothered jewels4 ,and1 as all things are relative1 an onion for him is as beautiful as a naked woman4 ,and he possesses a positive genius for the tasteless4 ,the chiefest misconception of ,cezanne is that of the theoretical fanatics who not only proclaim him their chief of school1 which may be true1 but also declare him to be the greatest painter that ever wielded a brush since the ,byzantines4 ,the nervous1 shrinking man ,i saw at ,paris would have been astounded at some of the things printed since his death2 while he yearned for the publicity of the official ,salon 7as did ,zola for a seat in the ,academy7 he disliked notoriety4 ,he loved work2 above all1 solitude4 ,he took with him a fresh batch of canvases every morning and trudged to his pet landscapes1 the ,motive he called it1 and it was there that he slaved away with technical heroism1 though he didn't kill himself with his labours as some of his fervent disciples have asserted4 ,he died of unromantic diabetes4 ,when ,i first saw him he was a queer1 sardonic old gentleman in ill-fitting clothes1 with the shrewd1 suspicious gaze of a provincial notary1 ,a rare impersonality1 ,i should say4 ,there is a lot of inutile talk about significant form by propagandists of the ,new ,a,esthetic4 ,as if form had not always been significant4 ,no one can deny ,cezanne's preoccupation with form2 nor ,courbet's either4 ,consider the ,ornans landscapes1 with their sombre flux of forest1 by the crassest realist among ,french painters 7he seems hopelessly romantic to our sharper and more petulant modern mode of envisaging the world72 there is significant form1 and a solid structural sense4 ,but ,cezanne quite o'ercrows ,courbet in his feeling for the massive4 ,sometimes you can't see the ribs because of the skeleton4 ,goethe has told us that because of his limitations we may recognise a master4 ,the limitations of ,paul ,cezanne are patent to all4 ,he is a profound investigator1 and if he did not deem it wise to stray far from the territory he called his own then we should not complain1 for therein he was monarch of all he surveyed4 ,his non-conformism defines his genius4 ,imagine reversing musical history and finding ,johann ,sebastian ,bach following ,richard ,strauss6 ,the idea seems monstrous4 ,yet this1 figuratively speaking1 constitutes the case of ,cezanne4 ,he arrived after the classic1 romantic1 impressionistic1 symbolic schools4 ,he is a primitive1 not made1 like ,puvis1 but one born to a crabbed simplicity4 ,his veiled1 cool harmonies sometimes recall the throb of a deep-bass organ-pipe4 ,oppositional splendour is there1 and the stained radiance of a ,bachian chorale4 ,the music flows as if from a secret spring4 ,what poet asked3 ,when we drive out from the cloud of steam majestical white horses1 are we greater than the first men1 who led black ones by the mane8 ,why can't we be truly catholic in our taste8 ,the heaven of art contains many mansions1 and the rainbow more colours than one4 ,paul ,cezanne will be remembered as a painter who respected his material1 and as a painter1 pure and complex4 ,no man who wields a brush need wish a more enduring epitaph4 ,,chapter ,,ix ,,brahmsody ,after ,wagner the deluge8 ,no1 ,johannes ,brahms4 ,wagner1 the high priest of the music-drama2 a great scene-painter in tones4 ,brahms1 a wrestler with the ,dwellers on the ,threshold of the ,infinite2 a musical philosopher1 but ever a poet4 ,bach1 ,beethoven1 and ,brahms1 cried ,von ,buelow2 but he forgot ,schumann4 ,the molten tide of passion and extravagance that swept over intellectual ,europe threescore years ago bore on its foaming crest ,robert ,schumann4 ,he was first cousin to the prince of romancists1 ,heinrich ,heine2 ,heine1 who dipped his pen in honey and gall and sneered and wept in the same couplet4 ,in the tangled1 rich underwood of ,schumann the young ,brahms wandered4 ,there he heard the moon sing silvery1 and the leaves rustle rhythms to the heart-beats of lovers4 ,all ,german romance1 fantasy1 passion was in ,schumann1 the ,schumann of the ,papillons and the ,carneval4 ,brahms walked as did ,dante1 with the ,shades4 ,bach guided his footsteps2 ,beethoven bade him glance aloft at the stars4 ,and ,brahms had for his legacy polyphony1 form1 and masterful harmonies4 ,in his music the formulist finds perfect things4 ,structurally he is as great as ,beethoven1 perhaps greater4 ,his architectonic is superb4 ,his melodic content is his own as he strides in stately pomp in the fugued ,alexandrines of ,bach4 ,brahms and ,browning4 ,brahms and ,freedom4 ,brahms and ,now4 ,the romantic infant of #ahcb died of intellectual anaemia1 leaving the world as a legacy one of the most marvellous groupings of genius since ,athens's sky carolled azure glances to ,pericles4 ,then came the revolution of #ahdh1 and later a race of sewermen sprang up from the mud4 ,flaubert1 his face turned to the past1 his feet to the future1 gazed sorrowfully at ,carthage and wrote an epic of the bourgeois4 ,zola and his gang delved into moral cesspools1 and the world grew aweary of the malodor4 ,chopin and ,schumann1 faint1 fading flowers of romanticism1 were put in albums where their purple harmonies and subtle sayings are pressed into sweet twilight forgetfulness4 ,even ,berlioz1 whose orchestral ozone revivified the scores of ,wagner and ,liszt2 even mad ,hector1 with the flaming locks1 sounded garishly empty1 brilliantly superficial4 ,the ,new ,man had arrived4 ,a short1 stocky youth played his sonata in ,c1 his ,opus ,i1 for ,liszt1 and the ,magyar of ,weimar returned the compliment by singing in archangelic tones his own fantasy in ,b minor1 which he fondly and futilely believed a sonata4 ,brahms fell asleep1 and ,liszt was enraged4 ,but how symbolical of ,brahms to fall asleep at the very onset of his career1 fall asleep before ,liszt's music4 ,it is the new wearied of the old1 the young fatigued by the garrulities of age4 ,it is sad4 ,it is wonderful4 ,brahms is of to-day4 ,he is the scientist turned philosopher1 the philosopher turned musician4 ,if he were not a great composer he would be a great biologist1 a great metaphysician4 ,there are passages in his music in which ,i detect the philosopher in omphalic meditation4 ,brahms dreams of pure white staircases that scale the ,infinite4 ,a dazzling1 dry light floods his mind1 and you hear the rustling of wings--wings of great1 terrifying monsters2 hippogriffs of horrid mien2 hieroglyphic faces1 faces with stony stare1 menace your imagination4 ,he can bring down within the compass of the octave moods that are outside the pale of mortals4 ,he is a magician1 spectral at times1 yet his songs have the homely lyric fervour and concision of ,robert ,burns4 ,a groper after the untoward1 shudders at certain bars in his ,f sharp minor sonata and weeps with the moonlit tranquillity in the slow movement of the ,f minor sonata4 ,he is often dull1 muddy-pated1 obscure1 and maddeningly slow4 ,then a rift of lovely music wells out of the mist2 you are enchanted and cry3 ,brahms1 master1 anoint again with thy precious melodic chrism our thirsty eyelids6 ,brahms is an inexorable formulist4 ,his four symphonies1 his three piano sonatas1 the choral works and chamber music--are they not all living testimony to his admirable management of masses8 ,he is not a great colourist4 ,for him the pigments of ,makart1 ,wagner1 and ,theophile ,gautier are as naught4 ,like ,puvis de ,chavannes1 he is a ,primitive4 ,simple1 flat tints1 primary and cool1 are superimposed upon rhythmic versatility and strenuousness of thought4 ,ideas1 noble1 profundity-embracing ideas he has4 ,he says great things in a great manner1 but it is not the smart1 epigrammatic1 scarlet1 flashing style of your little man4 ,he disdains racial allusions4 ,he is ,german1 but a planetary ,teuton4 ,you seek in vain for the geographical hints1 hintings that chain ,grieg to the map of ,norway4 ,brahms's melodies are world-typical1 not cabined and confined to his native ,hamburg4 ,this largeness of utterance1 lack of polish1 and a disregard for the politesse of his art do not endear him to the unthinking4 ,yet1 what a master miniaturist he is in his little piano pieces1 his ,intermezzi4 ,there he catches the tender sigh of childhood or the intimate flutterings of the heart stirred by desire4 ,feminine he is as no woman composer2 and virile as are few men4 ,the sinister fury1 the mocking1 drastic fury of his first rhapsodies--true soul-tragedies--how they unearthed the core of pessimism in our age4 ,pessimist8 ,yes1 but yet believer2 a believer in himself1 thus a believer in men and women4 ,he reminds me more of ,browning than does ,schumann4 ,the full-pulsed humanity1 the dramatic--yes1 ,brahms is dramatic1 not theatric--modes of analysis1 the flow1 glow1 and relentless tracking to their ultimate lair of motives is ,browning2 but the composer never loses his grip on the actualities of structure4 ,after ,chopin1 ,brahms8 ,he gives us a cooling1 deep draught in exchange for the sugared wormwood1 the sweet1 exasperated poison of the ,polish charmer4 ,a great sea is his music1 and it sings about the base of that mighty mount we call ,beethoven4 ,brahms takes us to subterrane depths2 ,beethoven is for the heights4 ,strong lungs are needed for the company of both giants4 ,brahms1 the surgeon whose scalpel pierces the aches of modern soul-maladies4 ,bard and healer4 ,beethoven and ,brahms4 ,,chapter ,x ,,the ,,opinions ,,of ,j4-,k4 ,,huysmans ,a monument should be erected to the memory of the inventor of playing-cards because he did something toward suppressing the free exchange of human imbecility6 ,the ,frenchman ,huysmans1 who wrote this charming sentiment1 was not necessarily companionable4 ,he was the most unpleasant among the world's great writers2 for as a great master of prose he ranks high in the literature of his country4 ,his detestation of the mediocre became a tormenting fixed idea4 ,like ,flaubert1 a neurotic1 his digestive organs in a dyspeptic condition1 ,huysmans pursued the disagreeable with the ardour of a sportsman tracking game4 ,why precisely such subjects appealed to him must be left to the truffle-hunters of degeneration4 ,swift is in the same class1 but ,swift enjoyed scarifying his ,yahoos4 ,huysmans did not4 ,nor for that matter did ,flaubert4 ,the ,de ,goncourts have told us in their copious confidences the agony they endured when digging for documents4 ,germinie ,lacerteux was painful travail1 not alone because of the tortuous style it demanded1 but also because of the author's natural repugnance to such vulgar material4 ,they were aristocrats4 ,huysmans came of a solid bourgeois family2 ,dutch on the paternal side1 his father hailed from ,breda1 and ,parisian on the distaff4 ,therefore he might have described his modest surroundings with less acerbity than the irritable ,de ,goncourts4 ,such was not the case4 ,he loathed his themes4 ,he was unhappy while developing them4 ,perhaps the clairvoyance of hatred1 which may be a powerful incentive1 forced his pen to the task4 ,but the fact remains that1 art and religion aside1 ,huysmans did not love what he transposed from life to his marvellously written pages4 ,his was a veritable ,a,esthetic of the ,ugly and ,hateful4 ,yet he possessed a nature sensitive to the pathological point4 ,and1 like ,schopenhauer1 he masked this undue sensibility with a repelling misanthropy4 ,in a study of him by his disciple1 ,gustave ,coquiot1 ,le ,vrai ,j4-,k4 ,huysmans1 with an etched portrait by ,raffaelli1 we are shown some intimate characteristics4 ,huysmans never beat about the social ambush1 but freely expressed his opinions concerning contemporaries2 indeed1 a phrase of the ,goncourts might have been his1 ,je vomis mes contemporains4 ,he has been called an exasperated ,goncourt1 which is putting it mildly4 ,however1 it must not be supposed that he was a roaring egoist1 hitting out blindly4 ,he seems1 according to the account of ,coquiot and ,remy de ,gourmont1 to have been an unassuming and industrious functionary in the ,ministry of the ,interior1 and even when aroused not so truculent as sarcastic4 ,the ,dutch and ,flemish base to his temperament endowed him with considerable phlegm2 he was never demonstrative1 disliked effusiveness in life and literature1 and only in his ironical speech lurked the distilled bitterness of his prejudices4 ,he had many4 ,yet1 fearful of a literary career1 with its poverty and disillusionments1 he endured the ennui and fatigues of thirty-two years of office work1 and1 a model clerk1 he was decorated when he left his bureau in the ,ministry4 ,that is1 decorated for his zeal and punctuality1 not for his books4 ,numberless are the jokes made about the ,legion of ,honour1 yet none contain such subacid irony as this one4 ,huysmans the irascible among decorated philistines6 ,perhaps it is only a stupid book that some one has mentioned1 or a stupid woman2 as he speaks the book looms up before one1 becomes monstrous in its dulness1 a masterpiece and a miracle of imbecility2 the unimportant little woman grows into a slow horror before your eyes4 ,it is always the unpleasant aspect of things that he seizes1 but the intensity of his revolt from that unpleasantness brings a touch of the sublime into the very expression of his disgust4 ,every sentence is an epigram1 and every epigram slaughters a reputation or an idea4 ,he speaks with an accent as of pained surprise1 and amused look of contempt1 so profound that it becomes almost pity1 for human imbecility4 ,this tiny etched portrait is by ,mr4 ,arthur ,symons1 who practically introduced ,huysmans to ,english-speaking letters4 ,pitiless he was1 as pitiless to himself as to others4 ,yet ,coquiot found him entertaining betimes1 while ,de ,gourmont scoffs at his tales of stomachic woe4 ,huysmans1 he says1 ate heartily in the very restaurants he so viciously abuses throughout that ,iliad of indigestion1 ,a ,vau-l',eau4 ,he was the ,m4 ,folantin1 the unheroic hero2 as he was the unpatriotic hero of ,the ,knapsack--published in ,zola's collection1 ,les ,soirees de ,medan4 ,in all his books he figures4 ,jules ,lemaitre describes them collectively as3 a young man with the dysentery2 a young man who disliked single blessedness--the critic used a stronger expression2 a man who couldn't get a beefsteak in ,paris cooked as he wanted it1 and a man who liked to read the chaste chronicle of ,gilles de ,rais1 otherwise known as the sadistic ,bluebeard--these comprise the characters of ,huysmans4 ,after his conversion he made amends1 though he was always the atrabilious faultfinder4 ,no matter4 ,one of the most notable of art critics in a city abundantly supplied with criticism was this same ,huysmans4 ,his critical achievement may outlive his fiction and his religious confessions4 ,he preferred ,certains to his other books4 ,it is written in his most astounding and captivating style4 ,the portraits of certain artists in this unique volume recite the history of the critic's acuity and clairvoyance4 ,he first announced ,edgar ,degas as the greatest artist we possess to-day in ,france4 ,he discovered ,odilon ,redon1 ,raffaelli1 ,forain1 and wrote of ,gustave ,moreau in enamelled prose4 ,whistler1 ,cheret1 ,pissarro1 ,gauguin were praised by him before they had attracted the pontifical disdain of academic criticism4 ,to ,rops he consecrated some extraordinary pages1 for ,huysmans was a verbal virtuoso superior to any of the artists he praised and later he cynically confessed to ,coquiot that he didn't highly estimate the ,belgian etcher1 but found in him excellent pasture for his own picture-making pen4 ,in a word1 the erotic ,rops attracted him more than ,rops the every-day craftsman1 and rightly enough4 ,with the ,japanese this erotic side of ,rops is only for the connoisseur4 ,huysmans said some just things of ,whistler1 and he was the first critic to salute the rising star of ,paul ,cezanne1 who1 he asserts1 contributed more to the impressionist movement than ,manet2 and one who also discovered the prodromes of a new art4 7,this was as early as #ahgg47 ,he found the ,cezanne still-life brutally real2 above all1 a preoccupation with forms and edges1 that betrayed this painter's tendency toward a novel synthesis4 ,but according to ,coquiot1 ,huysmans saw through the hole in the ,cezanne millstone4 ,the ,provencal was a ruse1 an intrigant1 and a money-grubber in his old age1 and proved his plebeian ancestry4 ,his father began barber1 ended banker1 shaved faces as well as notes1 bled his clientele in both professions4 ,american collectors of art ,huysmans treated as brigands4 ,in the matter of the classical painters and sculptors he manifested himself intransigent4 ,he adored the ,flemish primitives1 the ,school of ,cologne and a few of the ,italian primitives1 but with the exception of ,fra ,angelico found their types detestingly androgynous4 7,he employed a more pungent term47 ,in the ,low ,countries are the true primitives1 he declared1 as the only mysticism is that of ,john of the ,cross and ,saint ,teresa4 ,matthias ,gruenewald's ,crucifixion is his idol4 ,huysmans's opinion of ,puvis de ,chavannes in ,certains is stimulating though inconclusive4 ,for him ,puvis tries to dance a rigaudon at a ,requiem mass6 ,but as a descendant of ,cornelis ,huysmans1 the ,parisian sees with almost an abnormal vision1 and in prose paints like a veritable ,fleming4 ,little wonder ,de ,gourmont called him an eye4 ,his prose is addressed to the eye1 rather than to the ear4 ,sumptuous in colouring1 its rhythmic movement is pompous1 its tone hieratic2 and he so manipulated it that it was a perfect medium to depict the ,paris of his time4 ,huysmans did not think too highly of his brothers under the same literary yoke4 ,his opinions are concise4 ,coquiot prints them4 ,despite his affiliations with ,zola and the naturalistic group1 ,huysmans soon tired of his chief1 tired of his theories1 his crude notions of art and life4 ,he definitely broke away from him in his famous preface to ,la ,bas4 ,and it should not be forgotten that he was the first to celebrate in fiction1 if celebration it may be called1 the prostitute of modern ,paris4 ,marthe appeared a year earlier than either ,nana or ,la ,fille ,elise1 the latter by ,edmond de ,goncourt4 ,but he sickened of the sewer fiction only to dive deeper in the mediaeval vileness of ,la ,bas4 ,he met ,goncourt through the offices of ,leon ,cladel1 a writer little known to our generation4 ,huysmans was a friend in need to ,villiers de l',isle ,adam1 and frequented the eccentric company of ,barbey d',aurevilly1 in whose apartment he said that ,paul ,bourget was apt to pop out of a closet or a cloak4 ,he did not care for that ,cherubin of the ,duchesses of the ,faubourg ,saint-,antoine4 ,of ,corneille1 ,racine1 ,moliere1 ,dante1 ,schiller1 and ,goethe he spoke with ill-concealed contempt4 ,raseurs1 all these solemn pontiffs4 ,his major detestation was ,voltaire4 ,balzac1 the prodigious novelist1 left him unstirred4 ,not an artistic epithet in his edition1 fifty volumes long1 and not a novelist easy to reread4 ,theophile ,gautier did not attract him2 he found the impeccable master cold and diluted2 so many pages published to say nothing6 ,huysmans believed in saying something1 and for him it usually meant something disagreeable1 or else contrary to accepted belief4 ,he hated the theatre and his opinions of ,scribe1 ,augier1 ,dumas fils1 ,sardou1 ,feuillet1 and of the old pedant ,sarcey1 are savage4 ,he had no feeling for the footlights1 and not possessing much imagination and deficient in what are called general ideas 7that is1 the stereotyped commonplaces of journalism and tenth-rate thinkers71 he revolted at the lean or hysterical stuff manufactured by dramatists2 plays that are neither life nor literature1 nor even theatrical4 ,baudelaire1 the profoundest of soul-explorers in the poetical ,parnassus of that period1 appealed to ,huysmans4 ,he admired1 as well he might1 ,flaubert1 but found his company intolerable4 ,that giant from ,normandy was too healthy for the slender overwrought ,parisian4 ,he had1 so said ,huysmans1 the manners of a traveling salesman--,balzac's ,gaudissart--and would play his own ,homais1 being addicted to punning and disconcerting joking4 ,poor ,flaubert6 ,poorer ,huysmans6 ,such sensibility as his must have been a daily torture4 ,victor ,hugo was an incomparable trumpet1 an epic of the garde nationale4 ,from ,edmond de ,goncourt with his condescending airs of un vieux maitre1 he escaped by flight2 and ,turgenev1 most amiable of great men1 was a tedious ,russian1 a spigot of tepid water always flowing4 ,if ,verlaine had been penned up in hospital or prison it would have been for the greater glory of ,french poetry4 ,jules ,laforgue1 ,quelle joie6 ,remy de ,gourmont3 ,i wrote a preface to one of his books 7,le ,latin mystique74 ,that says enough4 ,marcel ,provost3 ,le jeune premier des romans de ,georges ,ohnet1 which isn't bad4 ,he rather evades a definite judgment of ,anatole ,france3 ,il s'y connait1 le gaillard2 mais ce qu'il se defile6 ,the style and thought of these two remarkable artists is antipodal4 ,he calls ,maurice ,barres ,lord ,beaconsfield1 a high compliment to that exquisite writer's political attainments4 ,he sums up ,ferdinand ,brunetiere as constipe1 a sound definition of a shrewd1 unsympathetic critic4 ,naturally women writers1 little geese1 are not spared by this waspish misogynist1 whose intense1 pessimistic vision deformed ideas as well as objects4 ,in ,a ,rebours there is the account of a trip to ,london by the anaemic hero1 ,des ,esseintes4 ,he gets no further than one of the ,english taverns opposite the ,gare ,saint-,lazare4 ,it is risible1 this episode2 ,huysmans could display verve and a sort of grim humour when he wished4 ,brunetiere1 who was serious to solemnity1 and lacked a funny bone1 declared that ,huysmans borrowed the incident from a popular vaudeville1 ,le ,voyage a ,dieppe1 by ,fulgence and ,wafflard4 ,he need not have gone so far afield1 for in the life of ,baudelaire by the ,crepets 7,eugene and ,jacques7 there is the genesis of the story4 ,to become better acquainted with ,english speech and manners1 ,baudelaire frequented an ,english tavern in the ,rue de ,rivoli1 where he drank whisky1 read ,punch1 and also sought the company of ,english grooms in the ,faubourg ,saint-,honore4 ,huysmans loved ,baudelaire as much as ,brunetiere detested him4 ,there is no doubt he knew this thoroughly ,baudelairian anecdote4 ,a perverse comet in the firmament of ,french literature1 ,joris-,karl ,huysmans will always be more admired than loved4 ,,chapter ,,xi ,,style ,,and ,,rhythm ,,in ,,english ,,prose ,i ,stylists in prose are privileged persons4 ,they may write nonsense and escape the castigation of prudish pedants2 or1 dealing with cryptic subjects1 they can win the favour of the unthinking2 witness1 in the brain-carpentry of metaphysics1 say1 the verbal manoeuvres of three such lucid though disparate thinkers as ,schopenhauer1 ,nietzsche and ,william ,james4 ,the names of these three writers are adduced as evidence that it is not necessary to be foggy of style even when dealing with abstract ideas4 ,and ,germany has long been the ,nibelheim of philosophy2 need we mention ,hegel1 whose commentators have made his meanings thrice-confounded8 ,style in literature is an antiseptic4 ,it may embalm foolish flies in its amber1 and it is a brevet of immortality--that is1 as immortality goes2 a brief thing1 but a man's boast4 ,when the shoeblack part of the affair is over and done with1 the grammar1 which was made for schoolmarms in male garb1 and the shining rhetoric1 what remains8 ,the answer is eternal3 ,style cannot be taught4 ,a good style is direct1 plain1 and simple4 ,the writer's keyboard is that humble camel the dictionary4 ,style1 being concerned with the process of movement1 has nothing to do with results1 says one authority4 ,and an impertinent collusion on the part of the writer with his own individuality does not always constitute style2 for individual opinion is virtually private opinion1 notwithstanding its appearance in editions half a hundred long2 ,sainte-,beuve and ,de ,quincey here occur to the memory4 ,men change2 mankind never4 ,too close imitation of the masters has its dangers for the novice4 ,apes and peacocks beset the way4 ,stevenson's prose style is highly synthesised and a mosaic of dead men's manner4 ,he has no esoteric message beyond the expression of his sprite-like1 whimsical personality1 and this expression is1 in the main1 consummate4 ,the lion in his pathway is the thinness of his intellectual processes2 as in ,de ,quincey's case1 a master of the ,english language beyond compare1 who in the region of pure speculation often goes sadly limping2 his criticism of ,kant proves it4 ,but a music-maker in our written speech1 ,robert ,louis ,stevenson is the supreme mocking-bird in ,english literature4 ,he overplayed the sedulous imitator4 ,john ,jay ,chapman in a brilliant essay has traced the progress of this prose pilgrim1 a professional stylist as well as a professional invalid4 ,the ,american critic registers the variations in style and sensibility of the ,scotsman1 who did not always demonstrate in his writing the fundamental idea that the sole exponent of sensibility is analytic power4 ,he drew freely on all his predecessors1 and his personal charm exhibits the glue of unanimity1 as old ,boethius would say4 ,mr4 ,chapman quotes a passage supposedly from ,sir ,thomas ,browne1 beginning1 ,time sadly overcometh all things1 which is not to be found in his collected writings4 ,yet it is apropos because1 like ,stevenson's prose1 it is from the crucible of an alchemist1 though at the time ,mr4 ,chapman quoted it was not known to be a clever ,liverpudlian forgery4 ,since then1 after considerable controversy1 the paragraph in question has been shown as the fabrication of a ,liverpool man of letters1 whose name we have forgotten4 ,but it suggests1 does this false ,browne1 that good prose may be successfully simulated1 though essentials be missing4 ,if style cannot be imparted1 what1 then1 is the next best thing to do1 after a close study of the masters8 ,we should say1 go in a chastened mood to the nearest newspaper office and apply for a humble position on its staff4 ,then one will come to grips with life1 the pacemaker of style4 ,there is a lot of pompous advice emitted by the college professor--the ,eternal ,sophomore--about fleeing journalese2 whereas it is in the daily press1 whether ,new ,york1 ,paris1 ,vienna1 or ,london1 that one may find the soundest1 most succinct prose1 prose stripped of superfluous ornament1 prose bare to the bone1 and in fighting trim4 ,but not elevated prose1 numerous prose1 as ,quintilian hath it4 ,for the supreme harmony of ,english prose we must go to the ,bible 7the ,authorised1 not the ,revised1 the latter manufactured by the persons called revisers1 as ,george ,saintsbury bluntly describes them72 to ,shakespeare1 ,jeremy ,taylor1 ,sir ,thomas ,browne1 ,walter ,raleigh1 ,milton1 ,de ,quincey1 ,ruskin1 ,swinburne1 ,cardinal ,newman1 ,pater1 and ,arthur ,symons4 ,and not forgetting the sweet intimacy of ,charles ,lamb1 the sly charm of ,max ,beerbohm1 or the harmonious and imaginative prose of ,w4 ,h4 ,hudson1 whose ,green ,mansions recalls the ,chateaubriand of ,atala1 without its hateful note of morbid egotism4 ,nor are the exponents of the grand manner1 of an ornate style1 to be patterned after4 ,if elevation of theme is not present1 then the peril of fine writing is scarcely to be avoided4 ,better follow such writers as ,bacon1 ,bunyan1 ,hobbes1 ,swift in preference4 ,or the ,augustan group1 ,dryden1 ,addison1 ,shaftesbury1 and ,temple4 ,but ,doctor ,johnson1 ,burke and ,gibbon are not models for the beginner1 any more than the orotund prose of ,bossuet1 the musical utterance of ,chateaubriand1 or the dramatic prose of ,hugo are safe models for ,french students4 ,the rich continence of ,flaubert1 the stippled concision of ,merimee or the dry-sherry wit of ,voltaire are surer guides4 ,and the urbane ease and flowing rhythms of ,thackeray are preferable to the baphometic verbal baptisms of ,carlyle the ,boanerges4 ,yet what sweet temptations are to be found in the golden age of ,english prose1 beginning with the evocation of ,sir ,walter ,raleigh1 ,o eloquent1 just1 and mighty death2 whom none could advise1 thou hast persuaded2 surely not far beneath the magnificent prose of the sixtieth chapter of ,isaiah in the ,authorised1 ,arise1 shine2 for thy light is come1 and the glory of the ,lord is risen unto thee1 which is so mighty in rhythm that even those dolefullest of creatures 444 utterly ignorant of ,english literature1 the ,revisers of #ahgj-he1 hardly dared to touch at all1 blandly remarks ,professor ,saintsbury4 ,and to balance the famous ,now since these dead bones of ,sir ,thomas1 there is the tender coda to ,sir ,william ,temple's ,use of ,poetry and ,music1 ,when all is done1 human life is at the greatest and best4 ,those long1 sweeping phrases1 drumming with melody and cadences1 like the humming of slow1 uplifting walls of water tumbling on sullen strands1 composed by the masters of that other harmony of prose1 are not mere purple panels but music made by immortals4 7,and ,i am convinced that if ,r4 ,l4 ,s4 were alive and condemned to read this last sentence of mine1 with its monotonous run of ,m's1 he would condemn it47 ,consider ,milton and his majestic evocation3 ,methinks ,i see in my mind a noble and puissant nation arousing herself1 444 an eagle mewing her mighty youth 444 and then fall down and worship1 for we are in the holy of holies4 ,stevenson preferred the passage1 ,i cannot praise a fugitive and cloistered virtue1 and who shall gainsay him8 ,and ,stevenson has written a most inspiring study of the ,technical ,elements of ,style in ,literature1 to be found in the ,biographical ,edition4 ,in it he calls the ,macaulay an incomparable dauber for running the letter k through a paragraph1 and in it he sets forth in his chastened and classic style the ineluctable 7,henry ,james revived this pretty word7 perils of prose4 ,also its fascinations4 ,the prose writer1 he says1 must keep his phrases large1 rhythmical1 comely1 without letting them fall into the strictly metrical2 harmonious in diversity1 musical in the mouth1 in texture woven into committed phrases and rounded periods4 ,the stylist may vault airily into the saddle of logic1 or in the delicate reticulation of his silver-fire paragraphs he may take1 as an exemplar1 ,john ,henry ,newman4 ,stevenson is a perfectionist1 and that way lies madness for all save a few valiant spirits4 ,sir ,walter ,raleigh1 formerly ,professor ,raleigh1 has written a crystal-clear study on ,style1 an essay of moment because in the writing thereof he preaches what he practises4 ,he confesses that inanity dogs the footsteps of the classic tradition1 and that words must change to live1 and a word once fixed becomes useless4444 ,this is the error of the classical creed1 to imagine that in a fleeting world1 where the quickest eye can never see the same thing twice1 and a deed once done can never be repeated1 language alone should be capable of fixity and finality4 ,the ,flaubertian crux4 ,nevertheless1 ,flaubert could write of style in a fluid1 impressionistic way3 ,a style 444 which will be as rhythmic as verse1 as precise as the language of science1 which will have undulations1 modulations1 like those of a violoncello1 flashes of fire4 ,a style which would enter into the idea like the stroke of a stiletto1 444 all the combinations of prosody have been made1 those of prose are still to make4 ,flaubert was not obsessed by the unique word1 but by a style which is merged in the idea2 as the melodic and harmonic phrases of ,richard ,wagner were born simultaneously and clothed in the appropriate orchestral colours4 ,perhaps the cadenced prose of ,pater1 with its multiple resonance and languorous rhythms1 may be a sort of sublimated chess-game1 as ,saintsbury more than hints2 yet1 what a fair field for his carved ivory pieces4 ,his undulating and iridescent periods are like the solemn sound of organ music accompanied from afar by a symphony of flutes1 peacocks1 and pomegranates4 ,no wonder ,stevenson pronounces ,french prose a finer art than ,english1 though admitting that in the richer1 denser harmonies of ,english its native writers find at first hand the very quality so eagerly sought for by ,flaubert4 ,french is a logical language1 one of distinction and clarity1 and one in which metre never intrudes1 but it lacks the overtones of our mother speech4 ,the ,english shares in common with the ,russian the art of awakening feelings and thoughts by the resonance of words1 which seem to be written not in length but in depth1 and then are lost in faint reverberations4 ,but artistic prose1 chiselled prose1 is a negligible quantity nowadays4 ,it was all very well in the more spacious times of linkboys1 sedan-chairs1 and bag-wigs1 but with the typist cutting one's phrases into angular fragments1 with the soil at our heels saturated in slang1 what hope is there for assonance1 variety in rhythm1 and the sonorous cadences of prose8 ,write naturally1 we are told4 ,properly speaking1 there is no such thing as a natural style4 ,even ,newman1 master of the pellucid1 effortless phrase1 confesses to laborious days of correction1 and he wrote with the idea uppermost and with no thought of style1 so-called4 ,abraham ,lincoln nourished his lonely soul on the ,bible and ,bunyan4 ,he is a writer of simple yet elevated prose1 without parallel in our native literature other than ,emerson4 ,hawthorne and ,poe wrote in the key of classic prose2 while ,walt ,whitman's jigsaw jingle is the ultimate deliquescence of prose form4 ,for practical every-day needs the eighteenth-century prose men are the best to follow4 ,but the ,bible is the ,golden ,book of ,english prose4 ,quintilian wrote3 ,we cannot even speak except in longs and shorts1 and longs and shorts are the material of feet4 ,all personal prose should go to a tune of its own4 ,the curious are recommended to the monumental work of ,george ,saintsbury1 ,a ,history of ,english ,prose ,rhythm4 ,prose may be anything else1 but it must not be bad blank verse4 ,numerous as to rhythms1 but with no hint of balance1 in the metrical sense2 without rhythm it is not prose at all4 ,professor ,oliver ,elton has set this forth with admirable lucidity in his ,english ,prose ,numbers4 ,he also analyses a page from ,the ,golden ,bowl of ,henry ,james1 discovering new beauties of phrasing and subtle cadences in the prose of this writer4 ,professor ,saintsbury's study is the authoritative one among its fellows4 ,walter ,pater's essay on ,style is honeycombed with involutions and preciosity4 ,when ,on the ,art of ,writing1 by ,arthur ,quiller-,couch1 appeared we followed ,hazlitt's advice and reread an old book1 ,english ,composition1 by ,professor ,barrett ,wendell1 and with more pleasure and profit than followed the later perusal of the ,cornish novelist's lectures4 ,he warns against jargon4 ,but the seven arts1 science1 society1 medicine1 politics1 religion1 have each their jargon4 ,not music-criticism1 not baseball1 are so painfully jargonised as metaphysics4 ,jargon is the fly in the ointment of every critic4 ,even the worthy fellow of ,jesus ,college1 ,sir ,arthur himself1 does not altogether escape it4 ,on page #bc of his ,inaugural ,address he speaks of loose1 discinct talk4 ,discinct is good1 but ungirded is better because it is not obsolete1 and it is more sonorous and ,saxon4 ,on page #db we stumble against suppeditate and gnash our teeth4 ,after finishing the book the timid neophyte will be apt to lay the flattering unction to his soul that he is a born stylist1 like the surprised ,mr4 ,jourdain1 who spoke prose so many years without knowing it4 ,,ii ,fancy a tall1 imposing man1 in the middle years1 standing before a music-desk1 humming and beating time4 ,his grey1 lion-like mane is in disorder2 his large eyes1 pools of blue light1 gleam with excitement4 ,the colour of his face is reddish1 the blood mounts easily to his head1 a prophetic sign of his death by apoplexy4 ,it is ,gustave ,flaubert in his study at ,croisset1 a few miles down the ,seine below ,rouen4 ,he is chanting a newly composed piece of prose1 marking time as if he were conducting a music-drama4 ,what are you doing there8 asked his friend4 ,scanning these words1 because they don't sound well1 he replied4 ,flaubert would spend a day over a sentence and practically tested it by declaiming--spouting1 he called it--for as he wisely remarked3 ,a well-constructed phrase adapts itself to the rhythm of respiration4 ,his delight in prose assonance and cadence manifested itself in his predilection for such a phrase as ,chateaubriand's in ,atala3 ,elle repand dans le bois ce grand secret de melancholie qu'elle aime a raconter aux vieux chenes et aux rivages antiques des mers4 ,there's a mouther for you6 as ,george ,saintsbury would say4 ,but in this age of uninflected speech the louder the click of the type-machine the better the style4 ,if modern prose were written for the ear as well as the eye1 chanted and scanned1 it might prove more sonorous and rhythmic than it does1 and more artistic4 ,curiously enough1 ,professor ,saintsbury in his magisterial work writes3 ,i rather doubt myself whether the very finest and most elaborate prose is not better read than heard4 ,that is1 it must be overheard by the inner ear1 which statement rather puts a damper on ,flaubert's contention4 ,what saith the worthy ,aristotle8 ,all things are determined by number4 ,prose should have rhythm but should not be metrical 7,rhetoric72 which ,robert ,louis ,stevenson thus paraphrased in his ,technical ,elements of ,style in ,literature3 ,the rule of scansion in verse is to suggest no measure but the one in hand2 in prose to suggest no measure at all4 ,prose must be rhythmical1 and it may be as much so as you will2 but it must not be metrical4 ,it may be anything1 but it must not be verse4 7,probably if he had read the amorphous stuff by courtesy named vers libre ,stevenson would have written a stronger word than anything47 ,or1 again1 ,saintsbury3 ,the ,rhythm of ,prose1 like the ,metre of ,verse1 can1 in ,english as well as the classical languages1 be best expressed by the foot system1 or system of mathematical combinations of 'long' and 'short' syllables4 ,a fig for your ancient trumpery of skeleton scanning1 cries ,professor ,william ,morrison ,patterson in his ,the ,rhythm of ,prose3 ,amphibrachs1 bacchics1 antibacchics1 antipasts1 molossi1 dochmiacs1 and proceleusmatics1 which heretofore have been brandished before our eyes1 as if they were anything more than1 as stress-patterns1 merely half the story4 ,the ,columbia ,university professor would be far more likely to indorse the axiom of ,remy de ,gourmont that style is physiological1 which ,flaubert well knew4 ,and now1 having deployed my heaviest artillery of quotation1 let me begin by saying that ,professor ,patterson's study is a remarkable contribution to the critical literature of a much-debated theme1 ,prose ,rhythms1 and this without minifying the admirable labours of ,saintsbury1 ,shelley1 ,oliver ,elton1 ,ker1 or ,professor ,bouton of the ,new ,york ,university4 ,one of the reasons that interest the present writer in the monograph is its strong musical bias4 ,professor ,patterson is evidently the possessor of a highly organised musical ear1 even if he be not a practical musician4 ,he no doubt agrees with ,disraeli's dictum that the key to literature is music2 i4 e41 number1 cadence1 rhythm4 ,i recall ,miss ,dabney's study1 ,the ,musical ,basis of ,verse1 dealing as it does with a certain side of the subject4 ,but the ,patterson procedure is different4 ,it is less literary than psychological1 less psychological than physiological4 ,he experiments with the ,remy de ,gourmont idea1 though he probably never saw it in print4 ,rhythm1 he writes in his preface1 is thus regarded as first of all an experience1 established1 as a rule1 by motor performance of however rudimentary a nature4 ,here is the man of science at work4 ,he speaks of the lost art of rhythm1 adduces syncopation so easily mastered by those born timers1 the ,indians and ,negroes1 pertinently remarks that no two individuals ever react exactly alike4 ,the term 'type' is in many ways a highly misleading fiction4 ,prose ,rhythm1 he continues1 must be classed as subjective organisation of irregular1 virtually haphazard arrangement of sounds4444 ,the ultimate basis of all rhythmic experience1 however1 is the same4 ,to be clear-cut it must rest upon a series of definite temporal units4 ,professor ,patterson experimented in two rooms3 one the regular sound-room belonging to the department of psychology at ,columbia2 the other an expressly constructed1 fairly sound-proof cabinet built into one end of an underground room belonging to the department of physics4 ,it has a slightly sinister ring1 all this1 has it not8 ,padded cells and aural finger-prints6--to make an ,irish bull4 ,max ,nordau called ,john ,ruskin a ,torquemada of ,a,esthetics4 ,professor ,patterson might be styled a ,tonal ,torturer4 ,but the experimentings were painless4 ,the first object1 he informs us1 was to find out1 as far as possible1 how a group of twelve people1 ten men and two women1 differed with respect to the complex of mental processes usually designated roughly as the 'sense of rhythm4' ,after they had been ranked according to the nature of their reactions and achievements in various tests1 one of the group1 who had evinced a measure of ease in rapid tapping1 was chosen to make drum-beat records on a phonograph4 ,a sentence from ,walter ,pater1 a sentence from ,henry ,james1 a passage of music from ,chopin1 a haphazard arrangement of words and a haphazard arrangement of musical notes1 were tapped upon a small metal drum and the beats recorded by the phonograph4 ,the words were tapped according to the syllables as felt1 a tap for each syllable4 ',hours1' for instance1 was given two beats4 ,the notes were tapped according to their designated time-values4 ,observer ,no4 #a1 having had long training as a musician1 found no technical difficulty in the task4 ,the remaining eleven observers1 without being told the source of the records1 heard the five series of drumbeats and passed judgment upon them4 ,the most significant judgment made was that of ,observer ,no4 #g1 who declared that all five records gave him the impression of regular musical themes4 ,a large number of the observers1 especially on the first hearing1 found all of the records1 including even the passage from ,chopin1 elusive and more or less irregular4 ,an attempt was then made1 by means of accompanying schedules1 to find out how much or how little organisation each observer could be brought to feel in the beats corresponding to the passage from ,walter ,pater and the passage of haphazard musical notes4 ,all the data are carefully set down in the ,appendices4 ,the sentence by ,walter ,pater was chosen from his essay on ,leonardo da ,vinci1 in ,the ,renaissance4 ,it is the landscape1 not of dreams or of fancy1 but of places far withdrawn1 and hours selected from a thousand with a miracle of finesse2 subtly rhythmic1 too much so for any but trained ears4 ,some simpler excerpt from ,sir ,thomas ,browne or ,john ,ruskin might have been selected1 such as1 in the former case1 the coda from the ,urn ,burial1 or even that chest-expanding phrase1 ,to subsist in bones1 and to be pyramidally extant is a fallacy in duration4 ,or1 best of all1 because of its tremendous intensity1 the passage from ,saint ,paul3 ,for ,i am persuaded1 that neither death1 nor life1 nor angels1 nor principalities1 nor powers1 nor things present1 nor things to come1 nor height1 nor depth1 nor any other creature1 shall be able to separate us from the love of ,god1 which is in ,christ ,jesus our ,lord4 ,the drum-beat is felt throughout1 but the pulsation is not marked as in the pages of ,macaulay2 nor has it the monotony found in ,lohengrin on account of the prevalence of common or four-four time1 and also the coincidence of the metrical and rhythmic beat1 a coincidence that ,chopin usually avoids1 and all latter-day composers flee as dulness-breeding4 ,the base-rhythm of ,english prose is1 so ,professor ,saintsbury writes1 the paeon1 or four-syllabled foot1 and1 he could have added1 provocative of ennui for delicate ears4 ,variety in rhythms is the ideal4 ,our author appositely quotes from ,puffer's ,studies in ,symmetry3 ,a picture composed in substitutional symmetry is more rich in its suggestions of motor impulse1 and thus more beautiful1 than an example of geometrical symmetry4 ,and this applies to prose and music as well as to pictures4 ,it is the very kernel of the art of ,paul ,cezanne2 rhythmic irregularity1 syncopation1 asymmetry4 ,de ,quincey's ,our ,lady of ,darkness and a sentence from ,cardinal ,newman's ,grammar of ,assent were included among the tests4 ,also one from ,henry ,james2 in the preface to ,the ,golden ,bowl3 ,for ,i have nowhere found vindicated the queer thesis that the right values of interesting prose depend all on withheld tests4 ,if1 according to lovers of the old rhetoric1 of the resounding purple panels of ,bossuet1 ,chateaubriand1 ,flaubert1 ,raleigh1 ,browne1 and ,ruskin1 the cooler prose of ,mr4 ,james cannot be spouted2 nevertheless1 the interior rhythmic life is finer and more complex4 ,the ,chopin nocturne played was the familiar one in ,g minor1 ,opus #cg1 ,no4 #a1 simple in rhythmic structure though less interesting than its sister nocturne in ,g1 ,opus #cg1 ,no4 #b 7the first is in common1 the second in six-eighths time74 ,professor ,patterson knows ,riemann and his agogic accent1 which1 according to that editor of the ,chopin ,etudes1 is a slight expansion in the value of the note2 not a dynamic accent4 ,in his treatment of vers libre our author is not too sympathetic4 ,he thinks that in their productions--free-verse poets--the disquieting experience of attempting to dance up the side of a mountain is suggested4 ,for those who find this task exhilarating vers libre1 as a form1 is without rival4 ,with regard to subtle cadence1 however1 which has been claimed as the chief distinction of the new poets1 it is still a question as to how far they have surpassed the refinement of balance that quickens the prose of ,walter ,pater4 ,they have not1 despite the verbal ingenuity1 banished the impression of dislocation1 of the epileptic4 ,in ,french1 in the hands of ,rimbaud1 ,verlaine1 ,verhaeren1 ,gustave ,kahn1 ,regnier1 ,stuart ,merrill1 ,viele ,griffin1 and ,jules ,laforgue1 the rhythms are supple1 the assonances grateful to the ear1 the irregular patterns not offensive to the eye2 in a word1 a form1 or a deviation from form1 more happily adapted to the genius of the ,french or ,italian language than to the ,english4 ,most of our native vers libre sounds like a ton of coal falling through too small an aperture in the sidewalk4 ,however1 it's not the gilt that makes a god1 but the worshipper4 ,for musicians and writers the interesting if abstruse study of ,professor ,patterson will prove valuable4 ,after reading of the results in his laboratory at ,columbia we feel that we have been1 all of us1 talking rhythmic prose our life long4 ,,chapter ,,xii ,,the ,,queerest ,,yarn ,,in ,,the ,,world ,the way the story leaked out was this3 ,a young ,irishman from ,sligo1 as he blushingly admitted1 whose face was a passport of honesty stamped by nature herself1 had served two customers over the bar of the old chop-house across the street from the opera-house4 ,to him they were just two throats athirst2 nothing more4 ,they ordered drinks1 and this first attracted his attention1 for they agreed on cognac4 ,now1 brandy after dinner is not an unusual drink1 but this pair had asked for a large glass4 ,old brandy was given them1 and such huge swallows followed that the bartender was compelled by his conscience to ring up one dollar for the two drinks4 ,it was paid1 and another round commanded1 as if the two men were hurried1 as indeed they were1 for it was during an entr'acte at the opera that they had slipped out for liquid refreshments4 ,against the bar of the establishment a dozen or more humans were ranged1 and the noise was deafening1 but not so great as to prevent the ,irishman from catching scraps of the conversation dropped by the brandy-drinkers4 ,their talk went something like this1 and1 although ,michael had little schooling1 his memory was excellent1 and1 being a decent chap1 there is no need to impeach the veracity of his report4 ,the taller man1 neither young1 neither old1 and1 like his friend1 without a grey hair1 burst out laughing after the disappearance of the second cognac4 ,i say1 old pal1 who was it wrote that brandy was for heroes8 ,kipling8 ,what8 ,the other man1 stockily built1 foreign-looking1 answered in a contemptuous tone 7sneering-like1 as my informant put it73 ,where's your memory8 ,gone to rack and ruin like your ideals1 ,i suppose6 ,kipling6 ,what do such youngsters know8 ,doctor ,johnson or ,walter ,savage ,landor was the originator of the lying epigram2 after them ,byron gobbled it up1 as he gobbled up most of the good things of his generation1 and after him1 the deluge of this mediocre century4 ,when ,i told ,byron this1 at ,milan1 ,i think it was1 he vowed me an ass4 ,now1 it was ,doctor ,johnson4 ,cheer up1 it's not so bad4 ,i remember once at ,paris1 or was it ,vienna1 you said the same thing about---- and here followed a strange name4 ,and1 anyhow1 you are mixing dates2 ,landor followed ,byron1 please1 but ,i suppose he said it first4 ,i told ,metternich of your bon-mot1 and1 egad6 he laughed1 did that old parchment face4 ,as for ,bonaparte1 upstart and charlatan1 he was too selfish to smile at anybody's wit but his own1 and little he had4 ,do you remember the ,congress of ,vienna8 ,do ,i--#ahae8 ,some such year4 ,or was it in #agej when we saw ,casanova at ,venice8 ,well-- ,at this point the alarm-signal went off1 and the mob went over to the opera4 ,the young bartender's heart was beating so fast that it leapt up in his bosom1 as he described it4 ,two middle-aged men talking of a century ago as calmly as if they had spoken of yesterday flustered him a bit4 ,he heard the dates4 ,he noticed the perfectly natural manner in which events were mentioned4 ,there was no mystification4 ,for the first time in his life ,michael was sorry the between-act pause was so short1 and he longed for the next one1 though fatigued from the labours of the last4 ,would these gentlemen return for more cognac8 ,in an hour they came back with the crowd1 again drank old five-star brandy1 and gossiped about a lot of incomprehensible things that had evidently taken place in the sixteenth or seventeenth century2 at least1 ,michael overheard them disputing dates1 and one of them bet the other that the big fire in ,london occurred in #afff1 and referred the question to ,mr4 ,peppers1 or ,peps--some such name4 ,ah1 poor old ,pepys1 sighed the dark man2 if he had only taken better care of himself he might have been with us to-day instead of mouldering in his grave4 ,oh1 well6 you can't expect every one to believe in your ,struldbrug cure1 replied his friend dreamily4 ,even ,her ,majesty1 ,queen ,anne1 would not take your advice1 though ,mrs4 ,masham and ,mr4 ,harley begged her to4 ,yes1 about the only thing they ever agreed upon in their life4 ,where is ,harley to-day8 ,oh1 ,i suppose in ,london1 carelessly replied the other4 ,for a young bird of several centuries he's looking as fit as a fiddle2 but see here1 ,swift1 old boy1 your bogy-tales are worrying our young friend1 and with that ,michael says they pointed to him1 heartily laughed1 and went away4 ,he crossed himself1 and for a moment the electric lights burned dim1 so it seemed to the superstitious laddie-buck4 ,but he had had a good chance to study the odd pair4 ,they were not1 as he repeated1 old men1 neither were they youthful4 ,say thirty-five or forty years1 and he noticed this time the freshness of their complexions1 the brilliancy of their eyes4 ,they were just gentlemen in evening clothes and had run across ,broadway without overcoats1 a reprehensible act even for a young man4 ,but they were healthy1 self-contained1 and hard-headed--they took1 according to the statistician behind the bar1 about a quart of brandy between them1 and were as fresh as daisies after the fiery stuff4 ,who were they8 ,blagueurs1 said ,i1 after ,i had carefully deciphered the runic inscriptions in ,michael's mind4 7,this was a week later47 ,two fellows out on a lark1 bent on scaring a poor ,irish boy4 ,but what was ,swift1 or ,queen ,anne1 or ,metternich1 or ,mr4 ,harley to him8 ,just words4 ,bonaparte he might be expected to remember4 ,it was curious all the same that he could reel off the unusual names of ,mrs4 ,masham and ,casanova4 ,the deuce6 was there something in the horrid tale8 ,two immortals stalking the globe when their very bones should have been dissolved into everlasting dust6 ,two wraiths revisiting the glimpses of the moon--hold on6 ,struldbrug6 ,who was ,struldbrug8 ,what his cure8 ,i tried to summon from the vasty deep all the worthies of the eighteenth century4 ,struldbrug4 ,swift4 ,struldbrug4 ,sir ,william ,temple4 ,struldbrug--ah6 by the great horn spoon6 ,the ,struldbrugs of the ,island of ,laputa6 ,gulliver's hideous immortals--and then the horror of the story enveloped me1 but1 despite my aversion to meeting the dead1 ,i determined to live in the chop-house till ,i saw face to face these ghosts from a vanished past4 ,my curiosity was soon gratified1 as the sequel will show4 ,just one week after the appearance of this pair ,i stood talking to the ,irish barman1 when ,i saw him start and pale4 ,ha6 ,i thought1 here are my men4 ,i was not mistaken4 ,two well-built and well-groomed gentlemen asked for brandy1 and swallowed it in silence4 ,they were polite enough to avoid my rather rude stare4 ,no wonder ,i stared4 ,they recalled familiar faces1 yet ,i couldn't at once place the owners4 ,presently they went over to a table and seated themselves4 ,loudly calling for a mug of musty ale1 ,i boldly put myself at an adjacent spot1 and continued my spying tactics4 ,the friends were soon in hot dispute4 ,it concerned the literary reputation of ,balzac4 ,i sat with my mouth wide open4 ,the elder of the pair1 the one called ,swift1 snapped at his friend3 ,zounds1 sir6 you and your ,balzac4 ,hogwash and roosters in rut--that's about his capacity4 ,of course1 when your own dull stuff appeared he praised you for the sake of the paradox4 ,you moderns6 ,balzac the father of ,french fiction6 ,you the father1 or is it grandfather1 of psychology--a nice crew6 ,that boy ,maupassant had more stuff in him than a wilderness of ,zolas1 ,goncourts1 and the rest4 ,he is almost as amusing as ,paul de ,kock-- ,the other1 the little man1 bristled with rage4 ,because you wrote a popular boy's book1 full of filth and pessimism1 you think you know all literature4 ,and didn't you copy ,cyrano de ,bergerac's ,voyagers1 and ,defoe8 ,you satirise every one except ,god1 whom you spare because you don't know him4 ,i don't care much for ,balzac1 though ,i'm free to confess he did treat me handsomely in praising my ,chartreuse---- ,good ,god6 ,i groaned1 it's ,stendhal1 otherwise ,henry ,beyle1 laying down the law to the tremendous author of ,gulliver's ,travels4 ,and yet neither man looked the accepted portrait of himself4 ,above all1 no ,struldbrug moles were in view4 ,i forgot my former fear1 being interested in the dispute of these two giant writers who are more akin artistically than ever taken cognisance of by criticism4 ,dead8 ,what did ,i care6 ,they were surely alive now1 and ,i was not dreaming4 ,i didn't need to pinch myself1 for my eyes and ears reported the occurrence4 ,a miracle8 ,why not4 ,miracles are daily1 if we but knew it4 ,living is the most wonderful of all miracles4 ,the discussion proceeded4 ,swift spoke tersely1 just as he wrote3 ,enough1 friend ,beyle4 ,you are a charlatan4 ,your knowledge of the human heart is on a par with your taste in literature4 ,you abominate ,flaubert because his prose is more rhythmic than yours4 ,i vow ,i protest1 interrupted ,stendhal4 ,no matter4 ,i'm right4 ,merimee1 your pupil1 is your master at every point4 ,i could no longer contain myself1 and1 bursting with curiosity1 ,i cried3 ,pardon me1 dear masters1 for interrupting such a luminous altercation1 but1 notwithstanding the queerness of the situation1 may ,i not say that ,i meet in the flesh1 ,jonathan ,swift and ,henry ,beyle-,stendhal8 ,discovered1 by the eternal ,jehovah6 roared ,swift1 adding an obscene phrase1 which ,i discreetly omit4 ,stendhal took the incident coolly4 ,as ,i am rediscovered about every decade by ambitious young critics anxious to achieve reputations1 ,i am not disturbed by our young friend here4 ,your apology1 monsieur1 is accepted4 ,pray1 join us in a fresh drink and conversation4 ,but ,i was only thirsty for more talk1 oceans of talk4 ,i eagerly asked ,stendhal1 who regarded me with cynical eyes1 all the while fingering his little whisker3 ,did you ever hear ,chopin play8 ,who1 he solemnly asked in turn1 is ,chopin8 ,he was at his best in the forties1 and as you didn't die till---- ,pardon me1 monsieur4 ,i never died4 ,your ,chopin may have died1 but ,i am immortal4 ,you venerable ,struldbrug1 giggled ,swift4 ,i was disagreeably impressed1 yet held my ground3 ,you must have met him4 ,he was a friend of ,balzac--his music was then in vogue at ,paris-- ,i stumbled in my speech4 ,he probably means that little ,polish piano-player who dangled at the petticoats of ,george ,sand1 interpolated ,swift4 ,i knew ,cimarosa1 ,rossini ,i saw1 but ,i never heard of ,chopin4 ,as for the ,sand woman1 that cow who chewed and rechewed her literary cud--don't mention her name to me1 please4 ,she is the village pump of fiction2 water1 wet water4 ,balzac was bad enough4 ,my heart sank4 ,chopin not even remembered by a contemporary6 ,this then is fame4 ,but the immortality of ,stendhal1 of ,swift--what of that8 ,its reality was patent to me4 ,perhaps ,balzac1 ,sand1 ,flaubert were still alive4 ,i propounded the question4 ,swift answered it4 99 99 99 99 99 ,yes1 they are alive4 ,my ,struldbrugs are meant to symbolise the immortality of genius4 ,only stupid people die4 ,sand is a barmaid in ,london4 ,balzac is on the road selling knit-goods1 and a mighty good drummer he is sure to be2 but poor ,flaubert has had hard luck4 ,he was the reader to a publishing house1 and forced to pass judgment on the novels of the day--favourable judgment1 mind you1 on the popular stuff4 ,he nearly burst a blood-vessel when they gave him a ,marie ,corelli manuscript to correct--to correct the style1 mind you1 he1 ,flaubert6 ,the gods are certainly capricious4 ,now the old chap--he has aged since #ahhj--;is in ,new ,york reading proof at a daily newspaper office4 ,he sits at the same desk with ,ben de ,casseres1 and every time he mutters over the rhythm of a sentence ,ben raps him on the knuckles1 and says3 ',you are an old-fashioned bourgeois1 ,pop ,flaubert6 ,some night ,i'll take you over to ,jack's and recite my ,sermon on ,suicide1 to teach you what brilliance and ,bovarysme really mean4' ,i was shocked at this blasphemy1 and said so4 ,stendhal calmly bade me to keep my temper4 ,but isn't ,mr4 ,swift joking8 ,mr4 ,swift is always joking1 was the far from reassuring reply4 ,to fill in the interval ,i called for the waiter4 ,the ghosts again demanded cognac4 ,stendhal looked like the caricature by ,felicien ,rops1 in which his little pot-bellied figure1 broad face1 snub nose1 and protuberant eyes are shown dominating some strange ,cosmopolis of #aicb4 ,in life--or death--he seemed supremely self-satisfied4 ,he glowered at the name of ,flaubert1 rejoicing in the sad existence of the mighty prose master1 but he smiled superciliously when ,i reproached him with not knowing ,chopin4 ,heine's poetic fantasy of the gods of ,greece1 alive1 and still in hiding1 was not precisely convincing in the present reincarnation4 ,a feeling of repulsion ensued1 and finally ,i arose and said good night to my very new and very old friends4 ,swift's picture of the ,struldbrugs was realised1 and it was an unpleasant one4 ,men of genius should never be seen2 in their works alone they live4 ,swift1 with his nasty1 sly1 constipated humour2 ,stendhal1 with his overwhelming air of arrogance and superiority1 did not win my sympathy4 ,they evidently noted my dismay4 ,you're disappointed4 ,so sorry6 said ,swift ironically4 ,at first ,i was vastly intrigued at the opportunity of talking with one of you modern persons1 but ,i see ,i'm mistaken--ha6 ,beyle1 what d'ye say8 ,stendhal pondered4 ,cimarosa1 ,rossini1 and ,haydn ,i knew4 ,correggio ,i admire1 but who was ,chopin8 ,stung to anger1 ,i retorted3 ,yours is the loss1 not ,chopin's4 ,whereat ,michael1 the bartender1 merrily laughed1 and the company joined him4 ,i was the sacrificial goat4 ,my head was on the chopping-block1 and ,stendhal was the executioner4 ,forgetting the respect due to such illustrious shades1 ,i shook my finger under ,stendhal's upturned nostrils3 ,you may be a couple of impostors for all ,i know1 but even if you are not1 ,i wish to tell you how heartily ,i dislike your petty carping criticisms4 ,better oblivion than immortality for your lean and sinister souls4 ,again hysterical laughter4 ,as ,i left ,i overheard ,swift say in reproachful accents1 as if his vanity had been wounded3 ,this saucy ,yahoo reads our books and believes in them1 but when we talk he doubts us4 ,as ,sam ,johnson used to say1 ',the reciprocal civility of authors is one of the most risible scenes in the farce of life4' ,stendhal boomed out3 ,he is dead himself but doesn't know it yet4 ,all critics are stillborn4 ,but we live on for ever4 ,garcon6 some more brandy4 ,out on crowded1 expressive ,broadway ,i stood1 dazed and irritated4 ,after all the palaver of authors1 it is the critic who has the last word1 like a woman4 ,rejoicing over the originality of the idea1 ,i went my wooden way4 ,,chapter ,,xiii ,,on ,,rereading ,,mallock ,it seems the dark backward and abysm of time when writing the name of ,william ,hurrell ,mallock1 yet not forty years ago he was the most discussed author of his day4 ,the old conundrum1 ,is ,life ,worth ,living8 he revived1 and newly orchestrated with particular reference to the spiritual needs of the hour4 ,and ,a ,romance of the ,nineteenth ,century was denounced as immoral as ,mademoiselle de ,maupin4 ,gautier was read then and ,swinburne's lilting paganism quite filled the lyric sky4 ,mr4 ,mallock's role was that of a philosophical novelist and essayist who reproved the golden materialism of his age1 not with fuliginous menace1 as did ,carlyle1 nor with melodious indignation1 like ,ruskin1 but with a more subtle instrument of castigation1 irony4 ,he laughed at the gods of the new scientific dispensation1 ,darwin1 ,spencer1 ,huxley1 ,tyndall1 ,clifford1 and he put them in the pages of his ,new ,republic for the delectation of the world1 and most appealing foolery it was2 this and the sheer burlesque of ,the ,new ,paul and ,virginia4 ,mr4 ,mallock was an individualist4 ,the influence of ,john ,stuart ,mill had not yet waned in the seventies--he occupied then a place midway between ,bentham and ,spencer4 ,his birth1 breeding1 and temperament made ,mallock a foe to socialism1 to the promiscuous in politics1 religion1 society1 therefore an apostle of culture1 not missing its precious side2 witness ,mr4 ,rose in ,the ,new ,republic1 and one who abhorred the crass and the irreverent in the ,new ,learning4 ,he enjoyed vogue4 ,his ideas were boldly seized and transformed by the men of the nineties1 yet to-day it is difficult to get a book of his4 ,they are mostly out of print--which is equivalent to saying1 out of mind4 ,with what personal charm he invested his romances6 ,he is the literary progenitor of a long line of young men1 artistic in taste1 a trifle sceptical as to final causes1 wealthy1 worldly1 widely cultured1 and aristocratic4 ,the staler art of ,oscar ,wilde gives the individual of ,mallock petrified into a rather unpleasant type4 ,walter ,pater's fear that the word hedonist would be suspected as immoral came true in ,wilde's books4 ,the heroes of ,a ,romance of the ,nineteenth ,century1 ,tristram ,lacy and ,the ,new ,republic have a strong family resemblance4 ,they were supermen before ,nietzsche was discovered4 ,they are prepossessed by theological problems1 they love the seven arts1 and are a trifle decadent2 though when action is demanded they do not fail to respond4 ,as stories go1 ,a ,romance is the best of ,mallock's2 the canvas of ,tristram ,lacy is larger1 the intrigue less intense1 and the characterisation more human4 ,the unhappy girl1 ,cynthia ,walters1 who so shocked our mothers1 is not duplicated in ,tristram4 ,mr4 ,mallock wrote a preface to the second edition of ,a ,romance1 a superfluous one1 for the book needs no apology4 ,it never did4 ,it is as moral as ,madame ,bovary1 though not as pleasant4 ,the ,triangle is a revered convention in ,french fiction1 but the naturalistic photographs in ,a ,romance are not agreeable1 and ,cynthia's epitaph1 ,blessed are the pure in heart1 for they shall see ,god1 leaves a bitter taste in the mouth4 ,it is in the mode ironical almost projected to the key of cynicism4 ,no doubt the leisurely gait of these fictions would be old-fashioned to the present generation1 with its preference for staccato ,english1 morbid sensationalism1 and lack of grace and scholarship4 ,mr4 ,mallock is a scholar and a gentleman who writes a prose of distinction1 and he is also a thinker1 reactionary1 to be sure1 but a tilter at sham philosophies and sham religions4 ,last1 but not least1 he has abundant humour and a most engaging wit4 ,possibly all these qualities would make him unpopular in our present century4 ,what a gathering of choice spirits in ,the ,new ,republic3 ,matthew ,arnold1 ,professor ,jowett--a fine character etching--,huxley1 ,tyndall1 ,carlyle1 ,pater--rather cruelly treated--,ruskin1 ,doctor ,pusey1 ,mrs4 ,mark ,pattison1 ,w4 ,k4 ,clifford1 ,violet ,fane--how the author juggles with their personalities1 with their ideas4 ,it's the cleverest parody of its kind4 ,otho ,laurence and ,robert ,leslie are closely related in aspirations to ,ralph ,vernon1 ,alie ,campbell1 and the priest ,stanley of ,a ,romance4 ,as portraits1 those of the ,premier ,lord ,runcorn in ,tristram ,lacy1 and the faded dandy1 poet1 and man about town1 ,lord ,surbiton1 of ,a ,romance1 are difficult to match outside of ,disraeli4 ,epigrams drop like snowflakes4 ,the decor is always gorgeous--,monte ,carlo1 ,provence1 ,cap de ,juan1 countries flowing with milk and honey1 marble ruins1 the ilex1 cypress1 and palm4 ,palaces there are1 and inhabited by languid1 fascinating young men who anxiously examine in the glass their expressive countenances1 asking the ,lord whether ,he is pleased with them4 ,and lovely girls1 charming1 and in ,cynthia ,walters's case a lily with a cankered calyx4 ,then there are the ,price-,bousefields and the inimitable ,mrs4 ,norham1 celebrated authoress and upholder of the people4 ,one of the notable blackguards in fiction is ,colonel ,stapleton2 and the ,poodle and the new-rich ,helbecksteins--a complete picture-gallery may be found in these interesting novels4 ,romance rules2 poetry1 tenderness in the appreciation of the eternal feminine1 and a pity for living things4 ,poor ,cynthia ,walters1 the dear1 dead woman1 lingers in the memory1 as modern as yesterday1 and as effaced as a daguerreotype4 ,but if his heroes sow their oats tamely ,mr4 ,mallock as an antagonist is most vigorous4 ,he went at the scientific men with all the weapons in his armoury4 ,to-day there no longer exists the need of such polemics4 ,in the moral world there are analogies to the physical1 and particularly in geology1 with its prehistoric stratifications1 its vast herbarium1 its quarries and petrifications1 its ossuaries1 the bones of vanished forms1 ranging from the shadow of a leaf to the flying crocodile1 the horrid pterodactyl--now reduced to the exquisite and iridescent dragon-fly2 from the monstrous mammoth to the tiny forerunner of the horse4 ,philosophy and ,religion1 too1 have their mighty dead1 their immemorial tombs wherein repose the bones of the buried dead skeletons of obsolete systems4 ,and on the sands of time lie the arch-images of antique thought awaiting the condign catastrophe4 ,there are ,kant and his followers1 and near the idealists are the materialists2 next to ,hegel is ,buechner1 and at the base of the vast structure so patiently reared by ,herbert ,spencer the mists are already dense1 though not as obscuring as the clouds about the mausoleum of ,comte4 ,that great charmless woman1 ,george ,eliot1 smiles a smile of sombre ennui before the ,spencer tomb1 and the invisible voice of ,ernest ,haeckel is heard whispering3 ,where is your ,positivism8 ,where is your ,rationalism8 ,what has become of your gaseous invertebrate god8 ,surely there is sadly required in the cynical universities of the world a ,chair of ,irony with subtle ,edgar ,saltus as its first incumbent4 ,now1 ,mr4 ,mallock knows that religion and philosophy may travel on parallel lines1 therefore never collide4 ,he took the catch-word the bankruptcy of science too seriously4 ,notwithstanding the persuasive rhetoric of that silken sophist ,henri ,bergson1 a belated visionary metaphysician in a world of realities1 the trend of latter-day thought is toward the veritable victories of science4 ,a new world has come into being4 ,and what discoveries3 spectral analysis1 the modes of force1 matter displaced by energy1 the relations of atoms in molecules--a renewed geology1 astronomy1 palaeontology1 biology1 embryology1 wireless telegraphy1 the conquest of the air1 and1 last but not least1 the discovery of radium4 ,the slightly war-worn evolution theory is now confronted by the ,transformism of ,hugo de ,vries1 who has shown in a most original manner that nature also proceeds by sudden leaps as well as in slow1 orderly progress4 ,and the brain1 that telephonic centre1 according to ,bergson1 is become another organ4 ,ramon y ,cajal1 the ,spanish biologist1 with his neurons--little erectile bodies in the cells of the cortex1 stirred to motor impulses when a message is sent them from the sensory nerves--has done more for positive knowledge than a wilderness of metaphysicians4 ,that famous interrogation1 ,is life worth living8 may be viewed to-day from a different angle4 ,mr4 ,mallock acknowledged that the question must be answered in the terms of the individual only4 ,here we encounter a new crux4 ,what is the individual8 ,the family is the unit of society1 not the individual4 ,and the autonomous ,i exists no longer1 except as a unit in the colony of cells which are ,we4 ,man is a being afloat in an ocean of vibrations4 ,society demands the co-operation of its component cells1 else relegates to solitude the individual who cannot adapt himself to play a humble part in the cosmical orchestra4 ,that protean theory ,socialism has changed its chameleonic hues many times since ,mr4 ,mallock wrote ,is ,life ,worth ,living8 ,his idea is worked out with great clearness in the apprehension of details1 but with little feeling for their relations to each other4 ,sadly considered1 we may take it for granted that life has a definite aim4 ,we live1 as a modern thinker puts it1 because we stand like the rest of cognisable nature under the universal law of causality2 this idea is founded not on a metaphysical but a biological basis4 ,metaphysics is a pleasing diversion1 though it doesn't get us to finalities4 ,happiness is an absolute4 ,therefore it has no existence4 ,there never was1 there never will be an earthly paradise1 no matter what the socialists say4 ,content is the summum bonum of mankind2 the content that comes with sound health and a clear conscience4 ,the wrangling over ,free ,will is now considered a sign of ghost-worship4 ,schopenhauer and his mystic ,will-to-,live are both rather amusing survivals of antique animism4 ,the problem is not whether we can do what we want to do1 but whether we can will what we want to will4 ,but the illusion of individual freedom of will is the last illusion to be dissipated in this most deterministic of worlds and most pluralistic of universes4 ,it's a poor conception of eternity that doesn't work both ways4 ,as there will be no end to things1 there never was a beginning4 ,eternity is now4 ,professor ,hugh ,s4 ,r4 ,elliott wrote in his brilliant refutation of ,bergson that the feeling we have of a necessity for such an explanation the attempt to explain the universe arises from the conformation of our brains1 which think by associating disjoined ideas2 444 no last explanation is possible or perhaps even exists1 which will please the relativists and pain the absolutists4 ,but deprive mankind of its dreams and it is like the naughty child in ,hans ,christian ,andersen's fable4 ,a fairy punished this child by giving him dreamless slumber4 ,without vision1 old as well as young limp through life4 ,pessimism as a philosophy1 it has been pointed out1 is the last superstition of primordial times4 ,it is a form of egomania4 ,from ,byron to ,d',annunzio pessimism filled poetry2 from ,werther to ,sanine it has ruled fiction4 ,it is less a philosophy than a matter of temperament4 ,it was the mode during the last century1 and as an issue is as dead as the humanitarianism that followed4 ,is life worth living8 was properly1 if somewhat cynically1 answered3 ,it depends on the liver4 ,pessimism is the pathetic fallacy reduced to medicinal formula4 ,it is now merely in our stock of mental attitudes1 usually a pose2 when it is not1 it's bound to be pathological4 ,yet ,bossuet has spoken of the inexorable ennui which forms the basis of life4 ,mr4 ,mallock was once accused of dilettanteism1 aesthetic and ethical2 nevertheless1 there is no mistaking his moral earnestness at the close of ,is ,life ,worth ,living8 ,furthermore1 he foresaw the muddle the world is making to-day in the conduct of life4 ,all the self-complacent chatter about self-annihilation during the ,buddhist upheaval some decades ago has been translated into a veritable annihilation4 ,the holy name of ,altruism--social emotion made functional--has vanished into the intense inane4 ,the higher forms of discontent have modulated into the debasing superstition of universal slaughter4 ,with ,bergson the divinity of diving into the subconscious--what else is his intuition8--is set before the lovers of the mystic to worship4 ,years ago the ,sufi doctrine declared that the judging faculty should be abandoned for the intuitive4 ,don't reason6 ,just dream6 ,the poet ,rogers replied to a lady who asked his religion that his was the religion of all sensible men4 ,and what is that8 she persisted4 ,that no sensible men ever tell4 ,but ,mr4 ,mallock has told1 and four decades after his confession he is still worth rereading4 ,,chapter ,,xiv ,,the ,,lost ,,master ,what's become of ,waring since he gave us all the slip8 was quoted by a man at the ,painters' ,club the other night4 ,what made him think of ,browning1 he blandly explained to the two or three chaps sitting at his table on the terrace1 was not the terrific heat1 but the line swam across his memory when he recalled the name of ,albertus ,magnus as a green meteor seen for a moment far out at sea drops into the watery void4 ,who1 in the name of ,apollo1 is ,albertus ,magnus8 was asked4 ,the painter sat up4 ,there you are1 you fellows6 he roared4 ,you all paint or write or spoil marble1 but for the history of your art you don't care a rap4 ,yes1 but what has your ,albertus ,thingamajig to do with ,browning's ,waring8 ,only this1 was the grumbling reply2 it is a similar case4 ,a story1 a story6 we all cried1 and settled down for a yarn2 but no yarn was spun4 ,the painter relapsed into silence1 and the group gradually dissolved4 ,we sat still1 hoping against hope4 ,see here1 we expostulated1 really you should not arouse expectations1 and then evade the logical conclusions4 ,it's not fair4 ,i didn't care to explain to those other fellows1 was the reply4 ,they are too cynical for my taste4 ,they go to the holy of holies of art to pray1 and come away to scoff4 ,materialism1 rather realism1 as you call it1 is the canker of modern art4 ,suppose ,i told you that here1 now1 in this noisy ,tophet of ,new ,york1 there lives a man of genius1 who paints like a belated painter of the ,renaissance8 ,suppose ,i said that ,i could show you his work1 would you think ,i was crazy8 ,he paused4 ,a young genius1 poor1 unknown8 ,oh1 lead us to him1 ,sir ,painter1 and we shall call you blest6 ,he is not young1 and1 while the great public and the little dealers have not heard of him1 he has a band of admirers1 rich men leagued in a conspiracy of silence1 who buy his pictures1 though they don't show them to the critics4 ,we reiterated our request3 ,lead us to him6 ,without noticing our importunities1 he continued3 ,he paints for the sake of beautiful paint2 he paints as did ,hokusai1 the ,old-,man-,mad-for-,painting1 or like ,frenhofer1 the hero in ,balzac's story1 ,the ,unknown ,masterpiece6 ,he is more like ,balzac's ,frenhofer--is that the chap's name8--than ,browning's ,waring4 ,he is the lost master1 a ,frenhofer who has conquered1 for he has a hundred masterpieces stored away in his studio4 ,lost master8 we stuttered2 a hundred masterpieces that have never been shown to critic or public8 ,oh6 ',never star was lost here but it rose afar4' ,yes1 and he quotes ,browning by the yard1 for he was a close friend of the poet1 and of his best critic1 ,nettleship1 the animal painter1 now dead4 ,won't you tell his story connectedly1 and put us out of our agony8 we pleaded4 ,no1 he answered2 ,i'll do better4 ,i'll take you to his studio4 ,the evening ended in a blaze of fireworks4 ,the afternoon following we found ourselves in ,greenwich ,village1 in front of a row of old-fashioned cottages covered with honeysuckle4 ,you may recall the avenue and this particular block that has thus far resisted the temptation to become either lofty apartment or business palace4 ,but the painter met us here1 and conducted us westward until we reached a warehouse--gloomy1 in need of repair1 yet solid1 despite the teeth of time4 ,we entered the wagonway1 traversed a dirty court1 mounted a dark staircase1 and paused before a low door4 ,do you knock1 we were admonished1 and at once did so4 ,approaching footsteps4 ,a rattling and grating of rusty bolts and keys4 ,the door was slowly opened4 ,a big hairy head appeared4 ,the eyes set in this halo of white hair were positively the most magnificent ,i had ever seen sparkle and glow in a human countenance4 ,if a lion were capable of being at once poet and prophet and exalted animal1 his eyes would have possessed something of the glance of this stranger4 ,we turned anxiously to to our friend4 ,he had disappeared4 ,what a trick to play at such a moment4 ,who do you wish8 rumbled a mellow voice4 ,albertus ,magnus8 we timidly inquired1 expecting to be pitched down the stairs the next minute4 ,ah6 was the reply4 ,silence4 ,then1 ,come in1 please2 don't stumble over the canvases4 ,we followed the old man1 whose stature was not as heroic as his head2 and we did not fail to stumble1 for the way was obscure1 and paved with empty frames1 canvases1 and a litter of bottles1 paint-tubes1 easels1 rugs1 carpets1 wretched furniture1 and all the other flotsam and jetsam of an old-style studio4 ,we were not sorry when we came into open space and light4 ,we were in the room that doubtless concealed the lost masterpieces1 and there1 blithely smoking a cigarette1 sat our guide1 the painter4 ,he had entered by another door1 he explained2 and1 without noticing our discontented air1 he introduced us to the man of the house4 ,in sheer daylight he looked younger1 though his years must have bordered upon the biblical threescore and ten4 ,but the soul1 the brain that came out of his wonderful eyes1 were as young as to-morrow4 ,isn't he a corker8 irreverently demanded our friend4 ,he is not even as old as he looks4 ,he doesn't eat vegetables1 when thirsty he drinks anything he can get1 and smokes day and night4 ,and yet he calls himself an idealist4 ,the old painter smiled4 ,i suppose ,i have been described as ,waring to you1 because ,i knew ,robert ,browning4 ,i did vanish from the sight of my friends for years1 but only in the attempt to conquer paint1 not to achieve money or kingship1 like the original ,alfred ,domett1 called ,waring in the poem4 ,but when ,i returned from ,italy ,i was a stranger in a strange land4 ,no one remembered me4 ,i had last seen ,elihu ,vedder at ,capri4 ,worst of all1 ,i had forgotten that with time fashions change in art as in dress1 and nowadays no one understands me1 and1 with the exception of ,arthur ,davies1 ,i understand no one4 ,i come from the ,venetians1 ,davies from the early ,florentines2 his line is as beautiful as ,pollajuolo4 ,i love gold more than did ,facino ,cane of ,balzac4 ,gold1 ah6 luscious gold1 the lost secret of the masters4 ,tell me1 do you love ,titian8 ,we swore allegiance to the memory of ,titian4 ,the artist seemed pleased4 ,you younger men are devoted to ,velasquez and ,hals--too much so4 ,great as painters1 possibly greatest among painters1 their souls never broke away from the soil like runaway balloons4 ,they miss height and depth4 ,their colour never sings like ,titian's4 ,they surprise secrets in the eyes of their sitters1 but never the secret surprised by the ,italian4 ,i sat at his feet1 before his canvases1 fifty years1 and ,i'm further away than ever-- ,our friend interrupted this rhapsody4 ,look here1 ,albertus1 you man with a name out of ,thomas ,aquinas1 don't you think you are playing on your visitors' nerves1 just to set them on edge with expectancy8 ,i've heard this choral service for the glorification of ,titian more than once1 and ,i've inevitably noticed that you had a trump of your own up your sleeve4 ,you love ,titian4 ,well1 admit it4 ,you don't paint like him1 your colour scheme is something else1 and what you are after you only know yourself4 ,come6 trot out your ,phantom ,ship or ,the ,cascade of ,gold1 or1 better still1 that landscape with a river-bank and shepherds4 ,the old man gravely bowed4 ,then he manipulated the light1 placed a big easel in proper position1 fumbled among the canvases that made the room smaller1 secured one and placed it before us4 ,we drew a long breath4 ,richard ,wagner1 not ,captain ,maryatt1 was the inspiration1 murmured the master4 ,the tormented vessel stormed down the picture1 every inch of sail bellying out in a wind that blew a gale infernal beneath the rays1 so it seemed to us1 of a poisonous golden moon4 ,the water was massive and rhythmic4 ,in the first plane a smaller ship does not even attempt to tack4 ,you anticipate the speedy crackling and smashing when the ,flying ,dutchman rides over her2 but it never happens4 ,like the moonshine1 the phantom ship may melt into air-bubbles before it reaches the other boat4 ,no figures are shown4 ,nevertheless1 as we studied the picture we fancied that we discerned the restless soul of ,vanderdecken pacing his quarter-deck1 cursing the elements1 or longing for some far-away ,senta4 ,a poetic composition handled with masterly evasiveness1 the colour was the strangest part of it4 ,where had ,albertus caught the secret of that flowing gold1 potable gold2 gold that threateningly blazed in the storm wrack1 gold as lyric as sunshine in spring6 ,and why such sinister gold in a moonlit sea8 ,we suspected illusion4 ,my friend1 the painter1 laughed3 ,aha6 you are looking for the sun1 and is it only a moon overhead8 ,our conjurer here has a few tricks4 ,know then1 credulous one1 that the moon yonder is really the sun4 ,seek the reason for that suffused back sky1 realise that the solar photosphere in a mist is precisely the breeder of all this magic gold you so envy4 ,yes1 we exclaimed1 but the motion of it all1 the grip6 ,only ,turner-- ,we were interrupted by a friendly slap on the back4 ,now1 you are talking sense1 said our friend4 ,turner1 a new ,turner1 who has heard the music of ,wagner and read the magic prose of ,joseph ,conrad4 ,what followed we shall not pretend to describe4 ,landscapes of old ivory and pearly greys2 portraits1 in which varnish modulated with colours of a gamut of intensity that set tingling the eyeballs1 and played a series of tonal variations in the thick of which the theme was lost1 hinted at1 emerged triumphantly1 and at the end vanished in the glorious arabesque2 then followed apocalyptic visions1 in which the solid earth staggered through the empyrean after a black sun--a magnetic disk doomed by a mighty voice that cried aloud3 ,it is accomplished4 ,pastorals as ravishing as ,giorgione's1 with nuances of gold undreamed of since the yellow flecks in the robes of ,rembrandt1 faced us4 ,our very souls centred in our eyes2 but1 uncritical as was our mood in the presence of all this imaginative art1 we could not help noting that it was without a single trait of the modern4 ,both in theme and treatment these pictures might have been painted at the time of the ,renaissance4 ,the varnish was as wonderful as that on the belly of a ,stradivarius fiddle4 ,the blues were of a celestial quality to be found in ,titian or ,vermeer2 the resonant browns1 the whites--ah6 such exquisite whites1 plus blanche que la plus blanche hermine--the rich blacks1 sonorous reds and yellows--what were all these but secrets recovered from the old masters4 ,the subjects were mainly legendary or mythological2 no discordant note of modernity obtruded its ugly self4 ,we were in the presence of something as rare as a lyric by ,shelley or the playing of ,frederic ,chopin4 ,what6 ,why6 ,how6 we felt like asking all at once1 but ,albertus ,magnus only smiled1 and we choked our emotion4 ,why had he never exhibited at the ,academy or at a special show8 ,our friend saw our embarrassment1 and shielded us by blurting out3 ,no6 he never exhibited1 this obstinate ,albertus4 ,he never will4 ,he makes more money than he needs1 and will leave it to some cat asylum1 for he is a hardened bachelor4 ,women do not interest him4 ,you won't find one female head in all this amazing collection4 ,nor has the dear old ,diogenes suffered from a love-affair4 ,his only love is his paint4 ,his one weakness is a selfish1 a miserly desire to keep all this beautiful paint for himself4 ,balzac would have delighted to analyse such a peculiar mania4 ,degas is amiability itself compared with this curmudgeon of genius4 ,now1 don't stop me1 ,albertus-- ,but ,i must1 expostulated the painter4 ,i am always glad to receive visitors here if they are not dealers or persons ignorant of art1 or those who think the moderns can paint4 ,yet no one comes to see me4 ,my chattering friend here occasionally asks them1 and he is a hoaxer4 ,while ,i go nowhere--,i haven't been east of ,ninth ,avenue for years4 ,what shall ,i do8 ,paint6 was the curt answer of our friend1 as we took our leave4 ,in ,new ,york1 now1 a painter of genius who is known to few6 ,extraordinary6 ,is his name really ,albertus ,magnus1 or is that only ,latin for ,albert ,ryder8 ,our friend shrugged his shoulders and smiled mysteriously4 ,we hate tomfoolery4 ,be frank6 we adjured him4 ,he hummed3 ,in ,vishnu land what avatar8 ,more ,browning6 we sneered4 ,then we crossed over to the club and talked art far into the night4 ,also wet our clay4 ,and ,albertus ,magnus1 will he never come from his paint cave and reveal to the world his masterpieces8 ,perhaps4 ,who knows8 ,as the ,russians say--,avos6 ,,chapter ,,xv ,,the ,,grand ,,manner ,,in ,,pianoforte ,,playing ,here lies one whose name is writ on ivory6 might be the epigraph of every great pianist's life1 and the ivory is about as perdurable stuff as the water in which is written the epitaph of ,john ,keats4 ,despite cunning reproductive contrivances the executive musician has no more chance of lasting fame than the actor4 ,the career of both is brief1 but brilliant4 ,glory1 then1 is largely a question of memory1 and when the contemporaries of a tonal artist pass away then he has no existence except in the biographical dictionaries4 ,creative1 not interpretative1 art endures4 ,better be immortal while you are alive1 which wish may account for the number of young men who write their memoirs while their cheeks are still virginal of beards1 while the pianist or violinist plays his autobiography1 and this may be some compensation for the eternal injustice manifested in matters mundane4 ,whosoever heard the lion-like velvet paws of ,anton ,rubinstein caress the keyboard shall never forget the music4 ,he is the greatest pianist in my long and varied list4 ,think of his delivery of the theme at the opening of ,beethoven's ,g major concerto2 or in that last page of ,chopin's ,barcarolle4 ,it was no longer the piano tone1 but the sound of distant waters and horns from elf-land4 ,a mountain of fire blown skyward1 when the elemental in his profoundly passionate temperament broke loose1 he could roar betimes as gently as a dove4 ,yet1 when ,i last heard him in ,paris1 the few remaining pupils of ,chopin declared that he was brutal in his treatment of their master4 ,he played ,rubinstein1 not ,chopin1 said ,georges ,mathias to me4 ,mathias knew1 for he had heard the divine ,frederic play4 ,nevertheless1 ,rubinstein played ,chopin1 the greater and the miniature1 as no one before or since4 ,to each generation its music-making4 ,the grand manner in piano-playing has almost vanished4 ,a few artists still live who illustrate this manner2 you may count them on the fingers of one hand4 ,rosenthal1 ,d',albert1 ,carreno1 ,friedheim--,reisenaur had the gift1 too--how many others8 ,paderewski ,i heard play in ,leipsic in #aiab at a ,gewandhaus concert under the baton of the greatest living conductor1 ,arthur ,nikisch1 and ,i can vouch for the plangent tone quality and the poetic reading he displayed in his performance of that old war-horse1 the ,f minor concerto of ,chopin4 ,furthermore1 my admiration of ,paderewski's gift as a composer was considerably increased after hearing his ,polish symphony interpreted by ,nikisch4 ,how far away we were from ,manru4 ,joseffy1 who looked upon ,paderewski1 as a rare personality1 told me that the ,polish ,fantasy for piano and orchestra puzzled him because of its seeming simplicity in figuration4 ,only the composer1 enthusiastically exclaimed ,joseffy1 could have made it so wonderful4 ,but the grand manner1 has it become too artificial1 too rhetorical8 ,it has gone out of fashion with the eloquence of the old histrions1 probably because of the rarity of its exponents2 also because it no longer appeals to a matter-of-fact public4 ,liszt was the first4 ,he was dithyrambic4 ,he was a volcano2 ,thalberg--his one-time rival--possessed all the smooth and icy perfections of ,nesselrode pudding4 ,liszt in reality never had but two rivals close to his throne2 ,karl ,tausig1 the ,pole1 and ,anton ,rubinstein1 the ,russian4 ,von ,buelow was all intellect2 his ,bach1 ,beethoven1 ,chopin1 and ,brahms were cerebral1 not emotional4 ,he had the temperament of the pedant4 ,i first heard him in ,philadelphia in #ahgf at the ,academy of ,music4 ,he introduced the ,tschaikovsky ,b flat minor concerto1 with ,b4 ,j4 ,lang directing the orchestra1 a quite superfluous proceeding1 as ,von ,buelow gave the cues from the keyboard and distinctly cursed the conductor1 the band1 the composition1 and his own existence1 as befitted a disciple of ,schopenhauer4 ,oh6 he could be fiery enough1 though in his playing of the ,romantics the fervent note was absent2 but his rhythmic attack was crisp and irresistible4 ,you need only recall the pungency of his reading of ,beethoven's ,scherzo in the ,sonata ,opus #ca1 ,no4 #c4 ,it was staccato as a hail-storm4 ,two years later1 in ,paris1 ,i heard the same concerto played by ,nicholas ,rubinstein at the ,trocadero 7,exposition1 #ahgh71 the very man who had first flouted the work so rudely that ,tschaikovsky1 deeply offended1 changed the dedication to ,von ,buelow4 ,anton ,rubinstein displayed the grand manner4 ,his style was a compound of tiger's blood and honey4 ,notwithstanding the gossip about his false notes 7he wrote a ,study on ,false ,notes1 as if in derision71 he was1 with ,tausig and ,liszt1 a supreme stylist4 ,he was not always in practice and most of the music he wrote for his numerous tours was composed in haste and repented of at leisure4 ,it is now almost negligible4 ,the ,d minor concerto reminds one of a much-traversed railroad-station4 ,but ,rubinstein the virtuoso6 ,it was in #ahgc ,i heard him1 but ,i was too young to understand him4 ,fifteen years later1 or thereabouts1 he gave his ,seven ,historical ,recitals in ,paris and ,i attended the series1 not once1 but twice4 ,he played many composers1 but for me he seemed to be playing the ,book of ,job1 the ,apocalypse1 and the ,scarlet ,sarafan4 ,he had a ductile tone like a golden ,french horn--,joseffy's comparison--and the power and passion of the man have never been equalled4 ,neither ,tausig nor ,liszt did ,i hear1 worse luck1 but there were plenty of witnesses to tell me of the differences4 ,liszt1 it seems1 when at his best1 was both ,rubinstein and ,tausig combined1 with ,von ,buelow thrown in4 ,anton ,rubinstein played every school with consummate skill1 from the iron certitudes of ,bach's polyphony to the magic murmurs of ,chopin and the romantic rustling in the moonlit garden of ,schumann4 ,beethoven1 too1 he interpreted with intellectual and emotional vigour4 ,yet this magnificent ,calmuck--he wasn't of course1 though he had ,asiatic features--grew weary of his instrument1 as did ,liszt1 and fought the stars in their courses by composing4 ,but his name is writ in ivory1 and not in enduring music4 ,scudo said that when ,sigismund ,thalberg played1 his scales were like perfectly strung pearls falling on scarlet velvet2 with ,liszt the pearls had become red hot4 ,this extravagant image is of value4 ,we have gone back to the ,thalbergian pearls1 for too much passion in piano-playing is voted bad taste to-day4 ,nuance1 then colour1 and ripe conception4 ,technique for technique's sake is no longer a desideratum2 furthermore1 as ,felix ,leifels wittily remarked3 ,no one plays the piano badly2 just as no one acts ,hamlet disreputably4 ,mr4 ,leifels1 as a veteran contrabassist and at present manager of the ,philharmonic ,society1 ought to be an authority on the subject2 the old ,philharmonic has had all the pianists1 from ,h4 ,c4 ,timm1 in #ahdd--;a ,hummel concerto--to ,thalberg and ,rubinstein1 ,joseffy1 ,paderewski1 and ,josef ,hofmann4 ,truly the standard of virtuosity is higher than it was a quarter of a century ago4 ,girls give recitals with programmes that are staggering4 ,the ,chopin concertos now occupy the position1 technically speaking1 of the ,hummel and ,mendelssohn concertos4 ,every one plays ,chopin as a matter of course1 and1 with a few exceptions horribly4 ,yes1 ,mr4 ,leifels is right2 no one plays the piano badly1 yet new ,rubinsteins do not materialise4 ,the year of the ,centennial ,exposition in ,philadelphia1 #ahgf1 was a memorable one for visiting pianists4 ,i heard not only ,hans von ,buelow1 but also two beautiful women1 one at the apex of her artistic career1 ,annette ,essipoff 7or ,essipowa7 and ,teresa ,carreno1 just starting on her triumphal road to fame4 ,essipowa was later the wife of ,leschetizky--maybe she was married then--and she was the most poetic of all women pianists that ,i have heard4 ,clara ,schumann was as musical1 but she was aged when ,i listened to her4 ,essipowa played ,chopin as only a ,russian can4 ,they are all ,slavs1 these ,poles and ,russians1 and no other nation1 except the ,hungarian1 interpret ,chopin4 ,probably the greatest ,german virtuoso was ,adolf ,henselt1 ,bavarian-born1 though a resident of ,petrograd4 ,he had a ,chopin-like temperament and played that master's music so well that ,schumann called him the ,german ,chopin4 ,essipowa1 ,i need hardly tell you1 communicated no little of her gracious charm to ,paderewski4 ,he learned more from her plastic style than from all the precepts of ,leschetizky4 ,on a hot night in #ahgf1 and in old ,association ,hall1 ,i first saw and heard ,teresa 7then ,teresita7 ,carreno4 ,i say saw advisedly1 for she was a blooming girl1 and at the time shared the distinction with ,adelaide ,neilson and ,mrs4 ,scott-,siddons of being one of the three most beautiful women on the stage4 ,carreno1 still vital1 still handsome1 and still the conquering artist1 till her death last spring1 was in that far-away day fresh from ,venezuela1 a pupil of ,gottschalk and ,anton ,rubinstein4 ,she wore a scarlet gown1 as fiery as her playing1 and when ,i wish to recall her ,i close my eyes and straightway as if in a scarlet mist ,i see her1 hear her2 for her playing has always been scarlet to me1 as ,rubinstein's is golden1 and ,joseffy's silvery4 ,the ,french group ,i have heard1 beginning with ,theodore ,ritter1 who came to ,new ,york in company with ,carlotta ,patti2 ,plante--still living and over eighty1 so ,i have been told by ,m4 ,phillipp2 ,saint-,saens1 whom ,i first saw and heard at the ,trocadero1 ,paris1 with his pupil1 ,montigny-,remaury2 ,clotilde ,kleeberg1 ,diemer1 ,risler2 the venerable ,georges ,mathias1 a pupil of ,chopin2 ,raoul ,pugno1 who was veritably a pugnacious pianist1 ,cecile ,chaminade1 ,marie ,jaell1 and her corpulent husband1 ,alfred ,jaell4 ,eugen d',albert1 surely the greatest of ,scotch pianists--he was born at ,glasgow1 though musically educated in ,london--is another heaven-stormer4 ,i heard him at ,berlin some years ago1 in ,philharmonic ,hall1 and people stood up in their excitement--,liszt redivivus6 ,it was the grand manner in its most chaotic form4 ,a musical volcano belching up lava1 scoriae1 rocks1 hunks of ,beethoven--the ,appassionata ,sonata it happened to be--while the infuriated little ,vulcan threw emotional fuel into his furnace4 ,the unfortunate instrument must have been a mass of splintered steel1 wood1 and wire after the musical giant had finished4 ,it was a magnificent spectacle1 and the music glorious4 ,eugen d',albert1 whether he is or isn't the son of ,karl ,tausig--as ,weimar gossip had it2 ,weimar1 when in the palmy days every other pianist you met was a natural son of ,liszt--or else pretended to be one--has more than a moiety of that virtuoso's genius4 ,he is a great artist1 and occasionally the magic fire flares and lights up the firmament of music4 ,i think it was in #ahgi that ,rafael ,joseffy visited us for the first time2 but ,i didn't hear him till #ahhj4 ,the reason ,i remember the date is that this greatly beloved ,hungarian made his debut at old ,chickering ,hall 7then at ,fifth ,avenue and ,eighteenth ,street72 but ,i saw him in ,steinway ,hall4 ,another magician with a peculiarly personal style4 ,in the beginning you thought of the aurora borealis1 shooting-stars1 and exquisite meteors2 a beautiful style1 though not a classic interpreter then4 ,with the years ,joseffy deepened and broadened4 ,the iridescent shimmer was never absent4 ,no one played the ,e minor ,concerto of ,chopin as did ,joseffy4 ,he had the tradition from his beloved master1 ,tausig1 as ,tausig had it from ,chopin by way of ,liszt4 7,tausig always regretted that he had never heard ,chopin play47 ,joseffy1 in turn1 transmitted the tradition to his early pupil1 ,moriz ,rosenthal1 in whose repertoire it is the most ,chopinesque of all his performances4 ,and do you remember the ,chevalier de ,kontski1 ,carl ,baermann1 ,franz ,rummel1 ,s4 ,b4 ,mills--who introduced here so many modern concertos--the huge ,norwegian ,edmund ,neupert1 who lived at the ,hotel ,liszt1 next door to ,steinway ,hall1 ,constantin von ,sternberg1 and ,max ,vogrich1 the ,hungarian with the ,chopin-like profile8 ,in the same school as ,joseffy is the capricious ,de ,pachmann2 with ,joseffy ,i sat at the first recital of this extraordinary ,russian in ,chickering ,hall 7#ahij74 ,joseffy1 with his accustomed generosity of spirit--he was the most sympathetic and human of great virtuosi--at once recognised the artistic worth of ,vladimir de ,pachmann4 ,this last representative of a school that included the names of ,hummel1 ,cramer1 ,field1 ,thalberg1 ,chopin1 the little ,de ,pachmann 7he was then bearded like a pirate7 captivated us4 ,it was all miniature1 without passion or pathos or the grand manner1 but in its genre his playing was perfection2 the polished perfection of an intricately carved ivory ornament4 ,de ,pachmann played certain sides of ,chopin incomparably2 capriciously1 even perversely4 ,in a small hall1 sitting on a chair that precisely suited his fidgety spirit1 then1 if in the mood1 a recital by him was something unforgettable4 ,after ,de ,pachmann--,paderewski4 ,paderewski1 the master-colourist1 the grand visionary1 whose art is often strained1 morbid1 fantastic4 ,and after ,paderewski8 ,why1 ,leopold ,godowsky1 of course4 ,he belongs to the ,joseffy-,de ,pachmann1 not to the ,rubinstein-,josef ,hofmann1 group4 ,i once called him the superman of piano-playing4 ,nothing like him1 as far as ,i know1 is to be found in the history of piano-playing since ,chopin4 ,he is an apparition4 ,a ,chopin doubled by a contrapuntalist4 ,bach and ,chopin4 ,the spirit of the ,german cantor and the ,polish tone-poet in curious conjunction4 ,his playing is transcendental2 his piano compositions the transcendentalism of the future4 ,that way1 else retrogression6 ,all has been accomplished in ideas and figuration4 ,a new synthesis--the combination of seemingly disparate elements and styles--with innumerable permutations1 he has accomplished4 ,he is a miracle-worker4 ,the ,violet ,ray4 ,dramatic passion1 flame1 and fury are not present2 they would be intruders on his map of music4 ,the piano tone is always legitimate1 never forced4 ,but every other attribute he boasts4 ,his ten digits are ten independent voices recreating the ancient polyphonic art of the ,flemings4 ,he is like a ,brahma at the piano4 ,before his serene and all-embracing vision every school appears and disappears in the void4 ,the beauty of his touch and tone are only matched by the delicate adjustment of his phrasing to the larger curve of the composition4 ,nothing musical is foreign to him4 ,he is a pianist for pianists1 and ,i am glad to say that the majority of them gladly recognise this fact4 ,one evening ,godowsky was playing his piano sonata with its subtle intimations of ,brahms1 ,chopin1 and ,liszt1 and its altogether ,godowskian colour and rhythmic life--he is the greatest creator of rhythmic values since ,liszt1 and that is a large order--when he was interrupted by the entrance of ,josef ,hofmann4 ,godowsky and ,hofmann are as inseparable as were ,chopin and ,liszt4 ,heine called the latter pair the ,dioscurii of music4 ,in the ,godowsky apartment stood several concert grands4 ,hofmann nonchalantly removed his coat and1 making an apology for disturbing us1 he went into another room and soon we heard him slowly practising4 ,what do you suppose8 ,some new concerto with new-fangled bedevilments8 ,o ,sancta ,simplicitas6 ,this giant1 if ever there was one1 played at a funereal tempo the octave passages in the left hand of the ,heroic ,polonaise of ,chopin 7,opus #ec74 ,every schoolgirl rattles them off as easy1 but1 with the humility of a great artist1 ,hofmann practised the section as if it were still a stumbling-block4 ,de ,lenz records that ,tausig did the same4 ,later1 ,conductor ,artur ,bodanzky of the ,metropolitan ,opera dropped in1 and several pianists and critics followed1 and soon the ,polish pianist was playing for us all some well-known compositions by a certain ,dvorsky2 also an extremely brilliant and effective concert study in ,c minor by ,constantin von ,sternberg4 ,from #ahhh1 when he was a wonder-child here1 ,jozio ,hofmann's artistic development has been logical and continuous4 ,his mellow muscularity evokes ,rubinstein4 ,no one plays ,rubinstein as does this ,harmonious ,blacksmith--and with the piety of ,rubinstein's pet pupil4 ,i once compared him to a steam-hammer1 whose marvellous sensitivity enables it to crack an egg-shell or crush iron4 ,hofmann's range of tonal dynamics is unequalled1 even in this age of perfected piano technique4 ,he is at home in all schools1 and his knowledge is enormous4 ,at moments his touch is as rich as a ,kneisel ,quartet accord4 ,at the famous ,rudolph ,schirmer dinner1 given in #aiae1 among other distinguished guests there were nearly a score of piano virtuosi4 ,the newspapers humorously commented upon the fact that there was not a squabble1 though with so many nationalities one row1 at least1 might have been expected4 ,as a matter of fact1 if any discussion had arisen it would not have been over politics1 but about the fingering of the ,double-,note ,study in ,g sharp minor of ,chopin1 so difficult to play slowly--the most formidable of argument-breeding questions among pianists4 ,a parterre of pianists1 indeed1 some in ,new ,york because of the war1 while ,paderewski and ,rosenthal were conspicuous by their absence4 ,think of a few names3 ,joseffy--he died several months later1 ,gabrilowitsch1 ,hofmann1 ,godowsky1 ,carl ,friedberg1 ,mark ,hambourg--a heaven-stormer in the ,rubinstein-,hercules manner--,leonard ,borwick1 ,alexander ,lambert1 ,ernest ,schelling1 ,stojowski1 ,percy ,grainger--the young ,siegfried of the ,antipodes--,august ,fraemcke1 ,cornelius ,ruebner1 and--another apparition in the world of piano-playing--,ferruccio ,busoni4 ,this ,italian1 the greatest of ,italian piano virtuosi--the history of which can claim such names as ,domenico ,scarlatti1 ,clementi1 ,fumigalli1 ,martucci1 ,sgambati--is also a composer who has set agog conservative critics by the boldness of his imagination4 ,as an artist he may be said to embody the intellectuality of ,von ,buelow1 the technical brilliancy of the ,liszt group4 ,busoni is eminently a musical thinker4 ,america probably will never again harbour such a constellation of piano talent4 ,i sometimes wonder if the vanished generation of piano artists played much better than those men4 ,godowsky1 ,hofmann1 the lyric and most musical ,harold ,bauer2 the many-sided1 richly endowed1 and charming ,ossip ,gabrilowitsch1 ,hambourg1 ,busoni1 and ,paderewski are not often matched4 ,heine called ,thalberg a king1 ,liszt a prophet1 ,chopin a poet1 ,herz an advocate1 ,kalkbrenner a minstrel 7not a negro minstrel1 for a chalk-burner is necessarily white71 ,mme4 ,pleyel a sibyl1 and ,doehler--a pianist6 ,the contemporary piano hierarchy might be thus classed3 ,josef ,hofmann1 a king2 ,paderewski1 a poet2 ,godowsky1 a prophet2 ,fannie ,bloomfield-,zeisler1 a sibyl2 ,d',albert1 a titan2 ,busoni1 a philosopher2 ,rosenthal1 a hero1 and ,alexander ,lambert--a pianist4 ,well1 ,mr4 ,lambert may be congratulated on such an ascription2 ,doehler was a great technician in his day1 and when the friend of pianists 7,lambert could pattern after ,schindler1 whose visiting-card read3 l',ami de ,beethoven7 masters his modesty an admirable piano virtuoso is revealed4 ,so let him be satisfied with the honourable appellation of pianist4 ,he is in good company4 ,and the ladies6 ,i am sorry ,i can't say1 place aux dames6 ,space forbids4 ,i've heard them all1 from ,arabella ,goddard to ,mme4 ,montigny-,remaury 7in ,paris1 #ahgh1 with her master1 ,camille ,saint-,saens72 from ,alide ,topp1 ,marie ,krebs1 ,anna ,mehlig1 ,pauline ,fichtner1 ,vera ,timinoff1 ,ingeborg ,bronsart1 ,madeline ,schiller1 to ,julia ,rive-,king2 from ,cecilia ,gaul and ,svarvady-,clauss to ,anna ,bock2 from the ,amazon1 ,sofie ,menter1 the most masculine of ,liszt players1 to ,adele ,margulies1 ,yoland ,maero1 and ,antoinette ,szumowska-,adamowska2 from ,ilonka von ,ravacsz to ,ethel ,leginska--who plays like a house afire2 from ,helen ,hopekirk to ,katharine ,goodson2 from ,clara ,schumann to ,fannie ,bloomfield-,zeisler1 ,olga ,samaroff1 and the newly come ,brazilian ,guiomar ,novaes--the list might be unduly prolonged4 ,i heard ,paderewski play last spring4 ,surely he has now the grand manner in all its dramatic splendour1 and without its old-fashioned pretentious rhetoric4 ,nor has he lost the lusciousness of his touch--a ,caruso voice on the keyboard--or the poetic intensity of his ,chopin and ,schumann interpretations4 ,he is still ,prince ,charming4 ,not only do ,i fear prolixity1 but the confusing of critical values1 for ,i write from memory1 and ,i admit that ,i've had more pleasure from the intimate pianists than from the forgers of tonal thunderbolts2 that is--,rubinstein excepted--from such masters in miniature as ,joseffy1 ,godowsky1 ,carl ,heyman1 ,de ,pachmann1 and ,paderewski4 ,i find in the fresh1 sparkling playing of ,mischa ,levitski1 ,benno ,moiseivich1 and ,guiomar ,novaes high promise for their future4 ,the latter came here unheralded and as the pupil of that sterling virtuoso and pedagogue1 ,isidor ,phillipp of the ,paris ,conservatory4 ,it is noteworthy that only ,chopin1 ,liszt1 and ,von ,buelow were ,christian born among the supreme masters of the keyboard2 the rest 7with a few exceptions7 were and are members of that race whose religious tenets specifically incline them to the love and practice of music4 ,,chapter ,,xvi ,,james ,,joyce ,who is ,james ,joyce8 is a question that was answered by ,john ,quinn1 who told us that the new writer was from ,dublin and at present residing in ,switzerland2 that he is not in good health--his eyes trouble him--and that he was once a student in theology1 but soon gave up the idea of becoming a priest4 ,he is evidently a member of the new group of young ,irish writers who see their country and countrymen in anything but a flattering light4 ,ireland1 surely the most beautiful and most melancholy island on the globe1 is not the ,isle of ,saints for those iconoclasts4 ,george ,moore is a poet who happens to write ,english1 though he often thinks in ,french2 ,bernard ,shaw1 notwithstanding his native wit1 is of ,london and the ,londoners2 while ,yeats and ,synge are essentially ,celtic1 and both poets4 ,yes1 and there is the delightful ,james ,stephen1 who mingles angels' pin-feathers with rainbow gold2 a magic decoction of which we never weary4 ,but ,james ,joyce1 potentially a poet1 and a realist of the ,de ,maupassant breed1 envisages ,dublin and the ,dubliners with a cruel scrutinising gaze4 ,he is as truthful as ,tchekov1 and as grey--that ,tchekov compared with whose the realism of ,de ,maupassant is romantic bric-a-brac1 gilded with a fine style4 ,joyce is as implacably naturalistic as the ,russian in his vision of the sombre1 mean1 petty1 dusty commonplaces of middle-class life1 and he sometimes suggests the ,frenchman in his clear1 concise1 technical methods4 ,the man is indubitably a fresh talent4 ,emerson1 after his experiences in ,europe1 became an armchair traveller4 ,he positively despised the idea of voyaging across the water to see what is just as good at home4 ,he calls ,europe a tapeworm in the brain of his countrymen4 ,the stuff of all countries is just the same4 ,so ,ralph ,waldo sat in his chair and enjoyed thinking about ,europe1 thus evading the worries of going there too often4 ,it has its merit1 this ,emersonian way1 particularly for souls easily disillusioned4 ,to anticipate too much of a foreign city may result in disappointment4 ,we have all had this experience4 ,paris resembles ,chicago1 or ,vienna is a second ,philadelphia at times2 it depends on the colour of your mood4 ,few countries have been so persistently misrepresented as ,ireland4 ,it is lauded to the eleventh heaven of the ,burmese or it is a place full of fighting devils in a hell of crazy politics4 ,of course1 it is neither1 nor is it the land of ,lover and ,lever2 ,handy ,andy and ,harry ,lorrequer are there1 but you never encounter them in ,dublin4 ,john ,synge got nearer to the heart of the peasantry1 and ,yeats and ,lady ,gregory brought back from the hidden spaces fairies and heroes4 ,is ,father ,ralph by ,gerald ,o',donovan a veracious picture of ,irish priesthood and college life8 ,is the fiction of ,mr4 ,joyce representative of the middle class and of the ,jesuits8 ,a cloud of contradictory witnesses passes across the sky4 ,what is the ,celtic character8 ,dion ,boucicault's ,the ,shaughraun8 ,or isn't the pessimistic dreamer with the soul of a wild goose1 depicted in ,george ,moore's story1 the real man8 ,celtic magic1 cried ,matthew ,arnold4 ,he should have said1 ,irish magic1 for while the ,irishman is a ,celt1 he is unlike his brethren across the ,channel4 ,perhaps he is nearer to the ,sarmatian than the continental ,celt4 ,ireland and ,poland6 ,the ,irish and the ,polish6 ,dissatisfied no matter under which king6 ,not ,playboys of the ,western ,world1 but martyrs to their unhappy temperaments4 ,the ,dublin of ,mr4 ,joyce shows another variation of this always interesting theme4 ,it is a rather depressing picture1 his1 of the daily doings of his contemporaries4 ,his novel is called ,a ,portrait of the ,artist as a ,young ,man1 a title quite original and expressive of what follows2 also a title that seems to have emerged from the catalogue of an art-collector4 ,it is a veritable portrait of the artist as a boy1 a youth and a young man4 ,from school to college1 from the brothel to the confessional1 from his mother's apron-strings to coarse revelry1 the hero is put to the torture by art and relates the story of his blotched yet striving soul4 ,we do not recall a book like this since the autobiography ,en ,route of ,j4-,k4 ,huysmans4 ,this ,parisian of ,dutch extraction is in the company of ,james ,joyce4 ,neither writer stops at the half-way house of reticence4 ,it's the ,house of ,flesh in its most sordid aspects1 and the human soul is occasionally illuminated by gleams from the grace of ,god4 ,with both men the love of ,rabelaisian speech is marked4 ,this1 if you please1 is a ,celtic trait4 ,not even the ,elizabethans so joyed in green words1 as the ,french say1 as do some ,irish4 ,of richest hue are his curses1 and the ,prince of ,obliquity himself must chuckle when he overhears one ,irishman consign another to everlasting damnation by the turn of his tongue4 ,stephen1 the hero of ,a ,portrait of the ,artist as a ,young ,man1 tells his student friend about his father4 ,these were his attributes3 ,a medical student1 an oarsman1 a tenor1 an amateur actor1 a shouting politician1 a small landlord1 a small investor1 a drinker1 a good fellow1 a story-teller1 somebody's secretary1 something in a distillery1 a tax-gatherer1 a bankrupt1 at present a praiser of his own past4 ,he could talk the devil out of the liver-wing of a turkey--as they say up ,cork way4 ,the portrait is well-nigh perfect4 ,the wild goose over again1 and ever on the wing4 ,stephen became violently pious after a retreat at the ,jesuits4 ,from the extreme of riotous living he was transformed into a militant ,catholic4 ,the reverend fathers had hopes of him4 ,he was an excellent ,latinist1 but his mind was too speculative2 later it proved his spiritual undoing4 ,to analyse the sensibility of a soul mounting on flaming pinions to ,god is easier than to describe the modulations of a moral recidivist4 ,stephen fell away from his faith1 though he did not again sink into the slough of ,dublin low life4 ,cranly1 the student1 saw through the hole in his sceptical millstone4 ,it is a curious thing1 do you know1 ,cranly said dispassionately1 how your mind is supersaturated with the religion in which you say you disbelieve4 ,a profound remark4 ,once a ,roman ,catholic always a ,roman ,catholic1 particularly if you are born in ,ireland4 ,mr4 ,joyce holds the scales evenly4 ,he neither abuses nor praises4 ,he is evidently out of key with religious life2 yet he speaks of the ,jesuits with affection and admiration4 ,the sermons preached by them during the retreat are models4 ,they are printed in full--strange material for a novel4 ,and he can show us the black hatred caused by the clash of political and religious opinions4 ,there is a scene of this sort in the house of ,stephen's parents that simply blazes with verity4 ,at a ,christmas dinner the argument between ,dante 7a certain ,mrs4 ,riordan7 and ,mr4 ,casey spoils the affair4 ,stephen's father carves the turkey and tries to stop the mouths of the angry man and woman with food4 ,the mother implores4 ,stephen stolidly gobbles1 watching the row1 which culminates with ,mr4 ,casey losing his temper--he has had several tumblers of mountain dew and is a little how come you so8 ,he bursts forth3 ,no ,god in ,ireland6 ,we have had too much ,god in ,ireland6 ,away with ,god6 ,blasphemer6 ,devil6 screamed ,dante1 starting to her feet and almost spitting in his face4 ,devil out of hell6 ,we won6 ,we crushed him to death6 ,fiend6 ,the door slammed behind her4 ,mr4 ,casey suddenly bowed his head on his hands with a sob of pain4 ,poor ,parnell6 he cried loudly4 ,my dead ,king4 ,naturally the dinner was not a success4 ,stephen noted that there were tears in his father's eyes at the mention of ,parnell1 but that he seemed debonair enough when the old woman unpacked her heart of vile words like a drab4 ,there is no denying that the novel is as a whole hardly cheerful4 ,its grip on life1 its intensity1 its evident truth1 and unflinching acceptance of facts will make ,a ,portrait disagreeable to the average reader4 ,there is relief in the ,trinity ,college episodes2 humour of a saturnine kind in the artistic armoury of ,mr4 ,joyce4 ,there is no ironist like an ,irishman4 ,the book is undoubtedly written from a full heart1 but the author must have sighed with relief when he wrote the last line4 ,no one may tell the truth with impunity1 and the portrait of ,stephen in its objective frigidity--as an artistic performance--and its passionate personal note1 is bound to give offence in every quarter4 ,it is too ,irish to be liked by the ,irish2 not an infrequent paradox4 ,the volume of tales entitled ,dubliners reveals a wider range1 a practised technical hand1 and a gift for etching character that may be compared with ,de ,maupassant's4 ,a big comparison1 but read such masterpieces in pity and irony as ,the ,dead1 ,a ,painful ,case1 ,the ,boarding-,house or ,two ,gallants1 and be convinced that we do not exaggerate4 ,dublin1 we have said elsewhere1 is a huge whispering gallery4 ,scandal of the most insignificant order never lacks multiple echoes4 ,from ,merrion ,square1 from the ,shelbourne1 to ,dalkey or ,drumcondra2 from the ,monument to ,chapelizod1 the repercussion of spoken gossip is unfailing4 ,the book ,dubliners is filled with ,dublinesque anecdotes4 ,it is charged with the sights and scents and gestures of the town4 ,the slackers who pester servant-girls for their shillings to spend on whisky2 the young man in the boarding-house who succumbs to the planted charms of the landlady's daughter to fall into the matrimonial trap--only ,de ,maupassant could better the telling of this too commonplace story2 the middle-aged man1 parsimonious as to his emotions and the tragic ending of a love-affair that had hardly begun2 and the wonderfully etched plate called ,the ,dead with its hundred fine touches of comedy and satire--these but prove the claim of ,james ,joyce's admirers that he is a writer signally gifted4 ,a malevolent fairy seemingly made him a misanthrope4 ,with ,spinoza he could say--oh1 terrifying irony6--that mankind is not necessary in the eternal scheme4 ,we hope that with the years he may become mellower1 but that he will never lose the appreciation of life's more bitter flavours4 ,insipid novelists are legion4 ,he is ,huysmans's little brother in his flair for disintegrating character4 ,but yet an ,irishman1 who sees the shining vision in the sky1 a vision that too often vanishes before he can pin its beauty on canvas4 ,but yet an ,irishman in his sense of the murderous humour of such a story as ,ivy ,day in the ,committee-,room1 which would bring to a ,tammany heeler what ,henry ,james called the emotion of recognition4 ,ah6 the wild goose4 ,the flying dream4 ,,chapter ,,xvii ,,creative ,,involution ,israel ,zangwill1 in the papers he contributed once upon a time to the ,strand ,magazine and later reunited in a book bearing the happy title ,without ,prejudice1 spoke of women writers as being significant chiefly in their self-revelation4 ,what they tell of themselves is of more value than what they write about4 ,whether ,mr4 ,zangwill now believes this matters little in the discussion of an unusual book by a woman4 ,perhaps to-day he would open both eyes widely after reading ,creative ,involution1 by ,cora ,l4 ,williams1 ,m4 ,s41 with an apposite introduction by ,edwin ,markham4 ,miss ,williams deals with no less a bagatelle than the ,fourth ,dimension of ,space 7what we do not know we fear1 and fear is always capitalised74 ,speculative as is her work1 she is not a ,new-,thoughter1 a ,christian ,scientist1 or a member of any of the other queer rag-tag and bobtail beliefs and superstitions--fortune-telling1 astrology1 selling futures in the next life1 table-rapping1 and such like4 ,cora ,lenore ,williams is an authority in mathematics1 as was the brilliant1 unhappy ,sonya ,kovalevska4 ,her ideas1 then1 are not verbal wind-pudding1 but have a basis of mathematics and the investigations of the laboratory1 where chemists and physicists are finding that the conduct of certain molecules and crystals is best explained as a fourth-dimensional activity4 ,we have always enjoyed the idea of the ,fourth ,spatial ,dimension4 ,the fact that it is an x in the plotting of mathematicians in general does not hinder it from being a fascinating theme4 ,j4 ,k4 ,f4 ,zoellner1 of ,leipsic1 proved to his own satisfaction the existence of a ,fourth ,dimension when he turned an india-rubber ball inside out without tearing it4 ,later he became a victim to incurable melancholy4 ,no wonder4 ,if you have read ,cayley1 or ,abbot's ,flatland1 or the ingenious speculations of ,simon ,newcomb and ,w4 ,k4 ,clifford1 you will learn the attractions of the subject4 ,perpetual motion1 squaring the circle1 are only variants of the alchemical pursuit of the philosopher's stone1 the transmutation of the baser metals1 the cabalistic ,abracadabra1 the quest of the absolute4 ,man can't live on machinery alone1 and the underfed soul of the past period of positivism craves more spiritual nourishment to-day4 ,hasn't the remarkable mathematician ,henri ,poincare 7author of ,science and ,hypothesis1 ,the ,value of ,science1 ,science and ,method7 declared that between the construction of the spirit and the absolute of truth there is an abysm caused by free choice and the voluntary elimination which have necessitated such inferences8 ,note the word free2 free-will is restored to its old and honourable estate in the hierarchy of thought4 ,the cast-iron determinism of the seventies and eighties has gone to join the materialistic ideas of ,buechner and ,clifford4 ,it is a pluralistic world now1 and lordly ,intuition--a dangerous vocable--rules over mere mental processes4 7,there is1 as ,george ,henry ,lewes asserted1 profound truth in the ,cullen paradox3 i4 e41 there are more false facts than false theories current47 ,science only attains the knowledge of the correspondence and relativity of things--no mean intellectual feat1 by the way--but not of the things themselves2 one must join1 adds ,poincare1 to the faculty of reasoning the gift of direct sympathy4 ,in a word1 ,intuition4 ,even mathematics as an exact science is not immutable1 and the geometries of ,lebatchevsky and ,riemann are as legitimate as ,euclid's4 ,and at this point the earth beneath us begins to tremble and the stars to totter in their spheres4 ,is the age of miracles now8 ,perhaps music is in the ,fourth ,dimension4 ,time may be in two dimensions4 ,heraclitus before ,bergson compared ,time to a river always flowing1 yet a permanent river3 if we emerged from this stream at a certain moment and entered it an hour later1 would it not signify that ,time has two dimensions4 ,and where does music stand in the eternal scheme of things8 ,are not harmony with its vertical structure and melody with its horizontal flow proof that music is another dimension in ,time8 ,miss ,williams's notion of the ,fourth ,spatial ,dimension is a spiritual one4 ,creative ,involution is to supersede the ,darwinian evolution4 ,again1 the interior revolution described for our salvation in the epistles of the ,apostle ,paul4 ,all roads lead to religion4 ,expel religion forcibly and it returns under strange disguises1 usually as debasing superstitions4 ,yet religion without dogma is like a body without a skeleton--it can't be made to stand upright4 ,mathematicians are poets1 and religion is the poetry of the poor1 just as philosophy is the diversion of professors4 ,modern science1 said ,mallock1 put out the footlights of life's stage when it denied religion4 ,but matter1 in the light of recent experiment1 is become spirit1 energy1 anything but gross matter4 ,tyndall might have to revise the conclusions of his once famous ,belfast address in the presence of radium4 ,remy de ,gourmont said that the essential thing is to search the eternal in the diverse and fleeting movements of form4 ,from a macrocosmic monster our gods are become microcosmic2 god may be a molecule1 a cell4 ,a god to put in a phial2 thus far has the zigzag caprice of theory attained4 ,and religion is a sum of scruples which impede the free exercise of our faculties1 says ,salomon ,reinach in ,orpheus4 ,bossuet did not write his ,variations in vain4 ,all is vanity1 even doctrinal fluctuations4 ,goethe has warned us that ,man is not born to solve the mystery of ,existence2 but he must nevertheless attempt it1 in order that he may learn how to keep within the limits of the ,knowable4 ,goethe detested all thinking about thought4 ,spinoza was his only philosophical recreation4 ,man must no longer be egocentric4 ,the collective soul is born4 ,the psychology of the mob1 according to ,professor ,le ,bon1 is different from the psychology of the individual4 ,we know this from the mental workings of a jury4 ,twelve otherwise intelligent men put in a jury-box contaminate each other's will so that their united judgment is1 as a rule1 that of a full-fledged imbecile4 ,mark ,twain noted this in his accustomed humorous 7a mordant humour7 fashion1 adding that trial by jury was all very well in the time of ,alfred the ,great1 candle-clocks1 and small communities4 ,miss ,williams1 who sees salvation for the single soul in the collective soul--not necessarily socialistic--nevertheless warns parents against the dangers in our public-school system1 where the individuality of the child is so often disturbed1 if not destroyed1 by class teaching4 ,mob psychology is always false psychology4 ,the crowd obliterates the ego4 ,yet to collective consciousness may belong the future4 ,it is all very well for ,mallock to call war the glorification1 the result1 and the prop of limited class interests4 7,this was years ago47 ,stately1 sedate1 stable is the class that won't tolerate war2 a class of moral lollipops4 ,war we must have2 it is one of the prime conditions of struggling existence4 ,as belief in some totem1 fetich1 taboo is the basis of all superstitions1 so the superstition of yesterday builds the cathedrals of faith to-day4 7,read ,frazer's ,golden ,bough--,james ,frazer1 who is the ,darwin of ,social ,anthropology47 ,happiness requires limitations1 as a wine needs a glass to hold it2 and if patriotism is a crime of lese-majesty against mankind1 then be it so4 ,but like the poor1 war and patriotism are precious essences in the scheme of life1 and we shall always have them with us4 ,however1 the warning of ,miss ,williams is a timely one4 ,at school our children's souls are clogged with bricks and mortar1 instead of being buoyant and individual4 ,she quotes--and her little volume contains a mosaic of apt quotations--with evident approbation from ,some ,neglected ,factors in ,evolution1 by the late ,h4 ,m4 ,bernard1 an ,english thinker3 ,organic life is thus seen advancing out of the dim past upon a series of waves1 each of which can be scanned in detail until we come to that one on which we ourselves1 the organisms of to-day1 and the human societies to which we belong1 are swept onward4 ,here we must necessarily pause1 but can we doubt that the great organic rhythm which has brought life so far will carry it on to still greater heights in the unknown future8 ,rhythm1 measured flow1 is the shibboleth4 ,zarathustra tells us that man is a discord and hybrid of plant and ghost4 ,i teach you ,beyond-,man 7superman72 ,man is something that will be surpassed 444 once man was ape1 and is ape in a higher degree than any ape4444 ,man is a rope connecting animal and ,beyond-,man4 ,believe that which thou seest not1 cries ,flaubert in his marvellous masque of mythologies ancient and modern1 ,the ,temptation of ,st4 ,anthony4 ,tertullian said the same centuries before the ,frenchman3 ,believe what is impossible4 ,we all do4 ,perhaps it is the price we pay for cognition4 ,miss ,williams is not a ,bergsonian1 though she appreciates his plastic theories4 ,she has a receptive mind4 ,henri ,bergson is a mystagogue1 and all mystagogues are mythomaniacs4 ,he has yet to answer ,professor ,hugh ,s4 ,r4 ,elliott's three questions3 #a4 ,bergson says1 ',time is a stuff both resistant and substantial4' ,where is the specimen on which this allegation is founded8 #b4 ,consciousness is to some extent independent of cerebral structure4 ,professor ,bergson thinks he is disproving a crude theory of localisation of mental qualities4 ,will he furnish evidence of its existence apart from local structure8 #c4 ,instinct leads us to a comprehension of life that intellect can never give4 ,will ,professor ,bergson furnish instances of the successes of instinct in biological inquiries where intellect has failed8 7,from ,modern ,science and the ,illusions of ,professor ,bergson1 #aiab47 ,these metaphysical curiosities1 as they are rather contemptuously called by ,sir ,ray ,lankester in his preface to this solidly reasoned confutation1 are the pabulum of numerous persons1 dilettantes1 with a craving for an embellished theory of the ,grand ,perhaps4 ,miss ,williams is not the dupe of such silken sophistries1 and while her divagations are sometimes in the air--which1 like the earth1 hath bubbles1 as was observed by the greatest of poets--she plants her feet on tangible affirmations4 ,and to have faith we must admit the ,illative sense of ,john ,henry ,newman4 ,thus the wheel is come full circle4 ,creative ,involution will please mystics and mathematicians alike4 ,the author somersaults in the vasty blue1 but safely volplanes to mother earth4 ,,chapter ,,xviii ,,four ,,dimensional ,,vistas ,hamlet1 sometime ,prince of ,denmark1 warned his friend that there were more things in heaven and earth than dreamed of in his philosophy4 ,now1 both ,hamlet and ,horatio had absorbed the contemporary wisdom of ,wittenberg4 ,and let it be said in passing that their knowledge did not lag behind ours1 metaphysically speaking4 ,nevertheless1 ,hamlet1 if he had lived longer1 might have said that no philosophy would ever solve the riddle of the sphinx2 that we never know1 only name1 things4 ,noah is the supreme symbol of science1 he the first namer of the animals in the ark4 ,the world of sensation is our ark and we are one branch of the animal family4 ,we come whence we know not and go where we shall never guess4 ,standing on this tiny ,isle of ,error we call the present1 we think backward and live forward4 ,hamlet the sceptical would now demand something more tangible than the ,grand ,perhaps4 ,my kingdom for a fulcrum6 he might cry to ,horatio--on which ,i may rest my lever and pry this too too solid earth up to the starry skies6 ,what the implement8 ,religion8 ,remember ,hamlet was a ,catholic1 too sensitive to send unshrived to hell's fire the soul of his uncle4 ,philosophy8 ,read ,jules ,laforgue's ,hamlet and realise that if he were alive to-day the melancholy ,prince might be a delicate scoffer at all fables4 ,a ,hamlet who had read ,schopenhauer4 ,what then the escape8 ,we all need more elbow-room in the infinite4 ,the answer is--the ,fourth ,dimension in ,higher ,space4 ,eureka6 ,after studying ,saint ,teresa1 ,john of the ,cross1 ,saint ,ignatius1 or the selections in ,vaughan's ,hours with the ,mystics1 even the doubting ,thomas is forced to admit that here is no trace of rambling discourse1 fugitive ideation1 half-stammered enigmas2 on the contrary1 the true mystic abhors the cloudy1 and his vision pierces with crystalline clearness the veil of the visible world4 ,as literary style we find sharp contours and affirmations4 ,mysticism is not all cobweb lace and opal fire4 ,remember that we are not stressing the validity of either the vision or its consequent judgments2 we only wish to emphasise the absence of muddy thinking in these writings4 ,this quality of precision1 allied to an eloquent1 persuasive style1 we encounter in ,claude ,bragdon's ,four ,dimensional ,vistas4 ,the author is an architect and has written much of his art and of projective ornament4 7,he was a ,scammon lecturer at the ,chicago ,art ,institute in #aiae47 ,he is a mystic4 ,he is also eminently practical4 ,his contribution to aesthetics in ,the ,beautiful ,necessity is suggestive1 and on the purely technical side valuable4 ,but ,mr4 ,bragdon1 being both a mathematician and a poet1 does not stop at three-dimensional existence4 ,like the profound ,english mystic ,william ,blake1 he could ask3 ,how do you know but every bird that cuts the airy way is an immense world of delight1 closed by your senses five8 ,what is the ,fourth ,dimension8 ,a subtle transposition of precious essences from the earthly to the spiritual plane4 ,we live in a world of three dimensions1 the symbols of which are length1 breadth1 thickness4 ,a species of triangular world1 a prison for certain souls who see in the category of ,time an escape from that other imperative1 ,space 7however1 not the ,categorical ,imperative of ,kant and its acid moral convention74 ,helmholtz and many mathematicians employed the n dimension as a working hypothesis4 ,it is useful in some analytical problems1 but it is not apprehended by the grosser senses4 ,pascal1 great thinker and mathematician1 had his ,abyss2 it was his ,fourth ,dimension1 and he never walked abroad without the consciousness of it at his side4 ,this illusion or obsession was the result of a severe mental shock early in his life4 ,many of us are like the ,french philosopher4 ,we have our abyss1 mystic or real4 ,mr4 ,bragdon quotes from the mathematician ,bolyai1 who in #ahbc declared with regard to ,euclid's so-called axiom of parallels1 ',i will draw two lines through a given point both of which will be parallel to a given line4' ,space1 then1 may be curved in another dimension4 ,mr4 ,bragdon believes that it is1 though he does not attempt to prove it1 as that would be impossible2 but he gives his readers the chief points in the hypothesis4 ,the n dimension may be employed as a lever to the imagination4 ,even revealed religion demands our faith1 and imagination is the prime agent in the interpretation of the universe1 according to the gospel of mystic mathematics4 ,nature geometrises1 said ,emerson1 and it is interesting to note the imagery of transcendentalism through the ages4 ,it is invariably geometrical4 ,spheres1 planes1 cones1 circles1 spirals1 tetragrams1 pentagrams1 ellipses1 and what-not4 ,a cubistic universe4 ,xenophanes said that ,god is a sphere4 ,and then there are the geometrical patterns made by birds on the wing4 ,heaven in any religion is another sphere4 ,swedenborg offers a series of planes1 many mansions for the soul at its various stages of existence4 ,the ,bible1 the mystical teachings of ,mother ,church--why evoke familiar witnesses8 ,we are hemmed in by riddles1 and the magnificent and mysterious tumult of life asks for the eye of imagination1 which is also the eye of faith4 ,the cold fire and dark light of the mystics must not repel us by their strangeness4 ,not knowledge but perception is power1 and the psychic is the sign-post of the future4 ,what do all these words mean3 matter1 energy1 spirit1 cells1 molecules1 electrons1 but the same old thing8 ,i am a colony of cells1 yet that fact does not get me closer to the core of the soul4 ,what will8 ,a fourth spatial dimension1 answers ,claude ,bragdon4 ,truly a poetic concept4 ,he calls man a space-eater4 ,human ambition is to annihilate space4 ,wars are fought for space1 and every step in knowledge is based upon its mastery4 ,what miracles are wireless telegraphy1 flying-machines1 the ,roentgen ray6 ,astronomy--what ghastly gulfs it shows us in space6 ,time and space were abolished as sense illusions by the worthy ,bishop of ,cloyne1 ,george ,berkeley2 but as we are up to our eyes in quotidian life1 which grows over and about us like grass1 we cannot shake off the oppression4 ,first thought1 and then realised1 these marvels are now accepted as matter of fact because mankind has been told the technique of them2 as if any explanation can be more than nominal4 ,we shall never know the real nature of the phenomena that crowd in on us from lust to dust4 ,not even that synthesis of the five senses1 the sixth1 or sex sense1 with its evanescent ecstasy1 cuts deeply into the darkness4 ,there may be a seventh sense1 a new dimension1 intimations of which are setting advanced thinkers on fresh trails4 ,but there is as yet no tangible proof4 ,philosophers1 who1 like some singers1 bray their brainless convictions to a gaping auditory1 ask of us much more credence1 and little or no imagination4 ,as that old mole1 working in the ground1 gravitation1 is defied by aeroplanes1 then we should not despair of any hypothesis which permits us a peep through the partly opened door4 ,plato's cavern and the shadows4 ,who knows but in this universe there may be a crevice through which filters the light of another life8 ,emerson1 who shed systems yet never organised one1 hints at aerial perspectives4 ,a flight through the sky with the sun bathing in the blue jolts one's conception of a rigid finite world4 ,in such perilous altitudes ,i have enjoyed this experience and felt a liberation of the spirit which has no parallel2 not even when listening to ,bach or ,beethoven or ,chopin4 ,music1 indeed1 is the nearest approach to psychic freedom4 ,mr4 ,bragdon approvingly quotes ,goethe's expression frozen music1 applied to ,gothic architecture4 7,stendhal appropriated this phrase47 ,for us the flying buttress is aspiring1 and the pointed arch is a fugue4 ,our author is rich in his analogies1 and like ,sir ,thomas ,browne sees quincunxes in everything2 his particular quincunx being ,higher ,space4 ,the precise patterns in our brain1 like those of the ant1 bee1 and beaver1 which enable us to perceive and build the universe 7otherwise called innate ideas7 are geometrical4 ,space is the first and final illusion4 ,time--which is not a stuff both resistant and substantial1 as ,henri ,bergson declares--is perhaps the ,fourth ,dimension in the guise of a sequence of states1 and not grasped simultaneously1 as is the idea of ,space4 ,that ,time can shrink and expand1 opium-eaters1 who are not always totally drugged by their dreams1 assure us4 ,a second becomes an aeon4 ,and space curvature8 ,is it any wonder that ,lewis ,carroll1 who wrote those extraordinary parables for little folk1 ,through the ,looking-,glass and ,alice in ,wonderland1 was a mathematician8 ,a topsy-turvy world2 it is even upside down as an optical image4 ,the other side of good and evil may be around the corner4 ,eternity can lurk in a molecule too tiny to harbour ,queen ,mab4 ,and we may all live to see the back of our own heads without peering in mirrors4 ,that astral trunk once so fervently believed in may prove a reality2 it is situated behind the ear and is a long tube that ascends to the planet ,saturn1 and by its aid we should be enabled to converse with spirits6 ,the pineal gland is the seat of the soul1 and miracles fence us in at every step4 ,we fill our belly with the east wind of vain desires4 ,we eat the air promise-crammed4 ,this world is but a point in the universe1 and our universe only one of an infinite series4 ,there was no beginning1 there is no end4 ,eternity is now2 though death and the tax-gatherer never cease their importunings4 ,all this ,mr4 ,bragdon does not say1 though he leans heavily on the arcana of the ancient wisdom4 ,the truth is that the majority of humans are mentally considered vegetables1 living in two dimensions4 ,to keep us responsive to spiritual issues1 as people were awaked in ,swift's ,laputa by flappers1 is the service performed by such transcendentalists as ,c4 ,howard ,hinton1 author of ,the ,fourth ,dimension2 ,claude ,bragdon and ,cora ,lenore ,williams4 ,their thought is not new2 it was hoary with age when the ,greeks went to old ,egypt for fresh learning2 ,noah conversed with his wives in the same terminology4 ,but its application is novel1 as are the personal nuances4 ,the idea of a fourth spatial dimension may be likened to a fresh lens in the telescope or microscope of speculation4 ,for the present writer the hypothesis is just one more incursion into the fairyland of metaphysics4 ,without fairies the heart grows old and dusty4 ,the seven arts are fairy-tales in fascinating shapes4 ,as for the paradise problem1 it is horribly sublime for me1 this idea of an eternity to be spent in a place which1 with its silver1 gold1 plush1 and diamonds1 seems like the dream of a retired pawnbroker4 ,the ,eternal ,recurrence is more consoling4 ,the only excuse for life is its brevity4 ,why1 then1 do we yearn for that unending corridor through which in processional rhythms we move1 our shoulders bowed by the burden of our chimera--our ego8 ,i confess that ,i prefer to watch on the edge of some vast promontory the swift approach of a dark sun rushing out from the primordial depths of interstellar spaces to the celestial assignation made at the beginning of ,time for our little solar system1 whose provinciality1 remote from the populous path of the ,milky ,way1 has hitherto escaped colliding with a segment of the infinite4 ,perhaps in that apocalyptic flare-up--surely a more cosmical and heroic death than stewing in greasy bliss--,higher ,space may be manifested and ,time and ,tri-,dimensional ,space be no more4 ,the rest is silence4 ,,chapter ,,xix ,o4 ,w4 ,it is an enormous advertisement nowadays to win a reputation as a martyr--whether to an idea1 a vice1 or a scolding wife4 ,you have a label by which a careless public is able to identify you4 ,oscar ,wilde was a born advertiser4 ,from the sunflower days to ,holloway ,gaol1 and from the gaol to the ,virgins of ,dieppe1 he kept himself in the public eye4 ,since his death the number of volumes dealing with his glittering personality1 negligible verse and more or less insincere prose1 have been steadily accumulating2 why1 ,i'm at a loss to understand4 ,if he was a victim to ,british middle-class morality1 then have done with it1 while regretting the affair4 ,if he was not1 all the more reason to maintain silence4 ,but no1 the clamour increases1 with the result that there are many young people who believe that ,oscar was a great man1 a great writer1 when in reality he was neither4 ,here is ,alfred ,douglas slamming the memory of his old chum in a not particularly edifying manner1 though he tells some truths1 wholesome and unwholesome4 ,henley paid an unpleasant tribute to his dead friend1 ,robert ,louis ,stevenson1 but the note of hatred was absent2 evidently literary depreciation was the object4 ,however1 there are many to whom the truth will be more welcome than the spectacle of broken friendship4 ,another1 and far more welcome book1 is that written by ,martin ,birnbaum1 a slender volume of fragments and memories4 ,his ,oscar ,wilde is the ,oscar of the first visit to ,new ,york1 and there are lots of anecdotes and facts that are sure to please collectors of ,wildiana--or ,oscariana--which is it8 ,pictures1 too4 ,i confess that his early portraits flatter the ,irish writer4 ,he looked like an old maid in a boarding-house said a well-known ,philadelphia portrait-painter4 ,he was ugly1 not a beautiful ,greek god1 as his fervent admirers think4 ,his mouth was loose1 ill-shaped1 his eyes dull and draggy1 his forehead narrow1 the cheeks flabby1 his teeth protruding and horsy1 his head and face was pear-shaped4 ,he was a big fellow1 as was his brother ,willie ,wilde1 who once lived in ,new ,york1 but he gave no impression of muscular strength or manliness2 on the other hand1 he was not a ,sissy1 as so many have said4 ,indeed1 to know him was to like him2 he was the real stuff1 as the slang goes1 and if he had only kept away from a pestilential group of flatterers and spongers1 his end might have been different4 ,i've heard many eloquent talkers in my time1 best of them all was ,barbey d',aurevilly1 of ,paris1 after whom ,oscar palpably modelled--lace cuffs1 clouded cane1 and other minor affectations4 ,but when ,oscar was in the vein1 which was usually once every twenty-four hours1 he was inimitable4 ,edgar ,saltus will bear me out in this4 ,for copiousness1 sustained wit1 and verbal brilliancy the man had few equals4 ,it was amazing1 his conversation4 ,i met him when he came here1 and once again much later4 ,possibly that is why ,i care so little for his verse1 a pasticcio of ,swinburne--7in the wholly admirable biography of this poet by ,mr4 ,gosse1 reference is made to ,o4 ,w4 by the irascible hermit of ,putney3 ,i thought he seemed a harmless young nobody4444 ,i should think you in ,america must be as tired of his name as we are in ,london of ,mr4 ,barnum's and his ,jumbos7--,milton1 ,tennyson1 or for his prose1 a dilution of ,walter ,pater and ,flaubert4 ,his ,dorian ,grey1 apart from the inversion element1 is poor ,huysmans's--just look into that masterpiece1 ,a ,rebours2 not to mention ,poe's tale1 ,the ,oval ,portrait2 while ,salome is ,flaubert in operetta form--his gorgeous ,herodias watered down for uncritical public consumption4 ,it is safe to say the piece--which limps dramatically--would never have been seriously considered if not for the ,richard ,strauss musical setting4 ,as for the vaunted essay on ,socialism1 ,i may only call attention to one fact1 i4 e41 it does not deal with socialism at all1 but with philosophical anarchism2 besides1 it is not remarkable in any particular4 ,his ,intentions is his best1 because his most spoken prose4 ,the fairy-tales are graceful exercises by a versatile writer1 with an excellent memory1 but if ,i had children ,i'd give them the ,alice in ,wonderland books1 through which sweeps a bracing air1 and not the hothouse atmosphere of ,wilde4 ,the plays are fascinating as fireworks1 and as remote from human interest4 ,perhaps ,i'm in error1 yet1 after reading ,pater1 ,swinburne1 ,rossetti1 ,huysmans1 ,i prefer them to the ,wilde imitations1 strained as they are through his very gay fancy4 ,he wasn't an evil-minded man2 he posed a la ,byron and ,baudelaire2 but to hear his jolly laughter was to rout any notion of the morbid or the sinister4 ,he was materialistic1 he loved good cookery1 old wines1 and strong tobacco4 ,positively the best book ,wilde ever inspired was ,the ,green ,carnation1 by ,robert ,hichens1 which book gossip avers set the ball rolling that fetched up behind prison-bars4 ,in every-day life he was a charming1 companionable1 and very human chap1 and1 as ,frederick ,james ,gregg says1 dropped more witty epigrams in an hour than ,whistler did annually4 ,the best thing ,whistler ever said to ,wilde was his claiming in advance as his own anything ,oscar might utter2 and here ,whistler was himself borrowing an epigram of ,baudelaire1 as he borrowed from the same source and amplified the idea that nature is monotonous1 nature is a plagiarist from art1 and all the rest of such paradoxical chatter and inconsequent humour4 ,both ,whistler and ,wilde have been taken too seriously--,i mean on this side4 ,whistler was a great artist4 ,wilde was not4 ,whistler discoursed wittily1 waspishly1 but he wasn't knee-high to a grasshopper when confronted with ,wilde4 ,as for the tragic denouement that has been thrashed to death by those who know1 suffice to add that ,william ,butler ,yeats told me that he called at the ,wilde home after the scandal had broken1 and saw ,willie ,wilde1 who roundly denounced his brother for his truly brave attitude--always attitudes with ,oscar4 ,he would not be persuaded to leave ,london1 and perhaps it was the wisest act of his life1 though neither the ,ballad of ,reading ,gaol nor ,de ,profundis carry conviction4 ,need ,i say that my judgment is personal8 ,i have read in cold type that ,pater was a forerunner of ,wilde2 that ,wilde is a second ,jesus ,christ--which latter statement stuns one4 7,the ,whitmaniacs are fond of claiming the same for ,walt1 who is not unlike that silly and sinister monster described by ,rabelais as quite overshadowing the earth with its gigantic wings1 and after dropping vast quantities of mustard-seed on the embattled hosts below flew away yawping3 ,carnival1 ,carnival1 ,carnival67 ,for me1 he simply turned into superior journalism the ideas of ,swinburne1 ,pater1 ,flaubert1 ,huysmans1 ,de ,quincey1 and others4 ,if his readers would only take the trouble to study the originals there might be less talk of his originality4 ,i say all this without any disparagements of his genuine gifts2 he was a born newspaper man4 ,henry ,james calls attention to the fact that the so-called aesthetic movement in ,england never flowered into anything so artistically perfect as the novels of ,gabriel d',annunzio4 ,which is true2 but he could have joined to the name of the ,italian poet and playwright that of ,aubrey ,beardsley1 the one genius of the ,eighteen-,nineties4 ,beardsley gave us something distinctly individual4 ,wilde1 a veritable cabotin1 did not--nothing but his astounding conversation1 and that1 alas6 is a fast fading memory4 ,,chapter ,,xx ,a ,,synthesis ,,of ,,the ,,seven ,,arts ,nothing new in all this talk about a fusion of the ,seven ,arts2 it has been tried for centuries4 ,richard ,wagner's attempt just grazed success1 though the aesthetic principle at the base of his theory is eminently unsound4 ,pictures1 sculpture1 tone1 acting1 poetry1 and the rest are to be found in the ,wagnerian music-drama2 but the very titles are significant--a hybrid art is there4 ,with ,wagner music is the master4 ,his poetry1 his drama1 are not so important1 though his scenic sense is unfailing4 ,every one of his works delights the eye2 truly moving pictures4 ,yet if the lips of the young man of ,urbino had opened to music1 they would have sung the melodies of the young man of ,salzburg4 ,years ago ,sadikichi ,hartmann1 the ,japanese poet from ,hamburg1 made a bold attempt in this direction1 adding to other ingredients of the sensuous stew1 perfume4 ,the affair came off at ,carnegie ,hall1 and we were wafted on the wings of song and smell to ,japan--only ,i detected the familiar odour of old shoes and the scent of armpits--of the latter ,walt ,whitman has triumphantly sung4 ,a ,new ,york audience is not as pleasant to the nostrils as a ,japanese crowd4 ,that ,mr4 ,finck has assured us4 ,in the ,theatre d'art1 ,paris1 and in the last decade of the last century1 experiments were made with all the arts--except the art of the palate4 ,recently1 ,mary ,hallock1 a ,philadelphia pianist1 has invented a mixture of music1 lights1 and costumes2 for instance1 in a certain ,debussy piece1 the stage assumes a deep violet hue1 which glides into a light purple4 ,the ,turkish ,march of ,mozart is depicted in deep reds1 yellows1 and greens4 ,philip ,hale1 the ,boston music-critic1 has written learnedly on the relation of tones and colours1 and that astonishing poet1 ,arthur ,rimbaud1 in his ,alchimie du ,verbe1 tells us3 ,i believe in all the enchantments4 ,i invented the colour of the vowels3 ,a1 black2 ,e1 white2 ,i1 red2 ,o1 blue2 ,u1 green4 ,this scheme he set forth in his famous sonnet1 ,voyelles1 which was only a mystification to catch the ears of credulous ones4 ,rene de ,ghil invented an entirely new system of prosody1 which no one understood2 least of all1 the poet4 ,i wrote a story1 ,the ,piper of ,dreams 7in ,melomaniacs71 to prove that music and the violet rays combined might prove deadly in the hands of an anarch composer like ,illowski--or ,richard ,strauss4 ,and now ,new ,york has enjoyed its first ,light ,symphony1 by ,alexander ,scriabine4 ,it was played by the ,russian ,symphony ,orchestra under the suave conductorship of ,modeste ,altschuler 7who is so ,jacobean71 while his brother ,jacob 7who is so modest7 sat at the keyboard and pressed down the keys which regulated the various tintings on a screen2 a wholly superfluous proceeding1 as the colours did not mollify the truculence of the score2 indeed1 were quite meaningless1 though not optically unpleasant4 ,i admired this ,russian1 ,scriabine1 ever since ,i heard ,josef ,hofmann play a piano of his etude in ,d sharp minor4 ,chopinesque1 very1 but a decided personality was also shown in it4 ,i've heard few of his larger orchestral works4 ,nevertheless1 ,i did not find ,prometheus as difficult of comprehension as either ,schoenberg or ,ornstein4 ,judged purely on the scheme set by its composer1 ,i confess ,i enjoyed its chaotic beauties and passionate twaddle1 and singular to relate1 the music was best when it recalled ,wagner and ,chopin 7a piano part occasionally sounded bilious premonitions of ,chopin74 ,but1 for such a mighty theme as ,prometheus1 the ,light-,bringer 7a prehistoric ,ben ,franklin without his electrified kite71 the leading motives of this new music were often undersized4 ,the dissociation of conventional keys was rigorously practised1 and at times we were in the profoundest gulfs of cacophony4 ,but the scoring evoked many novel effects2 principally1 ,berlioz and vodka4 ,i still think ,scriabine a remarkable composer1 if not much addicted to the languishing ,lydian mode4 ,but his ,light ,symphony proved to be only a partial solution of the problem4 ,in ,paris the poet ,haraucourt and ,ernest ,eckstein invented puppet-shows with perfume symphonies4 ,a quarter of a century ago ,i visited the ,theatre d'art1 in ,paris2 that is1 my astral soul did1 for in those times ,i was a confirmed theosophist4 ,the day had been a stupid one in ,gotham1 and ,i hadn't enough temperament to light a cigarette1 so ,i simply pressed the nombril button1 took my ,rig-,veda--a sacred buggy--projected my astral being1 and sailed through space to the ,french capital1 there to enjoy a bath in the new art1 or synthesis of the seven arts1 eating included4 ,as it was a first performance1 even the police were deprived of their press-tickets1 and the deepest mystery was maintained by the experimenters4 ,i found the theatre1 soon after my arrival1 plunged into an orange gloom1 punctured by tiny balls of violet light1 which daintily and intermittently blinked4 ,the dominant odour of the atmosphere was ,cologne-water1 with a florid counterpoint that recalled bacon and eggs1 a melange that appealed to my nostrils2 and1 though at first it seems hardly possible that the two dissimilar odours could even be made to modulate and merge1 yet ,i had not been indoors ten minutes before the subtlety of the duet was apparent4 ,bacon has a delicious smell1 and1 like a freshly cut lemon1 it causes a premonitory tickling of the palate and little rills of hunger in one's stomach4 ,aha6 ,i cried 7astrally1 of course71 this is a concatenation of the senses never dreamed of by ,plato when he conceived the plan of his ,republic4 ,the lanquid lisp of those assembled in the theatre drifted into little sighs1 and then a low1 long-drawn-out chord in ,b flat minor1 scored for octoroons1 octopuses1 shofars1 tympani1 and piccolo1 sounded4 ,immediately a chorus of male soprani blended with this chord1 though they sang the common chord of ,a major4 ,the effect was one of vividity 7we say avidity1 why can't we say vividity872 it was a dissonance1 pianissimo1 and it jarred my ears in a way that made their drums warble4 ,then a low burbling sound ascended4 ,the bacon frying1 ,i cried1 but ,i was mistaken4 ,it was caused by the hissing of a sheet of carmilion 7that is carmine and vermilion7 smoke which slowly upraised on the stage2 as it melted away the lights in the auditorium turned green and topaz1 and an odour of jasmine and stewed tomatoes encircled us4 ,my immediate neighbours seemed to be swooning2 they were nearly prostrate1 with their lips glued to the rod that ran around the seats4 ,i grasped it1 and received a most delicious thrill1 probably electrical in origin1 though it was velvety pleasure merely to touch it1 and the palms of my hands exquisitely ached4 ,the tactile motive1 ,i said4 ,as ,i touched the rod ,i noted a small mouthpiece1 and thinking ,i might hear something1 ,i applied my ear2 it instantly became wet4 ,so evidently it was not the use to which it should be put4 ,again inspecting this mouthpiece1 ,i put my finger to it and cautiously raised the moist end to my lips4 ,heavenly6 ,i murmured4 ,what sort of an earthly paradise was ,i in8 ,and then losing no time1 ,i placed my astral lips to the orifice1 and took a long pull4 ,gorgeous was the result4 ,gumbo soup1 as sure as ,i ever ate it1 not your pusillanimous ,new ,york variety1 but the genuine okra soup that one can't find outside of ,louisiana1 where old negro mammies used to make it to perfection4 ,the soup motive1 ,i exclaimed4 ,just as ,i gurgled the gumbo nocturne down my thirsty throat1 a shrill burst of brazen clangour 7this is not tautological7 in the orchestra roused me from my dream1 and ,i gazed on the stage4 ,the steam had cleared away1 and now showed a rocky and wooded scene1 the trees sky-blue1 the rocks a ,nile-green4 ,the band was playing something that sounded like a strabismic version of the prelude to ,tristan4 ,but strange odour-harmonies disturbed my enjoyment of the music1 for so subtly allied were the senses in this new temple of art that a separate smell1 taste1 touch1 vision1 or sound jarred the ensemble4 ,this uncanny interfusion of the arts took my breath away1 but1 full of gumbo soup as ,i was--and you have no idea how soup discommodes the astral stomach--,i was anchored to my seat1 and bravely determined not to leave till ,i had some clew to the riddle of the new evangel of the seven--or seventeen--arts4 ,the stage remained bare1 though the rocks1 trees1 and shrubbery changed their hues about every twenty seconds4 ,at last1 as a blazing colour hit my tired eyeballs1 and when the odour had shifted to decayed fish1 dried grapefruit1 and new-mown hay1 ,i could stand it no longer1 and1 turning to my neighbour1 ,i tapped him on the shoulder1 and politely asked3 ,monsieur1 will you please tell me the title of this play1 piece1 drama1 morceau1 stueck1 sonata1 odour1 picture1 symphony1 cooking-comedy1 or whatever they call it8 ,the young man to whom ,i had appealed looked fearfully about him--,i had foolishly forgotten that ,i was invisible in my astral shape--then clutched at his windpipe1 beat his silly skull1 and screamed aloud3 ,mon ,dieu6 still another kind of aural pleasure1 and was carried out in a superbly vertiginous fit4 ,fright had made him mad4 ,the spectators were too absorbed1 or drugged1 to pay attention to the incident4 ,followed a slow1 putrid silence4 ,realising the folly of addressing humans in my astral garb1 ,i sat down in my corner and again watched the stage4 ,still no trace of actors4 ,the scenery had faded into a dullish dun hue1 while the orchestra played a ,bach fugue for oboe1 lamp-post 7transposed to ,e flat and two policemen7 accordions in ,f and stopped-strumpets4 ,suddenly the lights went out1 and we were plunged into a blackness that actually pinched the sight1 so drear1 void1 and dead was it4 ,a smell of garlic made us cough1 and by a sweep of some current we were saturated with the odours of white violets1 the lights were tuned in three keys3 yellow of eggs1 marron glace1 and orchids1 and the soup supply shifted to whisky-sours4 ,how delicate these contrasts6 hiccoughed my neighbour1 and ,i astrally acquiesced4 ,then1 at last1 the stage became peopled by one person1 a very tall old man with three eyes1 high heels1 and a deep voice4 ,brandishing aloft his whiskers1 he curiously muttered3 ,and hast thou slain the ,jabberwock8 ,come to my arms my beamish boy4 ,alice in ,wonderland1 was the mystery-play1 and ,i had arrived too late to witness the slaying of the monster in its many-buttoned waistcoat4 ,how gallantly the beamish boy must have dealt the death-stroke to the queer brute as the orchestra sounded the ,siegfried and the ,dragon motives1 and the air all the while redolent with heliotrope4 ,i couldn't help wondering what the particular potage was at this crucial moment4 ,my cogitation was interrupted by the appearance of a gallant-appearing young knight in luminous armour1 who dragged after him a huge carcass1 half-dragon and two-thirds pig 7the other three-thirds must have been suffering from stage fright74 ,the orchestra proclaimed the ,abattoir motive1 and instantly rose-odours penetrated the air1 the electric shocks ceased1 and subtle little kicks were administered to the audience1 which1 by this time1 was well-nigh swooning with these composite pleasures4 ,the scenery had begun to dance gravely to an odd ,russian rhythm1 and the young hero monotonously intoned a verse1 making the vowel sounds sizzle with his teeth1 and almost swallowing the consonants3 ,and as in uffish thought he stood1 the ,jabberwock1 with eyes of flame1 came whiffling through the tulgey wood1 and burbled as it came4 ,this beats ,gertrude ,stein1 ,i thought1 as the orchestra played the ,galumphing motive from ,the ,ride of the ,valkyrs1 and the lights were transposed to a shivering purple4 ,then lilac steam ascended1 the orchestra gasped in ,c-,d flat major 7for corno di bassetto and three yelping poodles71 a smell of cigarettes and coffee permeated the atmosphere1 and ,i knew that this magical banquet of the senses was concluded4 ,i was not sorry1 as every nerve was sore from the strain imposed4 ,talk about faculty of attention6 ,when you are forced to taste1 see1 hear1 touch1 and smell simultaneously1 then you yearn for a less alembicated art4 ,synthesis of the arts8 ,synthesis of rubbish6 ,one at a time1 and not too much time at that4 ,i pressed my astral button1 and flew homeward1 wearily1 slowly2 ,i was full of soup and tone1 and my ears and nostrils quivered from exhaustion4 ,when ,i landed at the ,battery it was exactly five o'clock4 ,it had stopped snowing1 and an angry sun was preparing to bathe for the night in the wet of the western sky4 ,new ,jersey was etched against a cold hard background1 and as an old hand-organ struck up ,it's a ,long1 ,long ,way to ,retrograd1 ,i threw my cap in the air and joined in 7astrally1 but joyfully7 the group of ragged children who danced around the venerable organist with jeers and shouting4 ,after all1 life is greater than the ,seven ,arts4 ,,chapter ,,xxi ,,the ,,classic ,,chopin ,that ,chopin is a classic need not be unduly insisted upon2 he is classic in the sense of representing the best in musical literature2 but that he is of a classical complexion as a composer from the beginning of his career may seem in the nature of a paradox4 ,nevertheless1 it is a thesis that can be successfully maintained now1 since old party lines have been effaced4 ,to battle seriously for such words as ,classic or ,romantic or ,realism is no longer possible4 ,cultured ,europe did so for a century1 as it once wrangled over doctrinal points2 as if the salvation of mankind depended upon the respective verbal merits of transubstantiation or consubstantiation4 ,only yesterday that ugly word degeneracy1 thanks to quack critics and charlatan psychiatrists1 figured as a means of estimating genius4 ,this method has quite vanished among reputable thinkers1 though it has left behind it another misunderstood vocable--decadence4 ,wagner is called decadent4 ,so is ,chopin4 ,while ,richard ,strauss is held up as the prime exponent of musical decadence4 ,what precisely is decadent8 ,says ,havelock ,ellis3 ,technically1 a decadent style is only such in relation to a classic style4 ,it is simply a further development of a classic style1 a further specialisation1 the homogeneous1 in ,spencerian phraseology1 having become heterogeneous4 ,the first is beautiful because the parts are subordinated to the whole2 the second is beautiful because the whole is subordinated to the parts4444 ,swift's prose is classic1 ,pater's decadent4444 ,roman architecture is classic1 to become in its ,byzantine developments completely decadent1 and ,saint ,mark's is the perfected type of decadence in art2 pure early ,gothic1 again1 is strictly classic in the highest degree because it shows an absolute subordination of detail to the bold harmonies of structure1 while the later ,gothic 444 is decadent4444 ,all art is the rising and falling of the slopes of a rhythmic curve between these two classic and decadent extremes4 ,i make this quotation for it clearly sets forth a profound but not widely appreciated fact4 ,in art1 as in life1 there is no absolute4 ,perhaps the most illuminating statement concerning the romantic style was uttered by ,theophile ,gautier4 ,of it he wrote 7in his essay on ,baudelaire73 ,unlike the classic style it admits shadow4 ,we need not bother ourselves about the spirit of romanticism2 that has been done to the death by hundreds of critics4 ,and it is a sign of the times that the old-fashioned ,chopin is fading1 while we are now vitally interested in him as a formalist4 ,indeed1 ,chopin the romantic1 poetic1 patriotic1 sultry1 sensuous1 morbid1 and ,chopin the pianist1 need not enter into our present scheme4 ,he has appeared to popular fancy as everything from ,thaddeus of ,warsaw to an exotic drawing-room hero2 from the sentimental consumptive consoled by countesses to the accredited slave of ,george ,sand4 ,all this is truly the romantic ,chopin4 ,it is the obverse of the medal that piques curiosity4 ,why the classic quality of his compositions1 their clarity1 concision1 purity1 structural balance1 were largely missed by so many of his contemporaries is a mystery4 ,because of his obviously romantic melodies he was definitely ranged with the most extravagant of the romantics1 with ,berlioz1 ,schumann1 ,liszt2 but1 as a matter of fact1 he is formally closer to ,mendelssohn4 ,his original manner of distributing his thematic material deceived the critics4 ,he refused to join the revolutionists2 later in the case of ,flaubert we come upon an analogous condition4 ,hailed as chief of the realists1 the author of ,madame ,bovary took an ironic delight in publishing ,salammbo1 which was romantic enough to please that prince of romanticists1 ,victor ,hugo4 ,chopin has been reproached for his tepid attitude toward romanticism1 and also because of his rather caustic criticisms of certain leaders4 ,he1 a musical aristocrat pur sang1 held aloof1 though he permitted himself to make some sharp commentaries on ,schubert1 ,schumann1 and ,berlioz4 ,decidedly not a romantic despite his romantic externalism4 ,decidedly a classic despite his romantic content4 ,of him ,stendhal might have written3 a classic is a dead romantic4 7,heine left no epic1 yet he is an indubitable classic47 ,wise ,goethe said3 ,the point is for a work to be thoroughly good and then it is sure to be classical4 ,but it is not because of the classicism achieved by the pathos of distance that ,chopin's special case makes an appeal4 ,it is ,chopin as a consummate master of music that interests us4 ,in his admirable ,chopin the ,composer1 ,edgar ,stillman ,kelley considers ,chopin and puts out of court the familiar gifted amateur1 improvisatore of genius1 and the rest of the theatrical stock description by proving beyond peradventure of a doubt that ,frederic ,francois ,chopin was not only a creator of new harmonies1 inventor of novel figuration1 but also a musician skilled in the handling of formal problems1 one grounded in the schools of ,bach1 ,mozart1 and ,beethoven2 furthermore1 that if he did not employ the sonata form in its severest sense1 he literally built on it as a foundation4 ,he managed the rondo with ease and grace1 and if he did not write fugues it was because the fugue form did not attract him4 ,perhaps the divination of his own limitations is a further manifestation of his extraordinary genius4 ,this does not imply that ,chopin had any particular genius in counterpoint1 but to deny his mastery of polyphony is a grave error4 ,and it is still denied with the very evidence staring his critics in the face4 ,beethoven in his sonatas demonstrated his individuality1 though coming after ,mozart's perfect specimens in that form4 ,chopin did not try to bend the bow of ,ulysses1 though more than a word might be said of his two last ,sonatas--the first is boyishly pedantic1 and monotonous in key-contrast1 while the 'cello and piano sonata hardly can be ranked as an exemplar of classic form4 ,of the ,etudes ,kelley says3 ,in this group of masterpieces we find the more desirable features of the classical school--diatonic melodies1 well-balanced phrase and period-building--together with the richness afforded by chromatic harmonies and modulatory devices heretofore unknown4 ,indeed1 a new system of music that changed the entire current of the art4 ,it was not without cause that ,i once called ,chopin the open door2 through his door the ,east entered and whether for good or for ill certainly revolutionised ,western music4 ,mr4 ,hadow is right in declaring that ,mozart1 ,beethoven1 ,schubert1 are not as far from each other as the music of #ahhj from that of #aiad4 ,and ,chopin was the most potent influence1 in company with ,beethoven and ,wagner1 in bringing about that change4 ,i say in company with ,beethoven and ,wagner1 for ,i heartily agree with ,frederick ,niecks in his recent judgment3 ,i consider ,chopin to be one of the three most powerful factors in the development of nineteenth-century music1 the other two being1 of course1 ,beethoven and ,wagner4 ,the absolute originality of ,chopin's personality1 and that of its expression through novel harmony1 chromaticism1 figuration justifies the assertion4 ,and none will deny the fact who takes the trouble to trace the ,polish master's influence on his contemporaries and successors4 ,the greatest and most powerful composers came under this influence1 to a large extent1 by the process of infiltration4 ,kelley gives us chapter and verse in the particular case of ,wagner and his absorption of the harmonic schemes of ,chopin1 as did the late ,anton ,seidl many times for my particular benefit4 ,however1 this only brings us to ,chopin the innovator1 whereas it is the aspect of the classic ,chopin which has been neglected4 ,as far back as #ahdj ,chopin was employing half-tones with a freedom that brought upon him the wrath of conservative critics1 writes ,hadow1 who admires the ,pole with reservations1 not placing him in such august company as has ,kelley and ,niecks4 ,true1 ,chopin was a pioneer in several departments of his art1 yet how few recognised or recognise to-day that ,schumann is the more romantic composer of the pair2 his music is a very jungle of romantic formlessness2 his ,carneval the epitome of romantic musical portraiture--with its ,chopin more ,chopin than the original4 ,contrast the noble ,fantasy in ,c1 ,opus #ag of ,schumann1 with the equally noble ,fantasy in ,f minor1 ,opus #di of ,chopin1 and ask which is the more romantic in spirit1 structure1 and technique4 ,unquestionably to ,schumann would be awarded the quality of romanticism4 ,he is more fantastic1 though his fantasy is less decorative2 he strays into the most delightful and umbrageous paths and never falters in the preservation of romantic atmosphere4 ,now look on the other picture4 ,there is ,chopin1 who1 no matter his potentialities1 never experimented in the larger symphonic mould1 and as fully imbued with the poetic spirit as ,schumann2 nevertheless a master of his patterns1 whether in figuration or general structure4 ,his ,mazourkas are sonnets1 and this ,fantasy in ,f minor is1 as ,kelley points out1 a highly complex rondo2 as are the ,ballades and ,scherzos4 ,beethoven1 doubtless1 would have developed the eloquent main theme more significantly2 strictly speaking1 ,chopin introduces so much new melodic material that the rondo form is greatly modified1 yet never quite banished4 ,the architectonics of the composition are more magnificent than in ,schumann1 although ,i do not propose to make invidious comparisons4 ,both works are classics in the accepted sense of the term4 ,but ,chopin's ,fantasy is more classic in structure and sentiment4 ,the ,sonatas in ,b flat minor and ,b minor are awful examples for academic theorists4 ,they are not faultless as to form and do sadly lack organic unity4 ,schumann particularly criticises the ,sonata ,opus #ce because of the inclusion of the ,funeral ,march and the homophonic1 invertebrate finale4 ,but the two first movements are distinct contributions to ,sonata literature1 even if in the first movement the opening theme is not recapitulated4 ,i confess that ,i am glad it is not1 though the solemn title ,sonata becomes thereby a mockery4 ,the composer adequately treats this first motive in the development section so that its absence later is not annoyingly felt4 ,there are1 ,i agree with ,mr4 ,kelley1 some bars that are surprisingly like a certain page of ,die ,goetterdaemmerung1 as the ,feuerzauber music may be noted in the flickering chromaticism of the ,e minor ,concerto2 or as the first phrase of the ,c minor ,etude1 ,opus #aj1 ,no4 #ab1 is to be found in ,tristan and ,isolde--,isolde's opening measure1 ,wer wagt mich zu hoehnen4 7,the orchestra plays the identical ,chopin phrase47 ,this first movement of the ,b flat minor ,sonata--with four bars of introduction1 evidently suggested by the sublime opening of ,beethoven's ,c minor ,sonata1 ,opus #aaa1 does not furnish us with as concrete an example as the succeeding ,scherzo in ,e flat minor1 7for me7 one of the most perfect examples of ,chopin's exquisite formal sense4 ,while it is not as long-breathed as the ,c sharp minor ,scherzo1 its concision makes it more tempting to the student4 ,in character stormier than the ,scherzo1 ,opus #ci1 its thematic economy and development--by close parallelism of phraseology1 as ,hadow points out--reveal not only a powerful creative impulse1 but erudition of the highest order4 ,no doubt ,chopin did improvise freely1 did come easily by his melodies1 but the travail of a giant in patience--again you think of ,flaubert--is shown in the polishing of his periods4 ,he is a poet who wrote perfect pages4 ,the third ,scherzo1 less popular but of deeper import than the one in ,b flat minor1 is in spirit splenetic1 ironical1 and passionate1 yet with what antithetic precision and balance the various and antagonistic moods are grasped and portrayed4 ,and every measure is logically accounted for4 ,the automatism inherent in all passage work he almost eliminated1 and he spiritualised ornament and arabesque4 ,it is the triumph of art over temperament4 ,no one has ever accused ,chopin of lacking warmth2 indeed1 thanks to a total misconception of his music1 he is tortured into a roaring tornado by sentimentalists and virtuosi4 ,but if he is carefully studied it will be seen that he is greatly preoccupied with form--his own form1 be it understood--and that the linear in nearly all of his compositions takes precedence over colour4 ,i know this sounds heretical4 ,but while ,i do not yield an iota in my belief that ,chopin is the most poetic among composers 7as ,shelley is among poets1 and ,vermeer is the painter's painter7 it is high time that he be viewed from a different angle4 ,the versatility of the man1 his genius as composer and pianist1 the novelty of his figuration and form dazzled his contemporaries or else blinded them to his true import4 ,individual as are the six ,scherzos--two of them are in the ,sonatas--they nevertheless stem from classic soil2 the scherzo is not new with him1 nor are its rhythms4 ,but the ,ballades are ,chopinesque to the last degree1 with their embellished thematic cadenzas1 modulatory motives1 richly decorated harmonic designs1 and their incomparable content2 above all1 in their amplification of the coda1 a striking extension of the postlude1 making it as pregnant with meaning as the main themes4 ,the lordly flowing narration of the ,g minor ,ballade2 the fantastic wavering outlines of the second ,ballade--which on close examination exhibits the firm burin of a masterful etcher2 the beloved third ,ballade1 a formal masterpiece2 and the ,f minor ,ballade1 most elaborate and decorative of the set--are there1 ,i ask1 in all piano literature such original compositions8 ,the four ,impromptus are mood pictures1 highly finished1 not lacking boldness of design1 and in the second1 ,f sharp major1 there are fertile figurative devices and rare harmonic treatment4 ,the melodic organ-point is original4 ,polyphonic complexity is to be found in some of the ,mazourkas4 ,ehlert mentions a perfect canon in the octave in one of them 7,c sharp minor1 ,opus #fc74 ,of the ,concertos there is less to be said1 for the conventional form was imposed by the title4 ,here ,chopin is not the ,greater ,chopin1 notwithstanding the beautiful music for the solo instrument4 ,the sonata form is not desperately evaded1 and in the rondo of the ,e minor ,concerto he overtops ,hummel on his native heath4 ,as to the instrumentation ,i do not believe ,chopin had much to do with it2 it is the average colourless scoring of his day4 ,nor do ,i believe with some of his admirers that he will bear transposition to the orchestra1 or even to the violin4 ,it does not attenuate the power and originality of his themes that they are essentially of the piano4 ,a song is for the voice and is not bettered by orchestral arrangement4 ,the same may be said of the classic concertos for violin4 ,with all due respect for those who talk about the ,beethoven ,sonatas being orchestral1 ,i only ask1 ,why is it they sound so unorchestral when scored for the full battery of instruments8 ,the ,sonata ,pathetique loses its character thus treated4 ,so does the ,a flat ,polonaise of ,chopin1 heroic as are its themes4 ,render unto the keyboard that which is composed for it4 ,the ,appassionata ,sonata in its proper medium is as thrilling as the ,eroica ,symphony4 ,the so-called orchestral test is no test at all2 only a confusion of terms and of artistic substances4 ,chopin thought for the piano2 he is the greatest composer for the piano2 by the piano he stands or falls4 ,the theme of the grandiose ,a minor ,etude 7,opus #be1 ,no4 #aa7 is a perfect specimen of his invention2 yet it sounds elegiac and feminine when compared with the first tragic theme of ,beethoven's ,c minor ,symphony4 ,the ,allegro de ,concert1 ,opus #df1 is not his most distinguished work1 truncated concerto as it is1 but it proves that he could fill a larger canvas than the ,valse4 ,in the ,mazourkas and ,etudes he is closer to ,bach than elsewhere4 ,his early training under ,elsner was sound and classical4 ,but he is the real ,chopin when he goes his own way1 a fiery poet1 a bold musician1 but also a refined1 tactful temperament1 despising the facile1 the exaggerated1 and bent upon achieving a harmonious synthesis4 ,truly a classic composer in his solicitude for contour1 and chastity of style4 ,the ,slav was tempered by the ,gallic strain4 ,insatiable in his dreams1 he fashioned them into shapes of enduring beauty4 ,you would take from us the old ,chopin1 the greater ,chopin1 the dramatic1 impassioned poet-improvisatore1 ,i hear some cry6 ,not in the least4 ,chopin is ,chopin4 ,he sings1 even under the fingers of pedants1 and to-day is butchered in the classroom to make a holiday for theorists4 ,nevertheless1 he remains unique4 ,sometimes the whole in his work is subordinated to the parts1 sometimes the parts are subordinated to the whole4 ,the romantic shadow is there1 also the classic structure4 ,again let me call your attention to the fact that if he had not juggled so mystifyingly with the sacrosanct tonic and dominant1 had not distributed his thematic material in a different manner from the prescribed methods of the schools1 he would have been cheerfully1 even enthusiastically1 saluted by his generation4 ,but1 then1 we should have lost the real ,chopin4 ,,chapter ,,xxii ,,little ,,mirrors ,,of ,,sincerity ,,barney ,,in ,,the ,,box-,,office ,first ,scene4 ,it is snowing on the ,strand4 ,not an ,american actor is in sight1 though voices are wafted occasionally from the bar of the ,savoy 7remember this is a play1 and the unusual is bound to happen74 ,in front of the newly built ,theatre of ,arts1 ,shaw1 and ,science1 two figures stand as if gazing at the brilliantly lighted facade4 ,the doors are wide open1 a thin and bearded man sits smiling and talking to himself in the box-office4 ,his whiskers are as sandy as his wit4 ,the pair outside regard him suspiciously4 ,both are tiny fellows1 one clean-shaven1 the other wearing elaborately arranged hair on his face4 ,they are the two ,maxes--,nordau and ,birnbaum4 ,says ,nordau3 ,isn't that ,bernard in the booking-office8 ,by jove1 it is1 let's go in4 ,hasn't he a new play on8 ,i can't say4 ,i'm only a critic of the drayma4 ,no cynicism1 ,maxixe1 urges ,nordau4 ,they approach4 ,in unanimous flakes the snow falls4 ,it is very cold4 ,cries ,bernard on recognising them3 ,hi there1 skip6 ,to-night free list is suspended4 ,i'm giving my annual feast in the ,cave of ,culture of the modern idols1 in one scene4 ,no one may enter1 least of all you1 ,nordau1 or you1 ,sir ,critic4 ,why1 what's up1 ,george8 asks in a pleading mid-,victorian timbre the little ,maxixe4 ,back to the woods1 both of you6 commands ,george1 who has read both ,mark ,twain and ,oliver ,herford4 ,besides1 he confidentially adds1 you surely don't wish to go to a play in which your old friends ,ibsen and ,nietzsche are to be on view4 ,on view6 quoth the author of ,degeneration4 ,yes1 visible on a short furlough from ,sheol1 for one night only4 ,my benefit4 ,step up1 ladies and gentlemen4 ,a few seats left4 ,the greatest show on earth4 ,i'm in it4 ,lively1 please6 ,a mob rushes in4 ,the two ,maxes fade into the snow1 but in the eyes of one there is a malicious glitter4 ,i'm no ,maxixe1 he murmurs1 if ,i can't get into a theatre without paying4 ,nordau doesn't heed him4 ,they part4 ,the night closes in1 and only the musical rattle of bangles on a naughty wrist is heard4 ,second ,scene4 ,on the stage of the theatre there are two long tables4 ,the scene is set as if for a banquet4 ,the curtain is down4 ,some men walk about conversing--some calmly1 some feverishly4 ,several are sitting4 ,the lighting is feeble4 ,however1 may be discerned familiar figures2 ,victor ,hugo solemnly speaking to ,charles ,baudelaire--who shivers 7un nouveau frisson72 ,flaubert in a corner roaring at ,sainte-,beuve--the old row over ,salammbo is on again4 ,richard ,strauss is pulling at the velvet coat-tails of ,richard ,wagner1 without attracting his attention4 ,the ,master1 in company with nearly all the others1 is staring at a large clock against the back drop4 ,listen for the ,parsifal chimes1 he says1 delight playing over his rugged features4 ,ape of the ideal1 booms a deep voice hard by4 ,it is that of ,nietzsche1 whose moustaches droop in ,polish cavalier style4 ,batiushka6 ,if those two ,dutchmen quarrel over the virility of ,parsifal ,i'm going away4 ,the speaker is ,tolstoy1 attired in his newest ,moujik costume1 top-boots and all4 ,in his left hand he holds a spade4 ,to table1 gentlemen6 ,it is the jolly voice of the ,irish ,ibsen1 ,g4 ,b4 ,s4 ,lights flare up4 ,without is heard the brumming of the audience1 an orchestra softly plays motives from ,pelleas et ,melisande4 ,wagner wipes his spectacles1 and ,maurice ,maeterlinck crushes a block of ,belgian oaths between his powerful teeth4 ,but ,debussy doesn't appear to notice either man4 ,he languidly strikes his soup-spoon on a silver salt-cellar and immediately jots down musical notation4 ,the correspondences of nuances1 he sings to his neighbour1 who happens to be ,whistler4 ,the correspondence of fudge1 retorts ,james4 ,d'ye think ,i'm interested in wall-paper music8 ,oh1 ,lil'libulero6 ,all are now seated4 ,with his accustomed lingual dexterity ,mr4 ,shaw says grace1 calling down a blessing upon the papier-mache fowls and the pink stage-tea1 from what he describes as a gaseous invertebrate god--he has read ,haeckel--and winds up with a few brilliant heartless remarks3 ,i wish you gentlemen1 ghosts1 idols1 gods1 and demigods1 alive or dead1 to remember that you are assembled here this evening to honour me4 ,without me1 and my books and plays1 you would1 all of you1 be dead in earnest--dead literature as well as dead bones4 ,as for the living1 ,i'll have a shy at you some day4 ,i'm not fond of ,maeterlinck4 ,hear1 hear6 comes from ,debussy's mystic beard4 ,as for you1 ,maurice1 ,i can beat you hands down at bettering ,shakespeare1 and1 for ,richard ,strauss--well1 ,i've never tried orchestration1 but ,i'm sure ,i'd succeed as well as you---- ,oh1 please1 won't some one give me a roast-beef sandwich8 ,in ,russia ,i daren't eat meat on account of my disciples there and in ,england-- ,it is ,tolstoy who speaks4 ,shaw fixes him with an indignant look1 he1 the prince of vegetarians3 ,give him some salt1 he needs salting4 ,in tears1 ,tolstoy resumes his reading of the confessions of ,huysmans4 ,the band1 on the other side of the curtain1 swings into the ,kaisermarch4 ,stop them6 ,stop it6 screams ,wagner4 ,i'm a ,social-,democrat now4 ,i wrote that march when ,i was a ,monarchist4 ,this was the chance for ,nietzsche4 ,drawing up his tall1 lanky figure1 he began3 ,you mean1 ,herr ,geyer--to give you your real name--you wrote it for money4 ,you mean1 ,richard ,geyer1 that you cut your musical coat to suit your snobbish cloth4 ,you mean1 the ,wagner you never were1 that you wrote your various operas--which you call music-dramas--to flatter your various patrons4 ,parsifal for the decadent ,king ,ludwig---- ,pardieu6 this is too much4 ,manet's blond beard wagged with rage4 ,have we assembled this night to fight over ancient treacheries1 or are we met to do honour to the only man in ,england1 and an ,irishman at that1 who1 in his plays1 has kept alive the ideas of ,ibsen1 ,nietzsche1 ,wagner8 ,as for me1 ,i don't need such booming4 ,i'm a modest man4 ,i'm a painter4 ,hein6 ,you a painter6 ,sitting alone1 ,gerome discloses spiteful intonations in his voice4 ,yes1 a painter1 hotly replies ,manet4 ,and ,i'm in the ,louvre1 my ,olympe-- ,all the worse for the ,louvre1 sneers ,gerome4 ,the two men would have been at each other's throats if some one from the ,land of the ,midnight ,whiskers hadn't intervened4 ,it was ,henrik ,ibsen4 ,children1 he remarks1 in a strong ,norwegian brogue1 please to remember my dignity if not your own4 ,long before ,max ,stirner-- ,nietzsche interrupted3 ,there never was such a person4 ,ibsen calmly continued1 ,i wrote that 'my truth is the truth4' ,and when ,i see such so-called great men acting like children1 ,i regret having left my cool tomb in ,norway4 ,but where are the ,english dramatists1 our confreres8 ,ask the master of the revels4 ,ibsen sat down4 ,shaw pops in his head at a practicable door4 ,who calls8 ,we wish to know why our brethren1 the ,english playwrights1 are not bidden to meet us8 said ,maeterlinck1 after gravely bowing to ,ibsen4 ,smiling beatifically1 ,saint ,bernard replied3 ,because there ain't no such thing as an ,english dramatist4 ,the only ,english dramatist is ,irish4 ,he disappears4 ,ensues a lively argument4 ,he may be right1 exclaims ,maeterlinck1 yet ,i seem to have heard of ,pinero1 ,henry ,arthur ,jones1 ,barrie--well1 ,i'll have to ask the trusty ,a4 ,b4 ,c4 ,z4 ,walkley4 ,and the ,americans8 cries ,ibsen1 who is annoyed because ,richard ,strauss persists in asking for a symphonic scenario of ,peer ,gynt4 ,i'm sure1 the composer complains1 ,grieg will be forgotten if ,i write new incidental music for you4 ,ibsen looks at him sourly4 ,american dramatists1 or do you mean ,american millionaires8 ,manet interpolated4 ,no1 ,i fancy he means the ,american painters who imitate my pictures1 making them better than the originals1 and also getting better prices than ,i did4 ,what envy6 what slandering6 what envious feelings6 sighs ,nietzsche4 ,if my doctrine of the ,eternal ,recurrence of all things sublunary is a reality1 then ,i shall be sitting with these venomous spiders1 shall be in this identical spot a trillion of years hence4 ,oh1 horrors6 ,why was ,i born8 ,divided tones1 argues ,manet1 clutching ,whistler by his carmilion necktie1 are the only-- ,suddenly ,shaw leaps on the stage4 ,gentlemen1 gods1 ghosts1 idols1 ,i've bad news for you4 ,max ,nordau is in the audience4 ,nordau6 wails every one4 ,before the lights could be extinguished the guests were under the table4 ,no taking chances1 whispers ,nietzsche4 ,quoi donc6 who is this ,nordau--a spy of ,napoleon's8 demands ,hugo1 in bewildered accents4 ,for answer1 ,baudelaire shivers and intones3 ,o ,poe1 ,poe6 ,o ,edgar ,poe4 ,silence so profound that one hears the perspiration drop from ,wagner's massive brow4 ,third ,scene4 ,it still snows without4 ,max1 the only ,nordau1 stands in silent pride4 ,he is alone4 ,the erstwhile illuminated theatre is as dark as the ,hall of ,eblis4 ,gone the idols6 ,all4 ,i need but crack that old whip of ,decadence and they crumble4 ,so much for a mere word4 ,and now to work4 ,i'll write the unique tale of ,shaw's ,cave of ,idols1 for ,i alone witnessed the denouement4 ,he spoke aloud4 ,judge his chagrin when he heard the other ,max give him this cheery leading motive3 ,i saw it all--what a story for my weekly review4 ,how like a yellow pear-tree6 exclaims the disgusted theorist of mad genius4 ,nordau speeds his way1 as from the box-office comes the chink of silver4 ,it is ,g4 ,b4 ,s4 counting the cash4 ,who says a poet can't be a pragmatist8 ,the little ,maxixe calls out3 ,me1 too1 ,blarney6 ,remember ,i'm the only living replica of ,charles ,lamb4 ,you mean dead mutton1 tartly replied ,bernard4 ,the other giggled4 ,the same dear old whimsical cactus1 he cries2 but with all your faults we love you still--,i said still1 if that's possible for your tongue1 ,george1 quite still6 ,curtain4 ,,the ,,woman ,,who ,,buys ,she 7entering art gallery73 ,i wish to buy a ,titian for my bridge-whist this evening4 ,is it possible for you to send me one to the hotel in time8 ,he 7nervously elated73 ,impossible4 ,i sent the last ,titian we had in stock to ,mrs4 ,groats's ,dejeuner ,feroce4 ,she 7making a face73 ,that woman again4 ,oh1 dear1 how tiresome6 ,he 7eagerly73 ,but ,i can give you a ,raphael4 ,she 7dubiously73 ,raphael--who8 ,he 7magisterially73 ,there are three ,raphaels1 ,madame--the archangel of that name1 ,raphael ,sanzio1 the painter1 and ,raphael ,joseffy4 ,it is to the second one ,i allude4 ,perhaps you would like to see-- ,she 7hurriedly73 ,oh6 not at all4 ,i fancy it's all right4 ,send it up this afternoon1 or hadn't ,i better take it along in my car8 7,a shrill hurry-up booing is heard without4 ,it is the voice of the siren on a new one hundred horse-power ,cubist machine1 #aiah pattern47 ,she 7guiltily73 ,tiens6 ,that is my chauffeur1 ,constant4 ,the poor fellow4 ,he is always so hungry about this time4 ,by the way1 ,mr4 ,frame1 how much do you ask for that ,raphael8 ,my husband is so--yes1 really1 stingy this winter4 ,he says ,i buy too much1 forgetting we are all beggars1 anyhow4 ,and what is the subject8 ,i want something cheerful for the game1 you know4 ,it consoles the kickers who lose to look at a pretty picture4 ,he 7joyfully73 ,oh1 the price6 ,the subject6 ,a half-million is the price--surely not too much4 ,the picture is called ,the ,wooing of ,eve4 ,it has been engraved by ,bartolozzi4 ,oh1 oh1 it is a genuine ,raphael4 ,there are no more imitation old masters1 only modern art is forged nowadays4 ,she 7interrupting1 proudly73 ,bartolozzi1 the man who paints skinny women in ,florence1 something like ,boldini1 only in old-fashioned costumes8 ,he 7resignedly73 ,no1 ,madame4 ,possibly you allude to ,botticelli4 ,the ,bartolozzi ,i mention was a school friend of ,raphael or a cousin to ,michael ,angelo--,i've forgotten which4 ,that's why he engraved ,raphael's paintings4 7,he colours as he recalls conflicting dates47 ,she 7in a hurry73 ,it doesn't much matter1 ,mr4 ,frame1 ,i hate all this affectation over a lot of musty1 fusty pictures4 ,send it up with the bill4 ,i ought to win at least half the money from ,mrs4 ,stonerich4 7,she rushes away4 ,an odour of violets and stale cigarette smoke floats through the hallway4 ,the siren screams1 and a rumbling is heard in the middle distance47 ,he 7waking1 as if from a sweet dream1 vigorously shouts73 ,george1 ,george1 fetch down that canvas ,schmiere painted for us last summer1 and stencil it ,raphael ,sanzio4 ,yes--,s-a-n-z-i-o--got it8 ,hurry up6 ,i'm off for the day4 ,if any one 'phones1 ,i'm over at ,sherry's1 in the ,cafe4 7,saunters out1 swinging his stick1 and repeating the old ,russian proverb1 ,a dark forest is the heart of a woman47 ,,schools ,,in ,,art ,yes1 said the venerable auctioneer1 as he shook his white head1 yes1 ,i watch them coming and going1 coming and going4 ,one year it's light pictures1 another it's dark4 ,the public is a woman4 ,what fashion dictates to a woman she scrupulously follows4 ,she sports bonnets one decade1 big picture hats the next4 ,so1 the public that loves art--or thinks it loves art4 ,it used to be the ,hudson ,river school4 ,and then ,chase and those landscape fellows came over from ,europe1 where they got a lot of new-fangled notions4 ,do you remember ,eastman ,johnson8 ,he was my man for years4 ,do you remember the ,fortuny craze8 ,his ,gamblers1 some figures sitting on the grass8 ,well1 sir1 seventeen thousand dollars that canvas fetched4 ,big price for forty-odd years ago4 ,bang up8 ,of course4 ,meissonier1 ,bouguereau1 and ,detaille came in4 ,we couldn't sell them fast enough4 ,i guess the picture counterfeiters' factories up on ,montmartre were kept busy those times4 ,it was after our ,civil ,war4 ,there were a lot of mushroom millionaires who couldn't tell a chromo from a ,gerome4 ,those were the chaps we liked4 ,i often began with3 ',ten thousand dollars--who offers me ten thousand dollars for this magnificent ,munkaczy8' ,nowadays ,i couldn't give away ,munkaczy as a present4 ,he is too black4 ,our people ask for flashing colours4 ,rainbows4 ,fireworks4 ,the new school8 ,yes1 ,i'm free to admit that the ,barbizon men have had their day4 ,mind you1 ,i don't claim they are falling off4 ,a few seasons ago a ,troyon held its own against any ,manet you put up4 ,but the #ahcj chaps are scarcer in the market1 and the picture cranks are beginning to tire of the dull greys1 soft blues1 and sober skies4 ,the ,barbizons drove out ,meissonier and his crowd4 ,then ,monet and the ,impressionists sent the ,barbizons to the wall4 ,i tell you the public is a woman4 ,it craves novelty4 ,what's that8 ,interested in the greater truth of ,post-,impressionism8 ,excuse me1 my dear sir1 but that's pure rot4 ,the public doesn't give a hang for technique4 ,it wants a change4 ,indeed8 ,really8 ,they have made a success1 those young whippersnappers1 the ,cubists4 ,such cubs6 ,well1 ,i'm not surprised4 ,perhaps our public is tiring of the ,academy4 ,perhaps young ,american painters may get their dues--some day4 ,we may even export them4 ,i've been an art auctioneer man and boy over fifty years1 and ,i tell you again the public is a woman4 ,one year it's dark paint1 another it's light4 ,bonnets or hats4 ,silks or satins4 ,lean or stout4 ,all right4 ,coming--coming6 ,clearing his throat1 the old auctioneer slowly moves away4 ,,the ,,joy ,,of ,,staring ,watch the mob4 ,watch it staring4 ,like cattle behind the rails which bar a fat green field they pass at leisure1 ruminating1 or its equivalent1 gum-chewing1 passing masterpiece after masterpiece1 only to let their gaze joyfully light upon some silly canvas depicting a thrice-stupid anecdote4 ,the socialists assure us that the herd is the ideal of the future4 ,we must think1 see1 feel with the ,people4 ,our brethren6 ,mighty idea--but a stale one before ,noah entered the ark4 ,let us go to the people1 cried ,tolstoy4 ,but we are the people4 ,how can we go to a place when we are already there8 ,and the people surge before a picture which represents an old woman kissing her cow4 ,or1 standing with eyeballs agog1 they count the metal buttons on the coat of the ,meissonier ,cuirassier4 ,it is great art4 ,let the public be educated4 ,down with the new realism--which only recalls to us the bitterness and meanness of our mediocre existence4 7,are we not all middle-class87 ,how1 then1 can art be aristocratic8 ,why art at all8 ,give us the cinematograph--pictures that act4 ,squeaking records4 ,canned vocally1 ,caruso is worth a wilderness of ,wagner monkeys4 ,or self-playing unmusical machines4 ,or chromos4 ,therefore1 let us joyfully stare4 ,instead of your step1 watch the mob4 ,a ,,dilettante ,he is a little old fellow1 with a slight glaze over the pupils of his eyes4 ,he is never dressed in the height of the fashion1 yet1 when he enters a gallery1 salesmen make an involuntary step in his direction2 then they get to cover as speedily as possible1 grumbling3 ,look out6 it's only the old bird again4 ,but one of them is always nailed2 there is no escaping the ,barmecide4 ,he thinks he knows more about etchings than ,kennedy or ,keppel1 and when ,montross and ,macbeth tell him of ,american art1 he violently contradicts them4 ,he is the embittered dilettante2 embittered1 because with his moderate means he can never hope to own even the most insignificant of the treasures exposed under his eyes every day1 week1 and month in the year4 ,so he rails at the dealers1 inveighs against the artists1 and haunts auction-rooms4 ,he never bids1 but is extremely solicitous about the purchases of other people4 ,he has been known to sit for hours on a small print1 until1 in despair1 the owner leaves4 ,then1 with infinite precautions1 our amateur arises1 so contriving matters that his hard-won victory is not discovered by profane and prying eyes4 ,once at home1 he gloats over his prize1 showing it to a favoured few4 ,he bought it4 ,he selected it4 ,it is a tribute to his exquisite taste4 ,and the listeners are beaten into dismayed silence by his vociferations1 by his agile1 ape-like skippings and parrot ejaculations4 ,withal1 he is not a criminal1 only a monomaniac of art4 ,he sometimes mistakes a ,whistler for a ,duerer2 but he puts the blame upon his defective eyesight4 ,,the ,,city ,,of ,,brotherly ,,noise ,philadelphia is the noisiest city in ,north ,america4 ,if you walk about any of the narrow streets of this cold-storage abode of ,brotherly ,love you will soon see tottering on its legs the venerable ,new ,york joke concerning the cemetery-like stillness of the abode of brotherly love4 ,over there the nerve shock is ultra-dynamic4 ,as for sleep1 it is out of the question4 ,why1 then1 will ask the puzzled student of national life1 does the venerable witticism persist in living8 ,the answer is that in the ,united ,states a truth promulgated a century ago never dies4 ,we are a race of humourists4 ,noise-breeding trolley-cars1 constricted streets that vibrate with the clangour of the loosely jointed machinery1 an army of carts and the cries of vegetable venders1 a multitude of jostling people making for the ferries on the ,delaware or the bridges on the ,schuylkill rivers1 together with the hum of vast manufactories1 all these and a thousand other things place ,new ,york in a more modest category2 in reality our own city emits few pipes in comparison with the ,city of ,brotherly ,noise which sprawls over the map of ,pennsylvania4 ,yet it is called dead and moss-grown4 ,the antique joke flourishes the world over2 in ,philadelphia it is stunned by the welter and crush of life and politics4 ,oscar ,hammerstein first crossed the ,rubicon of ,market ,street4 ,the mountain of society was forced to go northward to this ,mahomet of operatic music2 else forego ,richard ,strauss1 ,debussy1 ,massenet1 ,mary ,garden1 and ,oscar's famous head-tile4 ,what a feat to boast of6 ,for hundreds of years ,market ,street had been the balking-line of supernice ,philadelphians4 ,above the delectable region north of the ,city ,hall and ,penn's statue was ,cimmerian darkness4 ,hammerstein1 with his opera company1 accomplished the miracle4 ,perfectly proper persons now say ,girard ,avenue or ,spring ,garden without blushing1 because of their increased knowledge of municipal topography4 ,society trooped northward4 ,motor-cars from ,rittenhouse ,square were seen near ,poplar ,street4 ,philadelphia boasts a much superior culture in the crustacean line4 ,the best fried oysters in the world are to be found there4 ,terrapin is the local god4 ,and ,dennis ,mc,gowan of ,sansom ,street hangs his banners on the outer walls2 within1 red-snapper soup and deviled crabs make the heart grow fonder4 ,the difference in the handling of the social hammer between ,philadelphia and ,new ,york1 or ,boston and ,philadelphia1 may be thus illustrated3 ,at the clubs in ,philadelphia they say3 ,dabs is going fast4 ,pity he drinks4 ,did you see the seven cocktails he got away with before dinner last night8 ,in ,boston they say3 ,dabs is quite hopeless4 ,this afternoon he mixed up ,botticelli with ,botticini4 ,of course1 after that--6 ,now1 in ,new ,york1 we usually dismiss the case in this fashion3 ,dabs went smash this morning4 ,the limit6 ,serves the idiot right4 ,he never would take proper tips4 ,here are certain social characteristics of three cities set forth by kindly disposed clubmen4 ,as the ,chinese say3 ,an image-maker never worships his idols4 ,we prefer the ,cambodian sage who remarked3 ,in hell1 it's bad form to harp on the heat4 ,,the ,,socialist ,the socialist is not always sociable4 ,nor is there any reason why he should be4 ,he usually brings into whatever company he frequents his little pailful of theories and dumps them willy-nilly on the carpet of conversation4 ,he enacts the eternal farce of equality for all1 justice for none4 ,the mob1 not the individual1 is his shibboleth4 ,yet he is the first to resent any tap on his shoulder in the way of personal criticism4 ,he has been in existence since the coral atoll was constructed by that tiny1 busy1 gregarious creature1 and in the final cosmic flare-up he will vanish in company with his fellow man4 ,he is nothing if not collective4 ,his books1 written in his own tongue1 are translated into every living language except sound ,english1 which is inimical to jargon4 ,if his communal dreams could come true he would charge his neighbour with cheating above his position2 being a reformer1 the fire of envy brightly burns in his belly--a sinister conflagration akin to that of ,ram ,dass 7see ,carlyle74 ,in the thick twilight of his reason he vaguely wanders1 reading every new book about socialism till his confusion grows apace and is thrice confounded4 ,from ignorance to arrogance is but a step4 ,at the rich table of life1 groaning with good things1 he turns away1 preferring to chew the dry cud of self-satisfaction4 ,he would commit ,barmecide rather than surrender his theory of the unearned increment4 ,he calls ,shaw and ,wells traitors because they see the humorous side of their doctrines and1 occasionally1 make mock of them4 ,the varieties of lady socialists are too numerous to study4 ,it may be said of them1 without fear of being polite1 that females rush in where fools fear to tread4 ,but1 then1 the woman who hesitates--usually gets married4 ,,the ,,critic ,,who ,,gossips ,he has a soul like a ,persian rug4 ,many-coloured are his ways1 his speech4 ,he delights in alliteration of colours1 and avails himself of it when he dips pen into ink4 ,he is fond of confusing the technical terms of the ,seven ,arts1 writing that stuffing the ballot-box is no greater crime than constipated harmonics4 ,but what he doesn't know is that such expressions as gamut of colours1 scales1 harmonies1 tonal values belong to the art of painting1 and not alone to music4 ,he is fonder of anecdote and gossip than of history4 ,but what's the use6 ,you can't carve rotten wood4 ,our critic will quote for you1 with his gimlet eye of a specialist boring into your own1 the story which was whispered to ,anthony ,trollope 7in #aheg1 please don't forget7 if he would be so kind 7it was at the ,uffizi ,galleries1 ,florence7 as to show him the way to the ,medical ,venus4 ,this is marvellous humour1 and worth a ton of critical comment 7which1 by ,apollo6 it be74 ,but1 as ,baudelaire puts it3 ,nations1 like families1 produce great men against their will2 and our critic is produced1 not made4 ,in the realm of the blind1 the cock-eyed is king4 ,the critic is said to be the most necessary nuisance--after women--in this movie world of ours4 ,but all human beings are critics1 aren't they8 ,,the ,,mock ,,psychiatrist ,if for the dog the world is a smell1 for the eagle a picture1 for the politician a ,nibelung hoard1 then for the psychiatrist life is a huge1 throbbing nerve4 ,he dislikes1 naturally1 the antivivisectionists1 but enjoys the moral vivisection of his fellow creatures4 ,it's a mad world for him1 my masters6 ,and if your ears taper at the top1 beware6 ,you have the morals of a faun2 or1 if your arms be lengthy1 you are a reversion to a prehistoric type4 ,the only things that are never too long1 for our friend the expert of rare phobias1 are his bills and the length of his notice in the newspapers4 ,if he agrees with ,charles ,lamb that ,adam and ,eve in ,milton's ,paradise behave too much like married people1 he quickly resents any tracing of a religion to an instinct or a perception4 ,he maintains that religious feeling is only a mode of reaction1 and our conscience but a readjusting apparatus4 ,his trump-card is the abnormal case1 and if he can catch tripping a musician1 a poet1 a painter1 he is professionally happy4 ,homer nodded4 ,shakespeare plagiarised4 ,beethoven drank4 ,mozart liked his wife's sister4 ,chopin coughed4 ,turner was immoral4 ,wagner1 a little how-come-ye-so6 ,hurray6 ,cracked souls1 and a ,donnybrook ,fair of the emotions4 ,the psychiatrist can diagnose anything from rum-thirst to sudden death4 ,nevertheless1 in his endeavour to assume the outward appearance of a veritable man of science1 the psychiatrist reminds one of the hermit-crab as described in ,e4 ,h4 ,banfield's ,confessions of a ,beach ,comber 7p4 #acb74 ,the disinterested spectator1 remarks ,professor ,banfield1 may smile at the vain1 yet frantically anxious efforts of the hermit-crab to coax his flabby rear into a shell obviously a flattering misfit2 but it is not a smiling matter to him4 ,not until he has exhausted a programme of ingenious attitudes and comic contortions is the attempt to stow away a ,no4 #h tail in a ,no4 #e shell abandoned4 ,the mock psychiatrist is the hermit-crab of psychology4 ,and of the living he has never been known to speak a word of praise4 ,,chapter ,,xxiii ,,the ,,reformation ,,of ,,george ,,moore ,i ,dear naughty ,george ,moore--sad1 bad1 mad--has reformed4 ,he tells us why in his book1 ,vale1 the ,english edition of which ,i was lucky enough to read2 for1 the ,american edition is expurgated1 nay1 fumigated1 as was the ,memoirs of ,my ,dead ,life by the same ,celtic ,casanova4 ,vale completes the trilogy2 ,hail and ,farewell1 ,ave and ,salve being the titles of the preceding two4 ,in the first1 ,moore is sufficiently vitriolic1 and in ,salve he serves up ,george ,russell1 the poet and painter1 better known as ,,ae4 in a more sympathetic fashion4 ,when ,vale was announced several years ago as on the brink of completion ,i was moved to write3 ,i suppose when the final book appears it means that ,george ,moore has put up the shutters of his soul1 not to say1 his shop4 ,but ,i have my serious doubts4 ,after reading ,vale ,i still had them4 ,only death will end the streaming confessions of this writer4 ,he who lives by the pen shall perish by the pen4 7,this latter sentence is not a quotation from the sacred books of any creed1 merely the conviction of a slave chained to the ink-well47 ,i said that ,vale is expurgated for ,american consumption4 ,certainly4 ,we are so averse to racy1 forcible ,english in ,america--thanks to the mean1 narrow spirit in our arts and letters--that a hearty oath scares us into the ,brooklyn backyard of our timid conscience4 ,george calls a spade a spade1 and he delights on stirring up rank malodorous soil with his war-worn agricultural implement4 ,when he returned some years ago to ,dublin1 there to help in the national literary and artistic movement1 he found a devoted band of brethren3 ,william ,butler ,yeats1 ,lady ,gregory1 ,douglas ,hyde1 ,john ,m4 ,synge1 ,edward ,martyn1 ,russell1 and others4 ,i shan't attempt even a brief mention of the neo-,celtic awakening4 ,yeats was the prime instigator1 also the storm-centre4 ,he literally discovered ,synge1 the dramatist--in reality the only strong man of the group1 the only dramatist of originality--and1 with his exquisite lyric gift1 he1 also discovered a new ,ireland1 a fabulous1 beautiful ,erin1 unsuspected by ,tom ,moore1 ,samuel ,lover1 ,carleton1 ,mangan1 ,lever1 and the too busy ,boucicault4 ,as ,i soon found out1 when there1 ,dublin is a vast whispering gallery4 ,delightful1 hospitable ,dublin is also a provincial town1 given to gossip and backbiting4 ,say something about somebody in the smoking-room of the ,shelbourne1 and a few hours later the clubs will be repeating it4 ,mr4 ,moore said things every hour in the day1 and in less than six days he had sown for himself a fine crop of enemies4 ,to get even he conceived the idea of writing a series of novels1 with real people bearing their own names4 ,that he hasn't been shot at1 horsewhipped1 or sued for libel thus far is just his usual good luck4 ,vale is largely a book of capricious insults4 ,but then the facts it sets down in cruel type6 ,when the years have removed the actors therein from the earthly scene1 our grandchildren will chuckle over ,moore's unconscious humour and ,pepys-like chronicling of small-beer4 ,for the social historian this trilogy will prove a mine of gossip1 rich veracious gossip4 ,it throws a calcium glare on the soul of the author1 who1 self-confessed1 is now old1 and no longer a dangerous ,don ,juan4 ,in real life he was1 as far as ,i can make out1 not particularly a monster of iniquity2 but1 oh6 in his ,confessions and ,memoirs what a rake was he4 ,how the lascivious lute did sound4 ,some of the pages of the new volume 7see pp4 #bgd-bgh1 ,english edition71 in which he describes his tactics to avoid a kiss 7kissing gives him a headache in these lonesome latter years1 though he was only born in #aheg71 is to set you wondering over the frankness of the man4 ,walter ,pater once called him audacious ,george ,moore1 and audacious he is with pen and ink4 ,otherwise1 like ,bernard ,shaw1 he is not looking for physical quarrels4 ,he once spoke of ,shaw as the funny man in a boarding-house1 though he never mentions his name in his memoirs4 ,he doesn't like ,yeats2 what's more1 he prints the news as often and as elaborately as possible4 ,in the present book he doesn't exactly compare ,yeats to a crane or a pelican1 but he calls attention to the fact that the poet belonged to the lower middle-class4 ,it seems that ,yeats had been thundering away at the artistic indifference of the ,dublin bourgeoisie4 ,now1 looking at ,yeats the night when ,john ,quinn gave him a dinner at ,delmonico's1 you could not note any resemblance to exotic birds1 though he might recall a penguin4 ,he was very solemn1 very bored1 very fatigued1 his eyes deep sunken from fatigue4 ,posing as a tame parlour poet for six weeks had tired the man to his very bones4 ,but catch him in private with his waistcoat unbuttoned--,i speak figuratively--and you will enjoy a born raconteur1 one who slowly distils witty poison at the tip of every anecdote1 till1 bursting with glee1 you cry3 ,how these literary men do love each other6 ,how one ,irishman dotes on another6 ,yeats may be an exception to the rule that a poet is as vain and as irritable as a tenor4 ,i didn't notice the irritability1 finding him taking himself seriously1 as should all apostles of culture and ,celtic twilight4 ,he got even with ,george ,moore's virulent attacks by telling a capital story1 which he confessed was invented1 one that went all over ,dublin and ,london4 ,when ,george felt the call of a ,protestant conversion he was in ,dublin4 ,he has told us of his difficulties1 mental and temperamental4 ,one day some question of dogma presented itself and he hurried to the ,cathedral for advice4 ,he sent in his name to the ,archbishop1 and that forgetful dignitary exclaimed3 ,moore1 ,moore1 oh1 that man again6 ,well1 give him another pair of blankets4 ,in later versions1 coals1 candles1 even shillings1 were added to the apocryphal anecdote--which1 by the way1 set smiling the usually impassive ,moore1 who can see a joke every now and then4 ,better still is the true tale of ,george1 who boasts much in ,vale of his riding dangerous mounts2 and when challenged at an ,english country house did get on the back of a vicious animal and ride to hounds the better part of a day4 ,he wouldn't1 quite properly1 take the dare1 although when he reached his room he found his boots full of blood4 ,so there is sporting temper in him4 ,any one reading his ,esther ,waters may note that he knows the racing stable by heart4 ,in ,vale he describes his father's stable at ,castle ,moore1 ,county ,mayo4 ,of course1 this is not the time to attempt an estimate of his complete work1 for who may say what fresh outbursts1 what new imprudences in black and white1 we may expect8 ,he has paid his respects to his fellow countrymen1 and is heartily despised by all camps1 political1 religious1 artistic4 ,he has belittled the work of ,lady ,gregory1 ,yeats1 and ,edwin ,martyn1 and has rather patronised ,john ,m4 ,synge2 the latter1 possibly1 because ,synge was discovered by ,yeats1 not ,moore4 ,yet do we enjoy the vagaries of ,george ,moore4 ,i only saw him once1 a long time ago1 to be precise in #aija1 at ,bayreuth4 ,he looked more like a bird than ,yeats1 though his beak is not so predaceous as ,yeats's2 a golden-crested bird1 with a chin as diffident as a poached egg1 and with melancholy pale-blue eyes1 and an undecided gait4 ,he talked of the ,irish language as if it were the only redemption for poor unhappy ,ireland4 ,in ,vale there is not the same enthusiasm4 ,he dwells with more delight on his early ,parisian experiences--it is the best part of the book--and to my way of thinking the essential ,george ,moore is to be found only in ,paris2 ,london is an afterthought4 ,the ,paris of ,manet1 ,monet1 ,degas1 ,whistler1 ,huysmans1 ,zola1 ,verlaine1 and all the new men of #ahhj--what an unexplored vein he did work for the profit and delectation of the ,english-speaking world4 ,true critical yeoman's work1 for to preach impressionism twenty-five years ago in ,london was to court a rumpus4 ,what hard names were rained upon the yellow head of ,george ,moore--that colour so admired by ,manet and so wonderfully painted by him--in the academic camp4 ,he replied with all the vivacity of vocabulary which your true ,celt usually has on tap4 ,he even went for the ,pre-,raphaelites1 a band of overrated mediocrities--on the pictorial side1 at least--though ,john ,millais was a talent--and for years was as a solitary prophet in a city of ,philistines4 ,the world caught up with ,moore1 and to-day the shoe pinches on the other foot--it is ,george who is a belated critic of the ,new ,art 7most of it as stale as the ,medes and ,persians71 and many are the wordy battles waged at the ,cafe ,royal1 ,london1 when ,augustus ,john happens in of an evening and finds the author of ,modern ,painting denouncing ,debussy in company with ,matisse and other ,post-,imitators4 ,manet1 like ,moore1 is old hat 7vieux chapeau7 for modern youth4 ,it's well to go to bed not too late in life1 else some impertinent youngster may cry aloud3 ,what's that venerable granddaddy doing up at this time of night8 ,to each generation its critics4 ,,ii ,in one of his fulminations against ,christianity ,nietzsche said that the first and only ,christian died on the cross4 ,george ,moore thinks otherwise1 at least he gives a novel version of the narrative in the synoptic ,gospels4 ,the ,brook ,kerith is a fiction dealing with the life of ,christ4 ,it is a book that will offend the faithful1 and one that will not convince the heterodox4 ,in it ,george ,moore sets forth his ideas concerning the ,christ myth1 evoking1 as does ,flaubert in ,salammbo1 a vanished land1 a vanished civilisation1 and in a style that is artistically beautiful4 ,never has he written with such sustained power1 intensity and nobility of phrasing1 such finely tempered1 modulated prose4 ,it is a rhythmed prose which first peeped forth in some pages of ,mr4 ,moore's ,evelyn ,innes when the theme bordered on the mystical4 ,yet it is of an essentially ,celtic character4 ,mysticism and ,moore do not seem bedfellows4 ,nevertheless1 ,mr4 ,moore has been haunted from his first elaborate novel1 ,a ,drama in ,muslin1 by mystic and theological questions4 ,a pagan by temperament1 his soul is the soul of an ,irish ,roman ,catholic4 ,he can no more escape the fascinating ideas of faith and salvation than did ,huysmans4 7,he has taken exception to this statement in an open letter47 ,a realist at the beginning1 he has leaned of late years heavily on the side of the spirit4 ,but like ,baudelaire1 ,barbey d',aurevilly1 ,villiers de ,l',isle ,adam1 ,paul ,verlaine1 and ,huysmans1 ,mr4 ,moore is one of those sons of ,mother ,church who give anxious pause to his former coreligionists4 ,the ,brook ,kerith will prove a formidable rock of offence1 and it may be said that it was on the ,index before it was written4 ,and yet we find in it ,george ,moore among the prophets4 ,perhaps ,mr4 ,moore has read the critical work of ,professor ,arthur ,drews1 ,the ,christ ,myth4 ,it is a masterpiece of destruction4 ,there are many books in which ,jesus ,christ figures4 ,ernest ,renan's ,life1 written in his silky and sophisticated style1 is no more admired by ,christians than the cruder study by ,strauss4 ,after these the deluge1 ending with the dream by the late ,remy de ,gourmont1 ,une ,nuit au ,luxembourg4 ,and there is the brilliant and poetic study of ,edgar ,saltus1 his ,mary ,magdalen4 ,anatole ,france has distilled into his ,the ,revolt of the ,angels some of his acid hatred of all religions1 with blasphemous and obscene notes not missing4 ,it may be remembered that ,m4 ,france also wrote that pastel of irony ,the ,procurator of ,judea1 in which ,pontius ,pilate is shown in his old age1 rich1 ennuied1 sick4 ,he has quite forgotten1 when asked1 about the ,jewish agitator who fancied himself the son of ,god and was given over to the ,temple authorities in ,jerusalem and crucified4 ,rising from the tomb on the third day he became the ,christ of the ,christian dispensation1 aided by the religious genius of one ,paul1 formerly known as ,saul the ,tent-maker of ,tarsus4 ,now ,mr4 ,moore does in a larger mould and in the grand manner what ,anatole ,france accomplished in his miniature4 ,the ironic method1 a tragic irony1 suffuses every page of ,the ,brook ,kerith1 and the story of the four ,gospels is twisted into something perverse1 and for ,christians altogether shocking4 ,it will be called blasphemous1 but we must remember that our national ,constitution makes no allowance for so-called blasphemers2 that the mythologies of the ,greeks and ,romans1 ,jews and ,christians1 ,mohammedans and ,mormons may be criticised1 yet the criticism is not inherently blasphemous4 ,america is no more a ,christian than a ,jewish nation or a nation of freethinkers4 ,it is free to all races and religions1 and thus one man's spiritual meat may be another's emetic4 ,having cleared our mind of cant1 let us investigate ,the ,brook ,kerith4 ,the title is applied to a tiny community of ,jewish mystics1 the ,essenes1 who lived near this stream2 perhaps the ,scriptural ,kedron8 ,this brotherhood had separated from the materialistic ,pharisees and ,sadducees1 not approving of burnt sacrifices or ,temple worship2 furthermore1 they practised celibacy till a schism within their ranks drove the minority away from the parent body to shift for themselves4 ,a young shepherd1 ,jesus of ,nazareth1 son of ,joseph1 a carpenter in ,galilee1 and of ,miriam1 his mother--they have other sons--is a member of this community4 ,but too much meditation on the prophecies of ,daniel and the meeting with a wandering prophet1 ,john the ,baptist1 the precursor of the long-foretold ,messiah1 lead him astray4 ,baptised in the waters of ,jordan1 ,jesus becomes a theomaniac--he believes himself to be the son of ,god1 appointed by the heavenly father to save mankind2 especially his fellow ,jews4 ,filled with a fanatical fire1 he leads away a dozen disciples1 poor1 ignorant fishermen4 ,he also attracts the curiosity of ,joseph1 the only son of a rich merchant of ,arimathea4 ,two-thirds of the novel are devoted to the psychology of this youthful philosopher1 who1 inducted into the wisdom of the ,greek sophists1 is1 notwithstanding1 a fervent ,jew1 a rigid upholder of the ,law and the ,prophets4 ,the dialogues between father and son rather recall ,erin1 hardly ,syria4 ,joseph becomes interested in ,jesus1 follows him about1 and the fatal day of the crucifixion he beseeches his friend ,pilate to let him have the body of his ,lord for a worthy interment4 ,pilate demurs1 then accedes4 ,joseph1 with the aid of the two holy women ,mary and ,martha1 places the corpse of the dead divinity in a sepulchre4 ,if ,joseph hadn't been killed by the zealots of ,jerusalem 7heated to this murder by the ,high ,priest7 the title of the book might have been ,joseph of ,arimathea4 ,he is easily the most viable figure4 ,jesus is too much of the god from the machine2 but he serves the author for the development of his ingenious theory4 ,finding the ,christ still alive1 ,joseph carries him secretly and after dark to the house of his father1 hides him and listens unmoved to the fantastic tales of a resurrection4 ,but the spies of ,caiaphas are everywhere1 ,jesus is in danger of a second crucifixion1 so ,joseph takes him back to the ,essenes1 where he resumes his old occupation of herding sheep4 ,feeble in mind and body1 he gradually wins back health and spiritual peace4 ,he regrets his former arrogance and blasphemy and ascribes the aberration to the insidious temptings of the demon4 ,it seems that in those troubled days the cities and countryside were infested by madmen1 messiahs1 redeemers1 preaching the speedy destruction of the world4 ,for a period ,jesus called himself a son of ,god and threatened his fellow men with fire and the sword4 ,till he was five and fifty years ,jesus lived with his flocks4 ,the idyllic pictures are in ,mr4 ,moore's most charming vein2 sober1 as befits the dignity of the theme4 ,he has fashioned an undulating prose1 each paragraph a page long1 which flows with some of the clarity and music of a style once derided by him1 the style coulant of that master of harmonies1 ,cardinal ,newman4 ,he is a great landscape-painter4 ,jesus is aging4 ,he gives up his shepherd's crook to his successor and contemplates a retreat where he may meditate the thrilling events of his youth4 ,then ,paul of ,tarsus intervenes4 ,he is vigorously painted4 ,a refugee from ,jerusalem1 with ,timothy lost somewhere in ,galilee1 he invades the ,essenian monastery4 ,eloquent pages follow4 ,paul relates his adventures under the banner of ,jesus ,christ4 ,a disputatious man1 full of the ,lord1 yet not making it any easier for his disciples4 ,you catch a glimpse of ,pauline ,christianity1 differing from the tender message of ,jesus2 that ,jesus of whom ,havelock ,ellis wrote3 ,jesus found no successor4 ,over the stage of those gracious and radiant scenes swiftly fell a fireproof curtain1 wrought of systematic theology and formal metaphysics1 which even the divine flames of that wonderful personality were unable to melt4 ,if this be the case then ,paul was1 if not the founder1 the foster-father of the new creed4 ,a seer of epileptic visions--,edgar ,saltus has said of the sacred disease that all founders of religions have been epileptics--,paul1 with the intractable temperament of a stubborn ,pharisee1 was softened by some ,greek blood1 yet as ,renan wrote of ,amiel3 ,he speaks of sin1 of salvation1 of redemption and conversion1 and other theological bric-a-brac1 as if these things were realities4 ,for ,paul and those who followed him they were and are realities2 from them is spun the web of our modern civilisation4 ,the dismay of ,paul on learning from the lips of ,jesus that he it was who1 crucified1 came back to life may be fancy4 ,the sturdy ,apostle1 who recalled the reproachful words of ,jesus issuing from the blinding light on the road to ,damascus3 ,paul1 ,paul1 why persecutest thou me8 naturally enough denounced ,jesus as a madman1 but accepted his services as a guide to ,caesarea1 where1 in company with ,timothy1 he hoped to embark for ,rome1 there to spread the glad tidings1 there to preach the ,gospel of ,christ and ,him crucified4 ,on the way he cautiously extracts from ,jesus1 whose memory of his cruel tormentors is halting1 parts of his story4 ,he believes him a half-crazy fanatic1 deluded with the notion that he is the original ,jesus of ,nazareth4 ,jesus gently expounds his theories1 though ,george ,moore pulls the wires4 ,a pantheism that ends in ,nirvana1 ,neant1 ,nada1 ,nothing6 ,despairing of ever forcing the world to see the light1 he is become a ,quietist1 almost a ,buddhist4 ,he might have quoted the mystic ,joachim ,flora--of the ,third ,kingdom--who said that the true ascetic counts nothing his own save only his harp4 7,qui vere monachus est nihil reputat esse suum nisi citharam47 ,when a man's cross becomes too heavy a burden to carry then let him cast it away4 ,jesus cast his cross away--his spiritual ambition--believing that too great love of ,god leads to propagation of the belief1 then to hatred and persecution of them that won't believe4 ,the ,jews1 says ,jesus1 are an intolerant1 stiff-necked people2 they love ,god1 yet they hate men4 ,horrified at all this1 ,paul parts company with the ,son of ,man1 secretly relieved to hear that he is not going1 as he had contemplated1 to give himself up to ,hanan1 the ,high ,priest in ,jerusalem1 to denounce the falseness of the heretical sect named after him4 ,paul1 without crediting the story1 saw in ,jesus a dangerous rival4 ,the last we hear of the divine shepherd is a rumour that he may join a roving band of ,east ,indians and go to the source of all beliefs1 to ,asia1 impure1 mysterious ,asia2 the mother of mystic cults4 ,paul too disappears1 and on the little coda3 ,the rest of his story is unknown4 ,we are fain to believe that the rest of his story is very well known in the wide world4 ,the book is another milestone along ,mr4 ,moore's road to ,damascus4 ,if1 as ,charles ,baudelaire has said1 ,superstition is the reservoir of all truths1 then1 we have lost our spiritual bearings in the dark forest of modern rationalism4 ,to be sure1 we have a ,yankee ,pope ,joan1 a ,messiah in petticoats who has uttered the illuminating phrase1 ,my first and for ever message is one and eternal1 which is no more a parody of ,holy ,writ than ,the ,brook ,kerith1 a book which while it must have given its author pains to write--so full of ,talmudic and ,oriental lore and the lore of the apocryphal gospels is it--must have been also a joy to him as a literary artist4 ,the poignant irony of ,paul's disbelief in the real ,jesus is understandable1 though it is bound to raise a chorus of protestations4 ,but ,mr4 ,moore never worried over abuse4 ,he has1 ,celt that he is1 followed his vision4 ,in every man's heart there is a lake1 he says1 and the lake in his heart is a sombre one1 a very pool of incertitudes4 ,one feels like quoting to him--though it would be unnecessary1 as he knows well the quotation--what ,barbey d',aurevilly once wrote to ,baudelaire1 and years later of ,joris-,karel ,huysmans1 that he would either blow out his brains or prostrate himself at the foot of the cross4 ,mr4 ,moore has in the past made his genuflections4 ,but they were before the ,jesus of his native religion2 the poetic though not profound image he has created in his new book will never seem the godlike man of whom ,browning said in ,saul3 ,shall throw open the gates of new life to thee4 ,see the ,christ stand6 ,,chapter ,,xxiv ,,pillowland ,in his immortal essay on the flat swamp of convalescence ,charles ,lamb speaks from personal experience of the king-like way the sick man sways his pillow--tumbling1 and tossing1 and shifting1 and lowering1 and thumping1 and flatting1 and moulding it1 to the ever-varying requisitions of his throbbing temples4 ,he changes sides oftener than a politician4 ,how true this is--even to the italicised word--,i discovered for myself after a personal encounter with the malignant ,pneumococcus1 backed up by his ally1 the pleurisy4 ,such was the novelty of my first serious illness that it literally took my breath away4 ,when ,i recovered my normal wind ,i found myself monarch of all ,i surveyed1 my kingdom a bed1 yet seemingly a land without limit1--who dares circumscribe the imagination of an invalid8 ,as to the truth of ,mr4 ,lamb's remarks on the selfishness of the sick man there can be no denial4 ,his pillow is his throne--from it he issues his orders for the day1 his bulletins for the night4 ,the nurse is his prime minister1 his right hand2 with her moral alliance he is enabled to defy a host of officious advisers4 ,but woe betide him if nurse and spouse plot against him4 ,then he is helpless4 ,then he is past saving4 ,his little pet schemes are shattered in the making4 ,he is shifted and mauled4 ,he is prodded and found wanting4 ,no hope for the helpless devil as his face is scrubbed1 his hands made clean1 his miserable tangled hair combed straight4 ,in ,pillowland what ,avatar8 ,none1 alas6 ,nevertheless1 your pillow is your best friend1 your only confidant4 ,in its cool yielding depths you whisper 7yes1 one is reduced to an evasive whisper1 such is the cowardice superinduced by physical weakness7 ,bedpans are not for bedouins4 ,i'll have none of them4 ,and then you swallow the next bitter pill the nurse offers4 ,suffering ennobles1 wrote ,nietzsche4 ,i suppose he is right1 but in my case the nobility is yet to appear4 ,meek1 terribly meek1 sickness makes one4 ,you suffer a sea change1 and without richness4 ,the most annoying part of the business is that you were not consulted as to your choice of maladies2 worse remains3 you are not allowed to cure yourself4 ,i loathe pneumonia1 since ,i came to grips with the beast4 ,the next time ,i'll go out of my way to select some exotic fever4 ,then my doctor will be vastly intrigued4 ,i had a common or garden variety of lung trouble4 ,pooh6 his eyes seemed to say--,i read their meaning with the clairvoyance of the defeated--we shall have this fellow on his hind-legs in a jiffy4 ,and ,i didn't want to get well too rapidly4 ,like ,saint ,augustine ,i felt like praying with a slight change of text3 ,give me chastity and constancy1 but not yet4 ,give1 ,i said to my doctor1 health1 but let me loaf a little longer4 ,time takes toll of eternity and ,i've worked my pen and wagged my tongue for twice twenty years4 ,i need a rest4 ,so do my readers4 ,the divine rights of cabbages and of kings are also shared by mere newspaper men4 ,a litany of massive phrases followed4 ,but in vain4 ,the doctor was inexorable4 ,i had pneumonia4 ,my temperature was tropical4 ,my heart beat in ragtime rhythm1 and my pulse was out of the running4 ,i realised as ,i tried to summon to my parched lips my favourite red lattice oaths that1 as ,cabanis put it years ago3 ,man is a digestive tube pierced at both ends4 ,all the velvet vanities of life had vanished4 ,i could no longer think in alliterative sentences4 ,only walking delegates of ideas filled my hollow skull like dried peas in a bladder4 ,finally1 ,i concentrated--as the unchristian unscientists say--on the nurse1 my nurse4 ,as an old reporter of things theatrical ,i had seen many plays with the trained nurse as heroine4 ,one and all ,i abhorred them1 even the gentle and artistic impersonation of ,margaret ,anglin in a piece whose name ,i've forgotten4 ,i welcomed a novel by ,edgar ,saltus in which the nurse is depicted as a monster of crime incarnate4 ,how mistaken ,i have been4 ,now1 the trained nurse seems an angel without wings4 ,she may not be the slender1 dainty1 blue-eyed1 flaxen-haired girl of the footlights2 she is often mature and stout and a lover of potatoes4 ,but she is a sister when a man is down4 ,she is severe1 but her severity hath good cause4 ,at first you feebly utter the word nurse4 ,later she is any ,irish royal family name4 ,follows1 ,mary1 and that way danger lies for the elderly invalid4 ,when he calls her ,marie he is doomed4 ,every day the newspapers tell us of marriages made in pillowland between the well-to-do widower1 ,mr4 ,a4 ,sclerosis1 and ,miss ,emma ,metic of the ,saint ,petronius ,hospital staff4 ,married sons and daughters may protest1 but to no avail4 ,a sentimental bachelor or widower in the lonesome latter years hasn't any more chance with a determined young nurse of the unfair sex than a snowbird in hell--as ,brother ,mencken phrases it4 ,however1 every nurse has her day4 ,she finally departs4 ,your eyes are wet4 ,you are weeping over yourself4 ,the nurse represented not only care for your precious carcass but also a surcease from the demands of the world4 ,her going means a return to work1 and you hate to work if you are a convalescent of the true-blue sort4 ,hence your tears4 ,but you soon recover4 ,you are free4 ,the doctor has lost interest in your case4 ,you throw physic to the dogs4 ,you march at a lenten tempo about your embattled bed4 ,you begin sudden little arguments with your wife1 just to see if you haven't lost any of your old-time virility in the technique of household squabbling4 ,you haven't4 ,you swell with masculine satisfaction and for at least five minutes you are the ,man of the ,house4 ,a sudden twinge1 a momentary giddiness1 send you scurrying back to your bailiwick1 the bedroom1 and the familiar leitmotiv is once more sounded1 and with what humility of accent3 ,mamma6 ,the ,eternal ,masculine8 ,the ,eternal ,child6 ,you mumble to her that it is nothing1 and as you recline on that thrice-accursed couch1 you endeavour to be haughty4 ,but she knows you are simply a sick grumpy old person of the male species who needs be ruled with a rod of iron1 although the metal be well hidden4 ,the first cautious peep from a window upon the world you left snow white1 and find in vernal green1 is an experience almost worth the miseries you have so impatiently endured4 ,a veritable vacation for the eyes1 you tell yourself1 as the fauna and flora of ,flatbush break upon your enraptured gaze4 ,presently you watch with breathless interest the manoeuvres of ruddy little ,georgie in the next garden as he manfully deploys a troupe of childish contemporaries1 his little sister doggedly traipsing at the rear4 ,sturdy ,georgie has the makings of a leader4 ,he may be a ,captain of ,commerce1 a ,colonel1 and ,master-politician2 but he will always be foremost1 else nowhere4 ,you are the audience1 he imperiously bids his companions1 and when rebellion seemed imminent he punched1 without a trace of anger1 a boy much taller4 ,i envied ,georgie his abounding vitality4 ,furtively ,i raised the window4 ,instantly ,i was spied by ,georgie who cried lustily3 ,little boy1 little boy1 come down and play with me6 ,i almost felt gay1 ,you come up here1 ,i called out with one lung4 ,i haven't a stepladder1 he promptly replied4 ,the fifth floor is as remote without a ladder as age is separated from youth4 7,now ,i'm moralising67 ,undismayed1 ,georgie continued to call3 ,little boy1 little boy1 come down and play with me6 ,the most disheartening thing about a first sickness is the friend who meets you and says3 ,i never saw you look better in your life4 ,it may be true1 but he shouldn't have said it so crudely4 ,you renounce then and there the doctor with all his pomps of healing4 ,you refuse to become a professional convalescent4 ,you are cured and once more a commonplace man1 one of the healthy herd4 ,notwithstanding you feel secretly humiliated4 ,you are no longer ,king of ,pillowland4 ,,chapter ,,xxv ,,cross-,,currents ,,in ,,modern ,,french ,,literature ,i ,they order certain things better in ,france than elsewhere2 ,i mean such teasing and unsatisfactory forms of book-making known as ,inquiries 7,enquete1 which is not fair to translate into the lugubrious literalism1 ,inquest71 ,anthologies1 and books that masquerade as books1 as ,charles ,lamb hath it4 ,without a trace of pedantry or dogmatism1 such works appear from time to time in ,paris and are delightful reminders of the good breeding and suppleness of ,gallic criticism4 ,to turn to favour and prettiness a dusty department of literature is no mean feat4 ,what precisely is the condition of ,french letters since ,catulle ,mendes published his magisterial work on ,the ,french ,poetic ,movement from #ahfg to #aijj8 7,paris1 #aijc47 ,nothing so exhaustive has appeared since1 though a half-dozen ,inquiries1 ,anthologies1 and ,symposiums are in existence4 ,the most comprehensive recently is ,florian-,parmentier's ,contemporary ,history of ,french ,letters from #ahhe to #aiad4 ,the author is a poet1 one of les ,jeunes1 and an expert swimmer in the multifarious cross-currents of the day4 ,his book is a bird's-eye view of the map of literary ,france as far as the beginning of the war4 ,he is quite frank in his likes and dislikes1 and always has his reasons for his major idolatries and minor detestations4 ,as a corrective to his enthusiasm and hatreds there are several new ,anthologies at hand which aid us to form our own opinion of the younger men's prose and verse4 ,and1 finally1 there is the significant ,inquiry of ,emile ,henriot3 ,a ,quoi ,revent les ,jeunes ,gens8 7#aiac72 of which more anon4 ,m4 ,florian-,parmentier is a native of ,valenciennes1 a writer whose versatility and fecundity are noteworthy in a far from barren literary epoch4 ,he has1 with the facility of a lettered young ,frenchman1 tried his hand at every form4 ,all themes1 so they be human1 are welcome to him1 from art criticism to playwriting4 ,he is seemingly fair to his colleagues4 ,perhaps they may not admit this2 but the question may be answered in the affirmative3 ,is he a safe critical guide in the labyrinth of latter-day ,french letters8 ,he notes1 with an unaccustomed sense of humour in a critical barometer1 the tendency of youthful poets1 prose penmen1 and others to form schools1 to create cenacles1 to begin fighting before they have any defined ideal4 ,it leads to a lot of noisy1 explosive manifestoes1 declarations1 and challenges1 most of them rather in the air2 though it cannot be denied that these ebullitions of gusty temperaments do clear that same air1 murky with theories and traversed by an occasional flash of genius4 ,after paying his respects to the daily ,parisian press1 which he belabours as venal1 cynical1 and impure1 our critic evokes a picture of the condition of literary men2 not a reassuring one4 ,indeed1 we wonder how young people can dream of embracing such a profession1 with its heartaches1 disappointments1 inevitable poverty4 ,unless these aspiring chaps have a private income1 how do they contrive to live8 ,the answer is1 they don't live1 unless they write twaddle for the ,grand ,old ,public1 which must be tickled with fluff and flattery4 ,you say to yourself1 after all ,paris is not vastly different in this respect from benighted ,new ,york4 ,detective stories1 melodrama1 the glorification of the stale triangle in fiction and drama1 the apotheosis of the ,apache--what are all these but slight variants of the artistic pabulum furnished by our native merchants in mediocrity8 ,consoled1 because your mental and emotional climate is not as inartistic as it is painted1 you return to ,florian-,parmentier and his divagations4 ,he has much to say4 ,some of it is not as tender as tripe1 but none is salted with absurdity4 ,then you make a discovery4 ,there is in ,france a distinct class1 the ,intellectuals1 who control artistic opinion because of its superior claims2 a class to which there is no analogy either in ,england or in ,america4 7,the ,french ,academy is not particularly referred to just now47 ,poets1 journalists1 wealthy amateurs1 bohemians1 and professors--all may belong to it if they have the necessary credentials3 brains1 talent1 enthusiasm4 ,it is the latter quality that floats out on the sea of speculation many adventuring barks4 ,each sports a tiny pennant proclaiming its ideals4 ,each is steered by some dreamer of proud1 impossible dreams4 ,but they float1 do these frail boats1 laden with visions and captained by noble ambitions4 ,or1 another image2 a long1 narrow street1 on either side houses of manifold styles--fantastic or sensible1 castellated or commonplace1 baroque1 stately1 turreted1 spired1 and lofty1 these eclectic architectures reflect the souls of the dwellers within4 ,the ivory tower is not missing1 though a half-century ago it was more in evidence2 the church is there1 though sadly dwarfed--,france is still spiritually crippled and flying on one wing 7this means previous to #aiad72 and a host of other strange and familiar houses that ,jack the poet built4 ,on the doors of each is a legend2 it may be ,neo-,symbolism1 ,neo-,classicism1 ,free-,verse1 ,sincerism1 ,intenseism1 ,spiritualists1 ,floralism or the ,school of ,grace1 ,dramatism and ,simultanism1 ,imperialism1 ,dynamism1 ,futurism1 ,regionalism1 ,pluralism1 ,sereneism1 ,vivantism1 ,magism1 ,totalism1 ,subsequentism1 ,argonauts1 ,wolves1 ,visionarism1 and1 most discussed of all1 ,unanimism1 headed by that fiery propagandist and poet1 ,jules ,romains4 ,now1 every one of these cults in miniature has its following1 its programmes1 sometimes its special reviews1 monthly or weekly4 ,they are the numerous progeny of the elder ,romantic1 ,realistic1 and ,symbolistic schools1 long dead and gathered to their fathers4 ,charles ,baudelaire1 from whose sonnet ,correspondences the ,symbolists dated2 ,baudelaire1 the precursor of so much modern1 is to-day chiefly studied in his prose writings1 critical and aesthetic4 ,his ,little ,poems in ,prose are a breviary for the youths who are turning out an amorphous prose1 which they call ,free4 ,paul ,verlaine's influence is still marked1 for he is a maker of ,debussy-like music2 moonlit1 vapourish1 intangible1 subtle1 and perverse4 ,the very quintessence of poetry haunts the vague terrain of his verse2 but his ideas1 his morbidities1 these are negligible1 indeed1 abhorred4 ,the new schools1 whether belonging to the ,extreme ,right or ,extreme ,left1 are idealistic in their aim and practice2 that or nothing4 ,the brutalities of ,zola and the ,naturalistic ,school1 the frigid perfection and metallic impassibility of the ,parnassians are over and done with4 ,cynical cinders no longer blind the eye of the ideal4 ,there is a renaissance of sensibility4 ,the universe is become pluralistic1 sentimental pantheism is in the air4 ,irony has ceased to be a potent weapon in the armoury of poets and prosateurs4 ,it is replaced by an ardent love of humanity1 by a socialism that weeps on the shoulder of one's neighbour1 by a horror of egoism--whether masquerading as a philosophy such as ,nietzsche's1 or a poesy such as the ,parnassians4 ,for these poetlings issues are cosmical4 ,coeval with this revival of sentiment is a decided leaning toward religion2 not the white soul of the ,middle ,ages1 as ,huysmans would say2 not the mediaeval curiosities of ,hugo1 ,gautier1 ,lamartine2 but the carrying aloft of the banner of belief2 the opposition to sterile agnosticism by the burning tongues of the holy spirit4 ,no dilettante movement this return to ,roman ,catholicism4 ,the time came for many of these neophytes when they had to choose at the cross-roads4 ,either--,or8 ,the ,button-,moulder was lying in wait for such adolescent ,peer ,gynts1 and1 outraged and nauseated by the gross license of their day and hour1 by the ostentation of evil instincts1 they turned to the right--some1 not all of them4 ,the others no longer cry aloud their pagan admiration of the nymph's flesh in the brake1 of the seven deadly arts and their sister sins4 ,in a word1 since #aije a fresher1 a more tonic air has been blowing across the housetops of ,french art and literature4 ,science is too positive4 ,every monad has had its day4 ,pictorial impressionism is without skeleton4 ,mysticism is coming into fashion again2 only1 the youngsters wear theirs with a difference4 ,even the ,cubists are working for formal severity1 despite their geometrical fanaticism4 ,youth will have its fling1 and joys in esoteric garb1 in flaring colours1 and those doors in the narrow street called ,perhaps1 do but prove the eternal need of the new and the astounding4 ,man cannot live on manna alone4 ,he must1 to keep from volplaning to the infinite1 go down and gnaw his daily bone4 ,the forked human radish with the head fantastically carved has underpinnings also2 else his chamber of dreams might overflow into reality1 and then we should be converted in a trice to angels1 pin-feathers and all4 ,what were the controlling factors in young ,french literature up to the greatest marking date of modern history1 #aiad8 ,the philosophy of ,henri ,bergson is one2 that philosophy1 full of poetic impulsion1 graceful phrasing1 and charming evocations2 a feminine1 nervous1 fleshless philosophy1 though deriving1 as it does1 from an intellectual giant1 ,emile ,boutroux4 ,maurice ,barres is another name to conjure with2 once the incarnation of a philosophical and slightly cruel egoism2 then the herald of regionalism1 replacing the flinty determinism of ,taine with the watch-words3 ,patriotism1 reverence for the dead--a reverence perilously near ancestor-worship--the prose-master ,barres went into the political arena1 and became1 notwithstanding his rather aggressive modernism1 an idealistic reactionary4 ,he is more subtle in his intellectual processes than his one-time master1 ,paul ,bourget1 from whom his psychology stemmed1 and1 if his patriotism occasionally becomes chauvinistic1 his sincerity cannot be challenged4 ,that sincerest form of insincerity--moral earnestness1 so called--has never been his4 ,he is no more a sower of sand on the bleak and barren shore of negation4 ,little wonder he is accepted as a vital teacher4 ,other names occur as generators of present schools4 ,stendhal1 ,mallarme1 ,georges ,rodenbach1 ,rimbaud--that stepfather of symbolism --,emil ,verhaeren--who is truly an elemental and disquieting force--,paul ,adam1 ,maeterlinck1 the late ,remy de ,gourmont--who contributed so much to contemporary thought in the making--,francis ,jammes1 ,villiers de l',isle ,adam1 ,renard1 ,samain1 ,saint-,georges de ,bouhelier1 ,jules ,laforgue--and how many others1 to be found in the pages of ,vance ,thompson's ,french ,portraits1 which valuable study dates back to the middle of the roaring nineties4 ,,ii ,when we are confronted by a litany of strange names1 by the intricate polyphony of literary sects and cenacles1 the ,american lover of earlier ,french poets is bewildered1 so swiftly does the whirligig of time bring new talents4 ,already the generation of #aijj has jostled from their place the elders of a decade previous3 you read of ,paul-,napoleon ,roinard1 ,maurice ,beaubourg1 ,hans ,ryner--a remarkable writer--,andre ,gide1 ,charles-,louis ,philippe1 of ,paul ,fort1 ,paul ,claudel1 ,andre ,suares1 ,stephane ,servant1 ,andre ,spire1 ,phileas ,lebesgue1 ,georges ,polti 7whose ,thirty-six ,dramatic ,situations deserves an ,english garb71 and you recall some of them as potent creators of values4 ,but if ,london1 a few hours from ,paris1 only hears of these men through a few critical intermediaries1 such as ,arthur ,symons1 ,edmund ,gosse1 and other cultivated and cosmopolitan spirits1 what may we not say of ,america1 a week away from the scene of action8 ,as a matter of fact1 we are proud of our provincialism1 and for those who create--as the jargon goes--that same provincialism is a windshield against the draughts of too tempting imitation2 but for our criticism there is no excuse4 ,a critic will never be a catholic critic of his native literature or art if he doesn't know the literatures and arts of other lands1 paradoxical as this may sound4 ,we lack aesthetic curiosity4 ,because of our uncritical parochialism ,america is comparable to a cemetery of cliches4 ,nevertheless1 those of us who went as far as the portraits by ,vance ,thompson and ,amy ,lowell must feel a trifle strange in the long1 narrow street of ,florian-,parmentier1 with its alternations of ,septentrional mists and the blazing blue sky of the ,midi4 ,this critic1 by the way1 is a staunch upholder of the ,gaul4 ,he will have no admixture of ,latin influence4 ,he employs what has jocosely been called the ,woad argument2 he goes back not to the early ,britons1 but to ,celticism4 ,he is a sturdy ,kymrist1 and believes not in literatures transalpine or transpyrenean4 ,he loathes the pastiche1 the purveyors of canned classics1 the chilly rhetoricians who set too much store on conventional learning4 ,a ,frank1 a northerner1 and the originator of ,impulsionism is ,florian-,parmentier4 ,in his auscultation of genius1 ,la ,physiologie ,morale du ,poete 7#aijd71 may be found the germs of his doctrine4 ,this doctrine seems familiar enough now1 as does the flux of ,heraclitus and the ,becoming of ,renan1 in the teachings of ,bergson4 ,unanimism has had some influence4 ,m4 ,florian-,parmentier does not admire this movement or its prophet1 ,jules ,romains4 ,unanimism4 ,ah6 the puissant magic of the word for these budding poets and philosophers4 ,it ought to warm the cockles of the heart of critics4 ,and then the generation of #aijj--;,alexander ,mercereau1 ,henri ,hertz1 ,sebastien ,voirol1 ,pierre ,jaudon1 ,jacques ,nayral1 ,fernand ,divoire1 ,tancrede ,visan1 ,strentz1 ,giraudoux1 ,mandin1 ,guillaume ,apollinaire--all workers in the vast inane1 dwellers on the threshold of the future4 ,the past and present bearings of the ,academy ,goncourt are carefully indicated4 ,thus far nothing extraordinary has come from it4 ,balzac is still the mighty one in fiction4 ,thus far the names of ,anatole ,france1 ,paul ,adam1 the brothers ,rosny1 ,pierre ,mille--a brilliant1 versatile man--still maintain their primacy4 ,thus far1 among the essayists1 ,remy de ,gourmont1 ,camille ,mauclair1 ,maeterlinck1 ,romain ,rolland1 ,j4 ,h4 ,fabre1 ,jules ,bois--now sojourning in ,america and a thinker of verve and originality--and ,henry ,houssaye1 hold their own against the younger generation4 ,in the theatre there are numerous and vexing tendencies3 ,maeterlinck1 loyally acknowledging his indebtedness to gentle ,charles van ,lerburghe1 created a spiritual drama and has disciples2 but the theatre is the theatre and resists innovation4 ,ibsen1 who had his day in ,paris1 and ,antoine of the ,free ,theatre were accepted not because of their novelty1 but in spite of it4 ,they both were men of the theatre4 ,there is a school of ,ideo-realism1 and there are ,curel1 ,bataille1 ,porto-,riche1 ,maeterlinck1 ,trarieux1 and ,marie ,leneru2 but the technique of the drama is immutable4 ,in the domain of philosophy and experimental science we find ,emile ,boutroux1 and such collective psychologists as ,durckheim1 ,gustave le ,bon1 and ,gabriel ,tarde2 names such as ,binet1 ,ribot1 ,michel ,savigny1 ,alfred ,fouillee1 and the eminent mathematician1 ,henri ,poincare--who finally became sceptical of his favourite logic1 philosophy1 and mathematics4 ,this intellectual volte-face caused endless discussion4 ,the truth is that intuition1 the instinctive vs4 intellectualism--what ,william ,james called vicious intellectualism--is swaying the younger ,french thinkers and poets4 ,there is1 if one is to judge by the anthologies1 far too much of metaphysics in contemporary poetry4 ,poetry is in danger of suffocating in a misty mid-region of metaphysics4 ,the vital impulse1 intuitionalism1 and rhythmic flow of time in ,bergson caught the fancy of the poets4 ,naturally enough4 ,literary dogmatism had prevailed too long in academic centres4 ,now it is the deliquescence of formal verse that is to be feared4 ,vers-libre1 which began with such initiators as that astonishing prodigy1 ,arthur ,rimbaud1 has run the gamut from esoteric illuminism to sonorous yawping from the terrace of the brasseries4 ,have frogs wings8 we are tempted to ask4 ,voices they have1 but not bird-like voices4 ,that fascinating philosopher and friend of ,remy de ,gourmont--who practically introduced him--must not be overlooked1 for he had genuine influence4 ,i refer to brilliant ,jules ,gaultier1 who evolved from ,flaubert's ,madame ,bovary the idea of his ,bovarysme--which1 succinctly stated1 is the instinct in mankind to appear other than it is2 from the philosopher to the snob1 from the priest to the actor1 from the duchess to the prostitute4 ,of the influence of politics upon art and literature--which happily are no cloistered virtues in ,france--we need not speak here4 ,m4 ,florian-,parmentier does so in his admirable and bulky book1 of which we have only exposed the high lights4 ,since ,jules ,huret's ,enquete sur l',evolution ,litteraire 7#ahij71 followed by similar works of ,vellay1 ,jean ,muller1 and ,gaston ,picard 7#aiac71 we recall no such pamphlet as ,emile ,henriot's1 mentioned above4 ,he put the questions3 ,where are we8 ,where are we going8 in ,le ,temps of ,paris1 ,june1 #aiab1 to a number of representative thinkers and poets1 and reprinted between covers their answers in #aiac4 ,the result is rather confusing1 a cloud of contradictory witnesses are assembled1 and what one affirms the other denies4 ,there are no schools6 ,yes1 there are groups6 ,we are going to the devil headlong6 ,the sky is full of rainbows and the humming of harps celestial6 ,better the extravagances of the decayed ,romanticists than the debasing realism of the modern novel1 cry the ,symbolists4 ,a plague on all your houses6 say the ,unanimists4 ,one fierce ,wolf 7,loup7 admitted that at the banquets of his cenacle he and his fellow poets always ate in effigy the classic writers4 ,or was it at the ,symbolists'8 ,does it much matter8 ,the gesture counts alone with these youthful ,fumistes--as ,leconte de ,lisle had christened their predecessors4 ,verlaine1 in his waggish mood1 persisted in spelling as ,cymbalists the ,symbolists1 his own followers4 ,gongs would have been a better word4 ,a punster speaks of ,theists as those who love le bon ,dieu and tea4 ,the new critical school1 at its head ,charles ,maurras1 do not conceal their contempt for all these arrivistes and revolutionary groups1 believing that only a classic renaissance will save ,young ,france4 ,barnums1 the entire lot6 pronounces in faded accents the ultra-academic group4 ,three critics of wide-reaching influence are dead since the war began3 ,emile ,faguet1 ,jules ,lemaitre1 and ,remy de ,gourmont4 ,they leave no successors worthy of their mettle4 ,,iii ,the three volumes of anthology of ,french ,contemporary ,poets from #ahff to #aiaf have been supplemented by a fourth entitled ,poets of ,yesterday and ,to-day 7#aiaf74 ,edited by the painstaking ,m4 ,g4 ,walch1 it comprises the verse of poets born as late as #ahhf4 ,among the rest is the gifted ,charles ,dumas1 who fell in battle1 #aiad4 ,as epigraph to the new collection the editor has used a line from this poet's testament3 ,ce desir d'etre tout que j'appelle mon ame6 ,another anthology of the new poets is prefaced by ,m4 ,gustave ,lanson1 but the ,walch collection reveals more promising talents1 or else the poems are more representative4 ,signor ,marinetti1 who is bilingual1 is eccentrically amusing4 ,but are his contortions on the tripod art8 ,the auto and aeroplane are celebrated1 also steam1 speed1 mist1 and the destruction of all art prior to #aijj4 ,the new schools are wary of rhetoric1 thus following ,paul ,verlaine's injunction3 ,take ,eloquence by the neck and wring it6 ,imagists abound1 but they are in an aristocratic minority4 ,the watchword is3 sobriety in thinking and expression4 ,strangely enough1 two names emerge victoriously from the confusing lyric symphony and they are those of ,belgian-born poets--,emile ,verhaeren1 whose tragic death last year was a loss to literature1 and ,maurice ,maeterlinck4 ,what living lyric poet has the incomparable power of that epical ,verhaeren1 unless it be that of the more sophisticated ,gabriele d',annunzio1 or the sumptuous decorative verse of ,henri de ,regnier1 whose polished art is the antithesis of the exuberant1 lawless1 resonant reverberations of ,verhaeren8 ,what thinker and dramatist is known like ,maeterlinck1 except it be the magical ,gerhart ,hauptmann8 ,rough to brutality--for ,verhaeren at one time emulated ,walt ,whitman 7variously spelled as ,walth and ,withman72 with the names of foreigners ,paris has ever been careless in its orthography1 witness ,litz and ,edgard ,poe2 he can boast the divine afflatus4 ,his personality is of the centrifugal order4 ,he has a tumultuous rhythmic undertow that sweeps one irresistibly with him4 ,but his genius is disintegrating1 rather than constructive4 ,of what ,french poet among the younger group dare we say the same8 ,grace1 lyric sweetness1 subtlety in ideas1 facile technique--all these1 yes1 but not the power of saying great things greatly4 ,as for ,maeterlinck1 he owes something to ,emerson2 but his mellow wisdom and clairvoyance are his own4 ,he is a seer1 and his crepuscular pages are pools of glimmering incertitudes1 whereas of ,verhaeren we may say1 as ,carlyle said of ,landor's prose3 ,the sound of it is like the ring of ,roman swords on the helmets of barbarians4 ,henry ,james tells a story of an argument between ,zola1 ,flaubert1 and ,turgenev1 the ,russian novelist declaring that for him ,chateaubriand was not the ,ultima ,thule of prose perfection4 ,this insensibility to the finer nuances of the language angered and astounded ,zola and ,flaubert4 ,they set it down to the fact that none but a ,frenchman can quite penetrate the inner sanctuary of his own language2 which may be true1 though ,i believe that for ,turgenev the author of ,atala was temperamentally distasteful4 ,therefore1 when an ,american makes the statement that the two ,belgians are superior to the living ,frenchmen it may be classed as a purely personal judgment4 ,but the proposition first mooted by a distinguished critic1 ,remy de ,gourmont1 that ,maeterlinck and ,verhaeren be elected to the ,french ,academy1 was not a bizarre one4 ,the war has effaced many artistic frontiers4 ,the majority of the little circles that once pullulated in ,paris no longer exist4 ,both ,verhaeren and ,maeterlinck are now ,frenchmen of the ,french4 ,their inclusion in the ,academy would have honoured that venerable and too august body as much as the ,belgian poets4 ,as to the war's influence on ,french letters1 that question is for soothsayers to decide1 not for the present writer4 ,after #ahgj certain psychiatrists pretended that a degeneration of body and soul had blighted artistic and literary ,europe4 ,well1 we can only wish for the new ,france of #aibj and later such a galaxy of talents and genius as the shining groups from #ahge to #aiad4 ,no need to finger the chaplet of their names and achievements4 ,such books as those by ,catulle ,mendes1 ,florian-,parmentier1 ,lanson1 and ,walch prove our contention4 ,,chapter ,,xxvi ,,more ,,about ,,richard ,,wagner ,time was when a fame-craving young man could earn a reputation for originality by merely going to the market-place and loudly proclaiming his disbelief in a deity4 ,it would seem that modern critics of ,richard ,wagner1 busily engaged in placing the life of the composer under their microscopes1 are seeking the laurels of the ambitious chap aforesaid4 ,never has the music of ,wagner been more popular than now2 his name on the opera billboards is bound to crowd a house4 ,and never1 paradoxical as it may sound1 has there been such a critical hue and cry over his works and personality4 ,the publication of his autobiography has much to do with this renewal of interest4 ,there is some praise1 much abuse1 to be found in the newly published books on the subject4 ,european critics are building up little islands of theory1 coral-like1 some with fantastic lagoons1 others founded on stern truth1 and many doomed to be washed away over-night4 ,nevertheless1 the true ,richard ,wagner is beginning to emerge from the haze of ,nibelheim behind which he contrived to hide his real self4 ,wagner the gigantic comedian2 ,wagner the egotist2 ,wagner the victim of a tragic love1 ,wagner tone-poet1 mock philosopher1 and a wonderful apparition in the world of art till success overtook him2 then ,wagner become bored1 with no more worlds to conquer1 deserted by his best friends--whom he had alienated--without the solace of the men he had most loved1 the men who had helped him over the thorny path of his life--,liszt1 ,nietzsche1 ,von ,buelow1 ,otto ,wesendonk1 and how many others1 even ,king ,ludwig ,,ii1 whom he had treated with characteristic ingratitude6 ,no1 ,richard ,wagner during the sterile years1 so called1 from #ahff to #ahhc1 was not a contented man1 despite his union with ,cosima von ,buelow-,liszt and the foundation of a home and family at ,baireuth4 ,i ,however1 there are exceptions4 ,one is the book of ,otto ,bournot entitled ,ludwig ,geyer1 the ,stepfather of ,richard ,wagner4 ,i wrote about it in #aiac for the ,new ,york ,times4 ,in this slender volume of only seventy-two pages the author sifts all the evidence in the ,geyer-,wagner question1 and he has delved into archives1 into the newspapers of ,geyer's days1 and has had access to hitherto untouched material4 ,it must be admitted that his conclusions are not to be lightly denied4 ,august ,boettiger's ,necrology has until recently been the chief source of facts in the career of ,geyer1 but ,wagner's ,autobiography--which in spots ,bournot corrects--and the life of ,wagner by ,mary ,burrell1 not to mention other books1 have furnished ,bournot with new weapons4 ,the ,geyers as far back as #agjj were simple pious folk1 the first of the family being a certain ,benjamin ,geyer1 who about #agjj was a trombone-player and organist4 ,indeed1 the chief occupation of many ,geyers was in some way or other connected with the ,evangelical ,church4 ,ludwig ,heinrich ,christian ,geyer was a portraitist of no mean merit1 an actor of considerable power--his ,franz ,moor was a favourite role with the public--a dramatist of fair ability 7he wrote a tragedy1 among others1 named ,the ,slaughter of the ,innocents71 and also a verse-maker4 ,his acquaintance with ,weber stimulated his interest in music2 ,weber discovered his voice1 and he sang in opera4 ,truly a versatile man who displayed in miniature all the qualities of ,wagner4 ,the latter was too young at the time of ,geyer's death1 ,september1 #ahba1 to have profited much by the precepts of his stepfather1 but his example certainly did prove stimulating to the imagination of the budding poet and composer4 ,geyer married ,johanna ,wagner-,bertz 7,mary ,burrell was the first to give the correct spelling of her maiden name71 the widow of the police functionary ,wagner 7to whose memory ,richard pays such cynical homage in his obituary71 ,august #ad1 #ahad4 ,she had about two hundred and sixty-one thalern1 and eight children4 ,a ninth came later in the person of ,caecile1 who afterward married a member of the ,avenarius family4 ,caecile1 or ,cicely1 was a prime favourite with ,richard4 99 99 99 99 99 ,seven years passed1 and again ,frau ,geyer found herself a widow1 with nine children and little money4 ,how the family all tumbled up in the world1 owing much to the courage1 wit1 vivacity1 and unshaken will-power of their mother1 may be found in the autobiography4 ,bournot admits that ,geyer and his wife may have carried to the grave certain secrets4 ,richard ,wagner until he was nine years old was known as ,richard ,geyer1 and on page thirteen of his book our author prints the following significant sentence3 ,the possibility of ,wagner's descent from ,geyer contains in itself nothing detrimental to our judgment of the art-work of ,baireuth4 ,,ii ,in #aijj a twenty-page pamphlet bearing the title ,richard ,wagner in ,zurich was published in ,leipsic4 ,it was signed ,hans ,belart1 and gave for the first time to a much mystified world the story of ,wagner's passion for ,mathilde ,wesendonk1 thus shattering beyond hope of repair our cherished belief that ,cosima von ,buelow-,liszt had been the lode-stone of ,wagner's desire1 that to her influence was due the creation of ,tristan and ,isolde1 its composer's high-water mark in poetic1 dramatic music4 ,now1 ,belart1 not content with his iconoclastic pamphlet1 has just sent forth a fat book which he calls ,richard ,wagner's ,love-,tragedy with ,mathilde ,wesendonk4 ,we had thought that the last word in the matter had been said when ,baireuth 7,queen ,cosima ,i7 allowed the publication of ,wagner's diaries and love-letters to ,mathilde--though her complete correspondence is as yet unpublished4 ,but ,belart is one of the busiest among the ,german critical coral builders4 ,he has dug into musty newspapers and letters1 and gives at the close of his work a long list of authorities4 ,yet nothing startlingly new comes out of his researches4 ,we knew that ,mathilde ,wesendonk 7or ,wesendonck7 was the first love of ,wagner1 a genuine and noble passion1 not his usual self-seeking philandering4 ,we also knew that ,otto ,wesendonk behaved like a patient husband and a gentleman--any other man would have put a bullet in the body of the thrice impertinent genius2 knew1 too1 that ,tristan and ,isolde was born of this romance4 ,but there is a mass of fresh details1 petty backstairs gossip1 all the tittle-tattle beloved of such writers1 that in company with ,julius ,kapp's ,wagner und die ,frauen1 makes ,belart's new book a valuable one for reference4 ,kapp1 who has written a life of ,franz ,liszt1 goes ,belart one better in hinting that the infatuated couple transformed their idealism into realism4 ,belart does not believe this2 neither does ,emil ,ludwig1 the latest critical commentator on ,wagner4 ,but neither critic gives the profoundest proof that the love of ,richard and ,mathilde was an exalted1 platonic one1 i4 e41 the proof psychologic4 ,i firmly believe that if ,mathilde ,wesendonk had eloped with ,wagner in #aheh1 as he begged her to do1 ,tristan and ,isolde might not have been finished2 at all events1 the third act would not have been what it now is4 ,a mighty longing is better for the birth of great art than facile happiness4 ,for the first time in his selfish unhappy life ,wagner realised ,goethe's words of wisdom3 ,renounce thou shalt2 shalt renounce4 ,it was a bitter sacrifice1 but out of its bitter sweetness came the honey and moonlight of ,tristan and ,isolde4 ,wagner suffered1 ,mathilde suffered1 ,otto ,wesendonk suffered1 and last1 but not least1 ,minna ,wagner1 the poor pawn in his married game1 suffered to distraction4 ,let us begin with a quotation on the last page but three of ,belart's book3 ,remarked ,otto ,wesendonk to a friend3 ',i have hunted ,wagner from my threshold4444' ,this was in ,august1 #aheh4 ,wagner first met the ,wesendonks about #aheb1 three years after he had fled to ,zurich from ,dresden because of his participation in the uprising of #ahdi4 7,wagner as amateur revolutionist67 ,thanks to the request of his wife ,mathilde1 ,otto ,wesendonk furnished a little house on the hill near his splendid villa for the ,wagners4 ,first christened ,fafner's ,repose1 ,wagner changed the title to the ,asyl1 and for a time it was truly an asylum for this perturbed spirit4 ,but he must needs fall deeply in love with his charming and beautiful neighbour1 a woman of intellectual and poetic gifts1 and to the chagrin of her husband and of ,wagner's faithful wife4 ,the gossip in the neighbourhood was considerable1 for the complete frankness of the infatuated ones was not the least curious part of the affair4 ,liszt knew of it1 so did the ,princess ,layn-,wittgenstein4 ,an immense amount of snooping was indulged in by interested lady friends of ,minna ,wagner4 ,she has her apologists1 and1 judging from the letters she wrote at the time and afterward--several printed for the first time by ,kapp and ,belart--she took a lively hand in the general proceedings4 ,evidently she was tired of her good man's behaviour1 and when he solemnly assured her that it was the master-passion of his life she didn't believe him4 ,naturally not4 ,he had cried wolf too often2 besides1 ,minna1 like a practical person1 viewed the possibility of a rupture with ,otto ,wesendonk as a distinct misfortune4 ,otto had not only advanced much money to ,richard1 but he paid twelve thousand francs for the scores of ,rheingold and ,walkuere and for the complete performing rights4 ,afterward he sent both to ,king ,ludwig ,,ii as a gift--but ,i doubt if he ever got a penny from his tenants for rent4 ,he also defrayed the expenses of the ,wagner concert at ,zurich1 a little item of nine thousand francs4 ,scandal and calumny invaded his home1 the fair fame of his wife was threatened4 ,no wonder the finale1 long deferred1 was stormy1 even operatic4 ,the lady was much younger than her husband2 she was born at the close of #ahbh1 therefore ,wagner's junior by fifteen years4 ,she was a ,luckemeyer1 her mother a ,stein2 a cultured1 sweet-natured woman1 it is more than doubtful if she could have endured ,wagner as a husband4 ,she did a wise thing in resisting his prayers4 ,not only was her husband a bar to such a proceeding1 but her children would have always prevented her thinking of a legal separation4 ,all sorts of plans were in the air4 ,when1 in #aheg1 the ,american panic seriously threatened the prosperity of ,otto ,wesendonk1 who had heavy business interests in ,new ,york1 gossip averred that ,frau ,wesendonk would ask for a divorce2 but the air cleared and matters resumed their old aspect4 ,minna ,wagner's health1 always poor1 became worse4 ,it was a case of exasperated nerves made worse by drugs4 ,she daily made scenes at home and threatened to tell what she knew4 ,that she knew much is evident from her correspondence with ,frau ,wilk4 ,she said that ,wagner had two hearts1 but while he delighted in intellectual and emotional friendship with such a superior soul as ,mathilde1 he nevertheless would not forego the domestic comforts provided by ,minna4 ,like many another genius1 ,wagner was bourgeois4 ,those intolerable dogs1 the parrot1 the coffee-drinking1 the soft beds and solicitude about his underclothing1 all were truly ,german2 human-all-too-human4 ,in ,september1 #aheg1 the newly married ,von ,buelows paid the ,wagners a visit1 and as the guest-chamber of the cottage was occupied they took up temporary quarters at an inn1 ,the ,raven 7,wotan's ravens67 ,cosima1 young1 impressionable1 turned her face to the wall and wept when ,wagner played and sang for his friends the first and second acts of ,siegfried4 ,even then she felt the pull of his magnetism1 of his genius1 and doubtless regretted having married the fussy1 irritable ,von ,buelow--who had gone down in the social scale in wedding a girl of dubious descent4 7,in ,paris ,liszt for many years was only a strolling gipsy piano-player to whom the ,countess d',agoult had condescended47 ,mathilde ,wesendonk entertained the ,von ,buelows1 who went away pleased with their reception1 above all deeply impressed by the exiled ,wagner4 ,they so reported to ,liszt1 and ,von ,buelow did more2 as the scion of an old aristocratic family1 he made many attempts to secure an amnesty for ,wagner1 as well as making propaganda for his music4 ,which favours ,wagner1 who was the very genius of ingratitude1 repaid later4 ,in one point ,herr ,ludwig is absolutely correct3 the composer was supported by his friends from #ahdi to the year when ,king ,ludwig intervened4 ,the starvation talk was a part of the ,wagner legend1 even the ,paris days were greatly exaggerated as to their black poverty4 ,wagner was always a spendthrift4 ,from ,november1 #aheg1 to ,may1 #aheh1 ,wagner set to music the five poems of ,mathilde1 veritable sketches for ,tristan4 ,early in ,september1 #aheg1 the relations between ,minna and ,mathilde had become strained4 ,wagner accused his wife of abusing ,mathilde in a vulgar manner2 worse remained2 he had sent a letter by the gardener to ,frau ,wesendonk and the jealous wife intercepted it1 broke the seal1 read the contents4 ,to ,wagner1 this was the blackest of crimes2 yet can you blame her8 ,to be sure1 she had no conception of her husband's genius4 ,for her ,rienzi was his only work4 ,had it not succeeded8 ,so had ,tannhaeuser and ,lohengrin1 also ,the ,flying ,dutchman1 but ,rienzi was her darling4 ,how often she begged him to write another opera of the same ,wagnerian calibre he has not failed to tell us4 ,otto ,wesendonk's wife she firmly believed was leading him into a quagmire4 ,what theatre could ever produce ,the ,ring8 ,one thing1 however1 ,minna did not do1 as most writers on the subject say she did3 she did not show the fatal letter to ,wesendonk at the time1 but only to ,wagner4 ,later she made its meanings clear to the injured husband1 which no doubt provoked the explosive phrase quoted above4 99 99 99 99 99 ,the youthful ,karl ,tausig1 bearing credentials from ,liszt1 appeared on the scene in ,may1 #aheh1 and the entire household was soon in an uproar4 ,luckily1 ,wagner had persuaded ,minna to take a cold-water cure at a sanatorium some distance from ,zurich1 so he could handle the wild-eyed ,tausig1 whose volcanic piano performances at the age of sixteen made the mature composer both wonder and admire4 ,tausig smoked black cigars1 a trait he imitated from ,liszt1 and almost lived on coffee4 ,here is a curious criticism of him made by ,cosima ,von ,buelow1 who1 it must be remembered1 was both the daughter and wife of famous pianists4 ,she said3 ,tausig has no touch1 no individuality2 he is a caricature of ,liszt4 ,this1 in the light of ,tausig's subsequent artistic career1 sounds almost comical2 it also shows the intensely one-sided temperament of a remarkable woman1 who banished from her life both von ,buelow and her father1 ,franz ,liszt1 when ,wagner entered into her dreams4 ,the fortitude she displayed after her ,richard's death in #ahhc was not tempered by any human feeling toward her father4 ,his telegrams were unanswered4 ,she denied herself to him4 ,she became a ,bruennhilde frozen into a symbol of intolerable grief4 ,of her personal fascination the sister of ,nietzsche1 ,elizabeth ,foerster-,nietzsche1 told me1 when ,i last saw her at ,weimar4 ,von ,buelow succumbed to this charm2 ,rubinstein also 7query3 perhaps that is the reason he so savagely abused ,wagner in his ,conversations on ,music871 and1 if gossip doesn't lie1 ,nietzsche was another victim4 ,on ,september #ag1 #aheh1 after a general row1 ,wagner left his home on the green hill1 his ,asyl1 for ever4 ,why8 ,plenty of conjectures1 no definite statements4 ,he makes a great show of frankness in his diaries1 in his autobiography2 but they were obviously edited by ,baireuth4 ,tristan and ,isolde remains as evidence that a mighty emotion had transfigured the nature of a genius1 and instead of an erotic anecdote the world of art is richer in the possession of a moving drama of desire and woe and tragedy4 ,at the ,berlin premiere of ,tristan the old ,kaiser ,wilhelm remarked3 ,how ,wagner must have loved when he wrote the work2 which is sound psychology4 ,,iii ,the two books discussed are constructive in nature2 not so the book by ,emil ,ludwig1 ,wagner1 or the ,disenchanted1 which is frankly destructive4 ,since ,the ,wagner ,case by ,nietzsche--and not ,nietzsche at his best--there has not been written a book so overflowing with hatred for ,wagner1 the man as well as the musician4 ,ludwig is the author of poems1 plays1 and a study of ,bismarck1 the latter a noteworthy achievement4 ,he is thorough in his attacks1 though he does not measure up to ,ernest ,newman in his analysis of ,wagner's poetry1 libretti1 and philosophy4 ,the ,english critic's studies remain the best of its kind1 because it is written without parti-pris4 ,ludwig slashes a la ,nietzsche1 though he cannot boast that poet's diamantine style4 ,he accuses ,wagner of being paroxysmal1 erotic--a painter of moods2 he couldn't build a ,greek temple like ,beethoven--weak as a poet1 inconclusive as a musician4 ,for ,tristan and ,die ,meistersinger he has words of hearty praise4 ,the ,ludwig book stirred up a nest of hornets1 and one lawsuit resulted4 ,a newspaper critic presumed to criticise1 and the sensitive poet1 who calls ,wagner every bad name in the ,schimpf ,lexicon1 invoked the aid of the law4 ,we know only too well1 thanks to that ill-tasting but engrossing autobiography1 that ,wagner was a monster of ingratitude4 ,hasn't ,nietzsche1 against his own natural feeling1 proclaimed the futility of gratitude8 ,perhaps he learned this lesson from his hard experience with ,wagner4 ,we also know that ,wagner wanted to run the universe1 but after a brief note from ,ludwig ,,ii he left ,munich rather than face the angry burghers4 ,he attempted to coerce ,bismarck1 but there he ran up against a wall of granite4 ,bismarck was a ,beethoven lover1 and he abhorred1 as did ,von ,beust1 revolutionists4 ,thereat ,wagner wrote sarcastic things about the uselessness and vanity of statesmen4 ,he didn't treat ,ludwig ,,ii right when he announced from ,venice that he wasn't in sufficient health and spirits to grant the ,king's request for a performance of the prelude to ,lohengrin in a darkened theatre with one listener1 ,ludwig ,,ii4 7,by the way1 ,ludwig ,,ii never sat through a performance alone of ,parsifal4 ,once and once only1 years before the completion of the work1 he heard a performance of the prelude in ,munich given for his sole benefit47 ,wagner's gruff letter wounded the sensitive idealist4 ,in #ahff1 a few weeks after the death of ,minna ,wagner-,planer1 ,cosima von ,buelow-,liszt followed ,wagner to ,switzerland4 ,probably the hostile attitude of ,liszt in the affair was largely inspired by the fact that when ,richard and ,cosima married1 the latter abjured ,catholicism and became a ,protestant4 ,liszt1 a religious man 7despite his pyrotechnical virtuosity in the luxurious region of sentiment71 never could reconcile himself to this defection on the part of a beloved child4 ,it angered ,nietzsche to discover in ,wagner a leaning toward mysticism1 toward religion3 witness the mock-duck mysticism and burlesque of religious ritual in ,parsifal4 ,after ,feuerbach came ,arthur ,schopenhauer in the intellectual life of ,wagner4 ,this was in #ahed4 ,his friend ,wille lent him the book4 ,immediately he started to ,schopenhauerise the ,ring1 thereby making a hopeless muddle of situation and character4 ,the enormous vitality of ,wagner's temperament expressed itself in essentially optimistic terms4 ,he was not a pessimist1 and he hopelessly misunderstood his new master4 ,wotan must needs become a ,schopenhauerian2 and ,siegfried1 a pessimist at the close4 ,nietzsche was right2 ,schopenhauer proved a powerful poison for ,wagner4 ,and ,schopenhauer himself laughed at ,wagner's music2 he remained true to ,rossini and ,mozart and advised ,wagner1 through a friend1 to stick to the theatre and hang his music on a nail in the wall2 but when his library was overhauled several marginalia were discovered1 one which he contemptuously wrote on a verse of ,wagner's3 ,ear6 ,ear6 ,where are your ears1 musician8 ,wagner1 when ,liszt adjured him to turn to religion as a consolation1 replied3 ,i believe only in mankind4 ,ludwig compares this declaration with some of the latter opinions concerning ,christianity1 of which ,wagner has said many evil things4 ,wagner's life was a series of concessions to the inevitable4 ,he modified his art theories as he grew older1 and with fame and riches his character deteriorated4 ,he couldn't stand success--he1 the bravest man of his day2 the undaunted fighter for an idea crooked the knee to caste1 became an amateur mystic and announced his intention of returning to absolute music1 of writing a symphony strict in form--which1 for his reputation1 he luckily did not attempt4 ,he was a colossal actor and the best self-advertiser the world has yet known since ,nero4 ,but ,i can't understand ,herr ,ludwig when he asserts that from #ahff to #ahhc the composer did nothing but compose two marches1 finish ,siegfried and ,goetterdaemmerung4 ,rather a large order1 considering the labours of the man as practical opera conductor1 prose writer1 poet-dramatist1 and composer4 ,and then1 too1 the gigantic scheme of ,baireuth was realised in #ahgf4 ,comparatively barren would be a fairer phrase4 ,after ,tristan and ,isolde1 what could any man compose8 ,a work which its creator rightfully said was a miracle he couldn't understand4 ,after the anecdotage of ,wagner's career is forgotten1 after ,baireuth has become owl-haunted1 ,tristan and ,isolde will be listened to by men and women who love or have loved4 ,it isn't pleasant to read a book like ,ludwig's1 truthful as it may be in parts4 ,nor should he call our attention to the posthumous venom of the composer as expressed in his hateful remarks concerning ,otto ,wesendonk4 ,there ,wagner was his own ,mime1 his own ,alberich1 not the knightly hero who would not woo the fair ,irish maid till magic did melt his will4 ,richard ,wagner was once ,tristan4 ,,chapter ,,xxvii ,,my ,,first ,,musical ,,adventure ,music-mad1 ,i arrived in ,paris during the last weeks of the ,world's ,fair of #ahgh1 impelled there by a parching desire to see ,franz ,liszt1 if not to hear him4 ,he was then honorary director of the ,austro-,hungarian section4 ,but ,i could not find him1 although ,i heard of him everywhere1 of musical fetes and the usual glittering company that had always surrounded this extraordinary son of fortune4 ,one day ,i fancied ,i saw him4 ,i was sadly walking the ,rue de ,rivoli of an ,october afternoon1 when in a passing carriage ,i saw an old chap with bushy white hair1 his face full of expressive warts1 and in his mouth a long black cigar1 which he was furiously puffing4 ,liszt6 ,i gasped1 and started in pursuit4 ,it was not an easy job to keep up with the carriage4 ,at last1 because of a blocked procession1 ,i caught up and took a long stare1 the object of which composedly smiled at me1 but did not truly convince me that he was ,franz ,liszt4 ,you see there were so many different pictures of him2 even the warts were not always the same in number4 ,when ,i am in the ,cambyses vein ,i swear ,i've seen ,liszt4 ,perhaps ,i did4 ,liszt or no ,liszt1 my ambition was fired1 and at the advice of ,frederick ,boscovitz1 a pupil of ,liszt and cousin of ,rafael ,joseffy1 ,i went to the ,conservatoire ,nationale1 with a letter of introduction to the acting secretary1 ,emile ,rety4 ,i was told that ,i was too old to enter1 being a few months past eighteen4 ,i was disappointed and voiced my woes to ,lucy ,hamilton ,hooper1 then a clever writer and correspondent of several ,american newspapers4 ,her husband was ,vice-,consul ,robert ,hooper and he kindly introduced me to ,general ,fairchild1 the consul1 and after a cross-examination ,i was given a letter in which the ,united ,states ,government testified to my good social standing 7,i was not a bandit1 nor yet an absconder from justice7 and extreme youth4 ,armed with this formidable document1 ,i again besieged the gates of the great ,french conservatoire--whose tuition1 it must be remembered1 is free4 ,i was successful1 inasmuch as ,i was permitted to present myself at the yearly examination1 which took place ,november #ac 7ominous date74 ,to say that ,i studied hard and shook in my boots is a literal statement4 ,i lived at the time in an alley-like street off the ,boulevard des ,batignolles and lived luxuriously on five dollars a week1 eating one satisfying meal a day 7with a hot bowl of coffee in the morning7 and practising on a wretched little cottage piano as long as my neighbours would stand the noise4 ,they chucked boots or any old faggot they could find at my door1 and after twelve hours ,i was so tired of patrolling the keyboard that ,i was glad to stop4 ,then1 a pillow on my stomach to keep down the pangs of a youthfully gorgeous appetite1 ,i would lie in bed till dinner-time4 ,o ,chopin6 ,o consomme and boiled beef6 ,o sour blue wine at six cents the litre6 ,at last the fatal day dawned1 as the novelists say4 ,it was nasty1 chilling1 foggy autumnal1 but my long locks hung negligently and my velveteen coat was worn defiantly open to the wind4 ,i reached the ,conservatoire--then in the old building on the ,rue du ,faubourg ,poissoniere--at precisely nine o'clock of the morn4 ,i was put in a large room with an indiscriminate lot of candidates1 some of them so young as to be fit for the care of a nurse4 ,like lost sheep we huddled and as my eyes feverishly rambled ,i noticed a lad of about twelve with curling hair worn artist fashion2 a naughty haughty boy he was1 for he sneered at my lengthy legs and audibly inquired3 ,is grandpa to play with us6 ,i knew enough ,french to hate that little monster with a nervous hatred4 ,there was a tightened feeling about my throat and heart and ,i waited in an agitated spirit for my number4 ,a bearded and shy young man came in from examination and was at once mocked by the incipient virtuoso in pantalettes4 ,another unfortunate1 with a roll of music6 ,then the little devil was summoned4 ,we sat up4 ,in ten minutes he returned with downcast mien1 flushed face1 tears in his eyes1 and tried to sneak out of the room1 but too late4 ,after shaking hands all round we solemnly danced in a circle about the now sobbing and no longer sinister child4 ,who says youth is ever generous8 ,number thirteen6 sang out a voice1 and ,i was pushed through a narrow entry and a minute later was standing on the historic stage of the ,paris ,conservatoire4 ,the lighting was dim1 but ,i discerned a group of persons somewhere in front of me4 ,a man asked me to sit down at the grand piano--of course1 like most pianos1 out of tune--and ,i tremblingly obeyed his polite request4 ,at this juncture a woman's voice inquired3 ,how old are you1 monsieur8 ,i told her4 ,a feminine laugh rippled through the gloom1 for ,i wore a fluffy little beard1 was undeniably gawky1 and looked conspicuously older than my years4 ,that laugh settled me4 ,queer1 creepy feelings seized my legs1 my eyes were full of solar spectrums1 my throat a furnace and my heart beat like a triphammer4 ,i was not the first man1 young or old1 to be knocked out by a woman's laugh4 7,later ,i met the lady4 ,she was ,madame ,massart1 and the wife of the well-known violin master1 ,massart1 of the ,conservatoire47 ,again the demand1 ,play something4 ,it was a foregone conclusion that ,i couldn't4 ,i began a minuetto from a ,beethoven ,sonata1 hesitated1 saw fiery snakes and a kaleidoscope of comets1 then pitched into a presto by the unfortunate ,beethoven1 and was soon stopped4 ,a sheet of manuscript was placed before me4 ,i could have sworn that it was upside down1 so as a sight-reading test it was a failure4 ,i was altogether a distinguished failure1 and with the audible comment of the examining faculty ringing in my ears1 ,i stumbled across the stage into welcome darkness1 and without waiting to thank ,secretary ,rety for his amiability ,i got away1 crossing in a hurry that celebrated courtyard in which the hideous noises made by many instruments1 including the human voice1 reminded me of a torture circle in ,dante's ,inferno4 ,the ,united ,states had no reason to be proud of her musical--or unmusical--son that dull day in ,november1 #ahgh4 ,when ,i arrived in my garret ,i swore ,i was through and seriously thought of studying the xylophone4 ,but my mood of profound discouragement was succeeded by a more hopeful one4 ,if you can't enter the ,paris ,conservatoire as an active student you may have influence enough to become an auditeur1 a listener2 and a listener ,i became and in the class of ,professor ,georges ,mathias1 a genuine pupil of ,chopin4 ,my musical readers will understand my good luck4 ,from that spiritual master ,i learned many things about the ,polish composer2 heard from his still supple fingers much music as ,chopin had interpreted it4 ,delicate and discriminating in style1 ,m4 ,mathias had never developed into a brilliant concert pianist2 sometimes he produced effects on the keyboard that sounded like emotional porcelain falling from a high shelf and melodiously shattering on velvet mirrors4 ,he also taught me that if a pianist or violinist or singer is too nervous before the public1 then he or she has not a musical vocation--the case of ,adolf ,henselt to the contrary notwithstanding4 ,but better would it be for me to admit that ,i failed because ,i didn't will earnestly enough to succeed4 ,,chapter ,,xxviii ,,violinists ,,now ,,and ,,yesteryear ,with the hair of the horse and the entrails of the cat1 magicians of the four strings weave their potent spells4 ,what other instrument devised by the hand of man has ever approached the violin8 ,gladstone compared it with the locomotive2 yet complete as is the mechanism of the wheeled monster1 its type is transitional2 steam is already supplanted by electricity2 while the violin is perfection1 as perfect as a sonnet1 and in its capacity for the expression of emotion next to the human voice2 indeed it is even more poignant4 ,orchestrally massed1 it can be as terribly beautiful as an army with banners4 ,in quartet form it represents the very soul of music2 it is both sensuous and intellectual4 ,the modern grand pianoforte with its great range1 its opulence of tone1 its delicacy of mechanism is1 nevertheless1 a monster of music if placed beside the violin1 with its simple curves1 its almost primitive method of music-making4 ,the scraping of one substance against another goes back to prehistoric times1 nay1 may be seen in the grasshopper and its ingenious manner of producing sound4 ,but the violin1 as we know it to-day1 is not such an old invention2 it was the middle of the sixteenth century before it made its appearance1 with its varnished and modelled back4 ,restricted as is its range of dynamics1 the violin has had for its votaries men of such widely differing temperaments as ,paganini and ,spohr1 ,wilhelmj and ,sarasate1 ,joachim and ,ysaye4 ,its literature does not compare with that of the piano1 for which ,bach1 ,beethoven1 ,schumann1 ,chopin1 and ,brahms have written their choicest music1 yet the intimate nature of the violin1 its capacity for passionate emotion1 crowns it--and not the organ1 with its mechanical tonal effects--as the king of instruments4 ,nor does the voice make the peculiar appeal of the violin4 ,its lowest note is the ,g below the treble clef1 and its top note a mere squeak2 but it seems in a few octaves to have imprisoned within its wooden walls a miniature world of feeling2 even in the hands of a clumsy amateur it has the formidable power of giving pain2 while in the grasp of a master it is capable of arousing the soul4 ,no other instrument has the ecstatic quality2 neither the shallow-toned pianoforte1 nor the more mellow and sonorous violoncello4 ,the angelic1 demoniacal1 lovely1 intense tones of the violin are without parallel in music or nature4 ,it is as if this box with four strings across its varnished belly had a rarer nervous system than all other instruments4 ,it is a cry1 a shriek1 a hymn to heaven1 a call to arms1 an exquisite evocation1 a brilliant series of multi-coloured visions1 a broad song of passion1 or mocking laughter--what cannot the violin express if the soul that guides it be that of an artist8 ,otherwise1 it is only a fiddle4 ,it is the hero1 the heroine1 the vanguard of every composition4 ,as a solo instrument in a concerto1 its still small voice is heard above the din and thunder of the accompaniment4 ,in a word1 this tiny music-box is the ruler among instruments4 ,times have changed since #afeh in ,england1 when the following delightful ordinance was made for the benefit of musical genius1 or otherwise3 ,and be it enacted that if any person or persons1 commonly called ,fiddlers1 or minstrels1 shall at any time after the said first of ,july be taken playing1 fiddling1 or making music in any inn1 alehouse or tavern1 or shall be proffering themselves1 or desiring1 or entreating any person or persons to hear them play 444 shall be adjudged rogues1 vagabonds1 and sturdy beggars4 ,decidedly1 ,england was not then the abode of the muses1 for the poor actor suffered in company with the musician4 ,you wonder whether this same penalty would be imposed upon musical managers 444 they certainly do entreat the public to listen to their fiddlers4 ,yet in #afij when ,corelli1 the father of violin playing1 led the band at ,cardinal ,ottoboni's house in ,rome1 he stopped the music because his churchly patron was talking1 and he made an epigram that has since served for other artists3 ,monsignore1 remarked this intrepid musician1 when asked why the band had ceased1 ,i feared the music might interrupt the conversation4 ,how well ,liszt knew this anecdote may be recalled by his retort to a czar of ,russia under similar circumstances4 ,until a few months ago ,i had not heard ,eugene ,ysaye play for years4 ,in the old days he had enchanted my ears1 and in company with ,gerardy1 the violoncellist and ,pugno the pianist had made music fit for the gods4 ,considering the flight of the years1 ,i found the art of the ,belgian comparatively untouched4 ,like ,liszt1 like ,paderewski1 ,ysaye has his good moments and his indifferent4 ,he is the ,paderewski of the strings in his magical interpretations4 ,and unlike his younger contemporaries1 he still carves out the whole block of the great classics1 sonatas1 and concertos4 ,he plays little things tenderly1 exquisitely1 and the man is first the musician1 then the virtuoso4 ,i heard neither ,paganini nor ,spohr4 ,joachim1 ,wilhelmj1 ,wieniawski1 and ,ysaye ,i have heard and seen4 ,my memory assures me of keener satisfactions than any book about these giants of the four strings could give me4 ,the first violinist ,i ever listened to was in the early seventies4 ,i was hardly at the age of musical discrimination4 ,yet ,i remember much4 ,it was at the opera1 a matinee in the ,philadelphia ,academy of ,music4 ,nilsson was singing4 ,i can't recall her on that occasion1 though it seems only the other day when ,carlotta ,patti sang the ,queen of the ,night in ,the ,magic ,flute1 and limped over the stage--possibly the lameness fixed the event in my mind more than the music4 ,a front set was dropped between the acts at this particular matinee--,i do not recollect the name of the opera--and through a practicable door came an old gentleman with a violin in his hands4 ,he was white-haired1 he wore white side-whiskers1 and he looked to my young eyes like a prosperous banker4 ,he played4 ,it was as the sound of falling waters on a moonlight night4 ,i asked the name of the old gentleman4 ,my father said1 ,henri ,vieuxtemps1 which told me nothing then1 though it means much to me now4 ,what did he play8 ,i do not know4 ,yet whenever ,i hear the younger men attack his ,fantaisie ,caprice1 his ,ballade and ,polonaise1 his ,concertos1 ,i think proudly3 ,i have heard ,vieuxtemps6 ,he was a ,belgian1 born #ahbj1 died #ahha4 ,his style was finished1 elegant1 charming4 ,he was a pupil of ,de ,beriot and represented1 with his master1 perfection in the ,belgian school4 ,after an interval of some years1 ,i heard the only pupil of ,paganini1 as he called himself1 ,camillo ,sivori4 ,it was in ,paris1 #ahgi4 ,the precise day ,i can't say but my letter from ,paris which appeared in the ,philadelphia ,evening ,bulletin was dated ,january #ca1 #ahgi4 ,i still preserve it in a venerable scrap-book4 ,i was in my 'teens but ,i wrote with the courage of youthful ignorance as follows3 7,it almost sounds like a musical criticism47 ,although it was generally supposed that ,sivori1 the great violinist1 would not play this season in ,paris1 he1 nevertheless delighted a large audience1 last ,sunday1 at the ,concert ,populaire1 with his lovely music4 ,he is no longer a young man1 but the vigour and fire of his playing are immense4 ,he gave1 with the orchestral accompaniment1 a ,berceuse1 his own composition1 with unapproachable delicacy4 ,it was played throughout with the mute4 ,in contrast came a ,mouvement ,perpetuel4 ,sivori's tone is not like that of ,joachim or ,wilhelmj1 but it is sweeter than either4 ,it reminds one of gold drawn to cobweb fineness4 ,as an encore he played the too well known ,carnival of ,venice4 ,that it was given in the style of his illustrious master1 ,paganini1 who may say8 ,but it was amazing1 painful1 finally tiresome4 ,that same season ,i heard ,anna ,bock1 ,boscovitz1 ,diemer1 ,plante1 ,theodore ,ritter1 the two ,jaells1 fat ,alfred and his thin wife4 ,sivori 7#ahae-ahid71 dapper1 modest1 stood up in the vast spaces of the ,cirque d',hiver1 which was engaged every ,sunday by ,jacques ,pasdeloup and his orchestra4 7,jacob ,wolfgang was the real name of this conductor who braved the wrath of his audiences by putting ,wagner on his programmes2 and one afternoon we had a pitched battle over ,rimsky-,korsakoff's ,symphonic ,poem1 ,sadko47 ,sivori played a tarantella2 every tone was clearly heard in the great1 crowded auditorium4 ,pupils of ,de ,beriot and ,paganini ,i have heard1 though ,i hardly recall the style of the former and nothing of the latter4 ,but there was little of ,paganini's fiery attack in ,sivori2 possibly he was too old4 ,fire and fury ,i later found in ,wieniawski4 ,i must not omit the name of ,ole ,bull 7#ahaj-ahhj71 for1 though ,i heard him as a boy1 ,i best remember him in #ahhj1 when he gave his last concerts in ,america4 ,in the fifties1 while on a visit to my father's house1 he went on his two thumbs around a dining-table1 lifting his body clear from the ground4 ,his muscular power was remarkable4 ,it showed in the dynamics of his robust and sentimental playing4 ,spohr discouraged him as a boy1 but later spoke of his wonderful playing and sureness of his left hand2 unfortunately1 like ,paganini1 he sacrifices what is artistic to something that is not quite suitable to the noble instrument4 ,his tone1 too1 is bad4444 ,for ,spohr any one's tone was1 naturally enough1 bad1 as he possessed the most monumental tone that ever came from a violin4 ,the truth is that ,ole ,bull was not a classical player2 as ,i remember him1 he could not play in strict tempo2 like ,chopin1 he indulged in the rubato and abused the portamento4 ,but he knew his public4 ,america a half-century ago1 particularly in the regions he visited1 was not in the mood for sonatas or concertos4 ,old ,dan ,tucker and the ,arkansaw ,traveller were the mode4 ,bull played them both1 played jigs and old tunes1 roused the echoes with the ,star ,spangled ,banner and ,irish melodies4 ,he played such things beautifully1 and it would have been musical snobbery to say that you didn't like them4 ,you couldn't help yourself4 ,the grand old fellow bewitched you4 ,he was a handsome ,merlin1 with a touch of the charlatan and a touch of ,liszt in his tall1 willowy figure1 small waist1 and heavy head of hair4 ,such white hair6 ,it tumbled in masses about his kindly face like one of his native ,norwegian cataracts4 ,he was the most picturesque old man ,i ever saw except ,walt ,whitman1 at that time a steady attendant of the ,carl ,gaertner ,string ,quartet concerts in ,philadelphia4 7,and what ,walt didn't know about music he made up in his love for stray dogs2 he was seldom without canine company47 ,those were the days when ,prume's ,la ,melancolie and ,wieniawski's ,legende were the two favourite1 yet remote1 peaks of the student's repertoire4 ,how we loved them6 ,then came ,wieniawski with ,rubinstein in #ahgb-ahgc1 and such violin playing ,america had never before heard--nor has it since1 let me hasten to add4 ,this ,pole 7#ahce-ahhj7 was a brilliant master4 ,his dash and fire and pathos carried you off your feet4 ,his tone at times was like molten metal4 ,he had a caressing and martial bow4 ,his technique was infallible1 his temperament truly ,slavic1 languorous1 subtle1 fierce4 ,wieniawski always reminded me of a red-hot coal4 ,how chivalric is his ,polonaise--that old war-horse6 ,how elegiac his ,legende6 ,his favourite pupil was ,leopold ,lichtenberg1 the greatest violin talent that has been thus far unearthed in ,america4 ,lichtenberg had everything when a youth--temperament1 brains1 musical feeling1 and great technical ability4 ,after ,wieniawski followed ,wilhelmj1 who did not efface his memory1 but plunged one into another atmosphere2 that of the calm1 profound1 untroubled1 and classic4 ,no doubt ,spohr's tone was larger1 yet this is difficult to believe4 ,wilhelmj drew from his instrument the noblest sounds ,i ever heard2 not ,joachim1 not ,ysaye excelled him in cantabile4 ,he was the first to play ,wagner transcriptions--no wonder ,wagner made him leader of the strings at ,bayreuth in #ahgf4 ,how he read the ,beethoven ,concerto1 the ,bach ,chaconne4 ,or the ,d flat ,nocturne of ,chopin--in ,d4 ,or the much abused ,mendelssohn ,e ,minor ,concerto--with ,max ,vogrich accompanying him at the piano4 ,a giant in physique1 when he faced his audience there was something of the majestic1 fair-haired god ,wotan in his immobile posture4 ,he never appealed to his public as did ,wieniawski2 there was always something of chilly grandeur and remoteness in ,wilhelmj's play4 ,the last time ,i saw him was at ,marienbad1 shortly before his death1 where1 a stooped-shouldered1 grey-haired old man1 he was taking a ,kur4 ,he walked slowly1 his hands clasped behind him1 in his eyes the vacant look of one busy with memories4 ,he reminded me of ,beethoven's pictures4 ,joseph ,joachim1 that mighty ,hungarian1 was past his prime when ,i heard him in ,london4 ,he played out of tune--some of his pupils have imitated his failing--but whether in a ,beethoven quartet1 concerto1 sonata with piano1 he always stamped on your consciousness that ,joseph ,joachim was the greatest violinist that had ever lived4 ,this is1 of course1 absurd1 this unfair comparison of one artist with another4 ,yet it is human to compare1 and if a violinist can evoke such a vision of perfection1 then he must be of uncommon powers4 ,maud ,powell1 a distinguished pupil of ,joachim1 has asserted that it took her three years before she could recover herself in the presence of ,joachim's overwhelming personality4 ,yet he struck me as not at all assertive4 ,he seemed an objective player1 i4 e41 you thought only of ,beethoven1 of ,brahms1 as he calmly delivered himself of their ,olympian measures4 ,the grand manner is now out of fashion4 ,we care more for exotic rhetoric than for simple and lofty measures4 ,sarasate and ,dengremont charmed me more2 ,wieniawski set my blood coursing faster2 but in ,joachim's presence ,i felt as if near some old ,grecian temple hallowed by the presence of oft-worshipped gods4 ,remenyi was a puzzle4 ,he could play divinely1 and scratch diabolically4 ,he belonged to that old romantic school in which pose and gesture1 contortion and grimace occupied a prominent place4 ,i had an opportunity to study ,remenyi 7whose ,austrian name was ,hoffman7 7#ahcj-ahih71 at close quarters4 ,he brought to my father's house in the early eighties his favourite instruments1 and such a wild night of music ,i never heard4 ,he played hour after hour1 everything from ,bach to ,brahms--and incidentally scolded ,brahms for stealing some of his1 ,remenyi's1 ,hungarian dances6 7,which is a joke1 as ,brahms only followed the examples of ,liszt and ,joachim in avowedly employing ,hungarian folk melodies74 ,he did such tricks as dashing off in impeccable tune his arrangement of the ,d ,flat ,valse of ,chopin in double notes at a terrific tempo4 ,violinists will understand the feat when ,i tell them that the key was the original one--,d flat4 ,he made the walls shiver when he struck his bow clangorously in the opening chords of the ,rackoczy ,march4 ,what a hero then seemed this stout1 little1 prancing1 baldheaded man with the face of an unfrocked priest4 ,how he could talk in a half-dozen different languages2 he had travelled enough and encountered enough celebrated people to fill a dozen volumes with his recollections4 ,he was a violinist of unquestionable power2 that he deteriorated in his later years was to have been expected4 ,liszt understood and appreciated ,remenyi from the first2 he nicknamed him the ,kossuth of the ,fiddle4 ,to recall all the celebrities of the violin ,i have heard since #ahgj would be hardly possible4 ,i've forgotten most of them1 though ,i do remember that wonderful boy1 ,maurice ,dengremont1 who ended his life1 so rich in possibilities1 it is said as a billiard marker4 ,he was spoiled by women1 for he was a comely lad4 ,another wonder-child kept his head1 and to-day fascinating ,fritz ,kreisler is a master of masters and a favourite in ,america without peer4 ,he first appeared at ,boston and in #ahhh4 ,in ,paris ,i recall ,marsick and his polished style2 the gallant ,sauret1 ,johannes ,wolf1 and the brilliant and elegant ,timothee ,adamowski4 ,and in #ahhj1 ,marie ,tayau and her woman quartet1 a member of which was ,jeanne ,franko1 the sister of the conductors and violinists1 ,sam ,franko and ,nahan ,franko2 ,caesar ,thomson1 the miraculous2 ,c4 ,m4 ,loeffler--subtle player1 subtle composer2 ,sarasate with his sweet tone2 ,brodsky and his masculine manner2 ,willy ,burmester and his pallid pyrotechnics2 the learned ,schradieck1 the ,bohemian ,ondricek1 the dashing ,ovide ,musin1 ,bernhard ,listemann1 ,carl ,halir2 ,gregorowitsch1 the languid2 brilliant ,marteau2 ,alexander ,petschinikoff1 the ,russian2 the musicianly ,max ,bendix2 the astonishing ,john ,rhodes1 the wonder-worker ,kubelik and his icy perfections2 ,kocian1 ,willy ,hess1 ,efrem ,zimbalist1 ,albert ,spalding1 ,arthur ,hartman1 and a myriad of spoiled youths1 ,von ,veczsey1 ,horszowski--all have crossed the map of my memory4 ,and ,franz ,kneisel and the ,kneisel ,quartet1 dispensers of musical joys for decades1 but alas6 no more4 ,alas6 ,i would not barter memories of their music-making for a wilderness of virtuosi4 ,i must not forget ,joseph ,white1 the ,cuban violinist1 who was with ,theodore ,thomas one season4 ,his style was finished and ,parisian4 ,he was a mulatto and a handsome man4 ,the night ,i heard him he played the ,mendelssohn concerto1 and at the beginning of the slow movement his chanterelle broke4 ,calmly he took concert master ,richard ,arnold's proffered instrument and triumphantly finished the composition4 ,three violinists abide clear in my recollection3 ,wieniawski1 ,wilhelmj1 and ,ysaye4 ,the last named is dearer because nearer1 contrary to the supposed rule that the older the thing the worse it is4 ,ysaye is the magician of the violin4 ,he holds us in a spell with that elastic1 curving bow of his1 with those many coloured tones1 tender1 silky1 sardonic1 amorous1 rich1 and ductile4 ,he interprets the classics as well as the romantics2 ,bach1 ,beethoven1 ,brahms2 ,vieuxtemps as well as ,sibelius4 ,above all else1 his mastery of the violin's technical mysteries1 looms his musical temperament4 ,he has imagination4 ,i have reserved the women for the last4 ,a goodly1 artistic company4 ,it is not necessary to go back to the ,milanolla sisters4 ,we still cherish remembrances of ,camilla ,urso and her broad musicianly manner2 the finished style of ,normann-,neruda1 ,maris ,soldat1 the gifted and unhappy ,arma ,senkrah1 ,nettie ,carpenter1 ,teresina ,tua--who did not become a ,fiddle ,fairy when she visited us in #ahhg--,leonora ,jackson1 ,dora ,becker1 ,olive ,mead1 and ,maud ,powell4 ,in ,europe many years ago1 ,i heard ,marcella ,sembrich1 who1 after playing the ,e ,flat ,polonaise of ,chopin on the piano1 picked up a violin and dashed off the ,wieniawski ,polonaise2 these feats were followed by songs1 one being ,viardot-,garcia's arrangement of ,chopin's ,d ,major ,mazourka4 ,sembrich is the blue rose among great singers4 ,gericke1 ,paur1 ,nikisch were at first violinists2 so was ,fritz ,scheel1 late conductor of the ,philadelphia ,symphony ,orchestra4 ,franz ,kneisel is a conductor of great skill2 so is ,frederick ,stock1 who followed ,theodore ,thomas as conductor of the ,chicago ,symphony ,orchestra4 ,theodore ,spiering formerly concert-master of the ,philharmonic orchestra proved himself an excellent conductor4 ,but that a little ,polish woman could handle with ease two instruments and sing like an angel besides1 borders on the fantastic4 ,geraldine ,morgan is an admirable violin artiste who plays solo as well as quartet with equal authority4 ,maud ,powell has fulfilled her early promise4 ,she is a mature artiste1 one who will never be finished because she will always study1 always improve4 ,a ,joachim pupil1 she is1 nevertheless1 a pupil of ,maud ,powell1 and her playing reveals breadth1 musicianship1 beauty of tone and phrasing4 ,she is our greatest ,american violin virtuosa4 ,i wrote this of ,mischa ,elman 7the first of the many ,mischas and ,jaschas who mew on the fiddle strings7 after ,i heard him play in ,london3 ,united to an amazing technical precision there is a still more amazing emotional temperament1 all dominated by a powerful musical and mental intellect1 uncanny in one not yet out of his teens4 ,what need to add that his conception of ,beethoven is neither as lovely as ,kreisler's nor as fascinating as ,ysaye's8 ,elman will mature4 ,in the romantic or the virtuoso realm he is past master4 ,his tone is lava-like in its warmth4 ,he paints with many colours4 ,he displays numberless nuances of feeling4 ,the musical in him dominates the virtuoso4 ,naturally1 the pride of hot youth asserts itself1 and often1 self-intoxicated1 he intoxicates his audiences with his sensuous1 compelling tone4 ,hebraic1 tragic1 melancholy1 the boisterousness of the ,russian1 the swift modulation from mad caprice to ,slavic despair--,elman is a magician of many moods4 ,when ,i listen to him ,i almost forget ,ysaye4 ,yet when ,i heard ,ysaye play last season it was ,elman that ,i forgot for the moment4 ,after all1 a critic1 too1 may have his moods4 ,and now comes another conqueror1 the lad ,jasha ,heifetz from ,russia1 a pupil of ,leopold ,auer and an artist of such extraordinary attainments that the greatest among contemporary violinists--is it necessary to mention names8--have said of him that his art begins where theirs ends1 and that they will shut up shop when he plays here4 ,all of which is a flattering tribute1 but it has been made before4 ,heifetz1 however1 may be the dark horse in the modern fiddle sweepstakes4 ,,chapter ,,xxix ,,riding ,,the ,,whirlwind ,once ,swinburne1 in a ,baudelaire mood1 sang3 ,shall no new sin be born for men's troubles8 ,and it was an ,asiatic potentate who offered a prize for the discovery of a new pleasure4 ,or was it a sauce8 ,mankind soon wearies4 ,the miracles of yesteryear are the commonplaces of to-day4 ,steam1 telegraphy1 electric motors1 wireless1 and now wireless telephony are accepted as a matter of course by the man in the street4 ,how stale will seem woman suffrage and prohibition after they have conquered4 ,in the world of art conditions are analogous4 ,the cubist nail drove out the impressionist1 and the cubist will vanish if the futurist hammer is sufficiently heavy4 ,nevertheless1 there is a novel sensation in store for those who make a first flight through the air4 ,i don't mean in a balloon1 whether captive or free2 in the case of the former1 a trip to the top of the ,washington ,monument or the ,eiffel ,tower will suffice2 and while ,i rode in a ,zeppelin at ,berlin in #aiab 7#ajj marks1 or about #be1 was the tariff7 and saw ,potsdam at my feet1 yet ,i was unsatisfied4 ,the passengers sat in a comfortable salon1 ate1 drank1 even smoked4 ,the travelling was so smooth as to suggest an inland lake on a summer day4 ,no danger was to be apprehended4 ,the monster air-ship left its hangar and returned to it on schedule time4 ,the entire trip lacked the flavour of adventure4 ,and that leads me to a personal confession4 ,i am not a sport4 ,in my veins flows sporting blood1 but only in the ,darwinian sense am ,i a sport1 a deviation from the normal history of my family1 which has always been devoted to athletic pleasures4 ,a baseball match in which carnage ensues is a mild diversion for me4 ,i can't understand the fury of the contest4 ,i yawn1 though the frenzied enthusiasm of the spectators interests me4 ,i have fallen asleep over a cricket match at ,lord's in ,london1 and the biggest bore of all was a ,sunday afternoon bull-fight in ,madrid4 ,it was such a waste of potential beefsteaks4 ,prize-fights disgust1 shell races are puerile1 football matches smack of obituaries4 ,as for golf--that is a prelude to senility1 or the antechamber to an undertaker's establishment4 ,the swiftness of film pictures has set a new metronomic standard for modern sports4 ,i suppose playing ,bach fugues on the keyboard is as exciting a game as any2 that is1 for those who like it4 ,a four-voiced polyphony at a good gait is positively hair-raising4 ,it beats poker4 ,all this is a preliminary to my little tale4 ,conceive me as an elderly person of generous waist measurement1 slightly reckless like most near-sighted humans2 this recklessness is psychical4 ,safety first1 and ,i always watch my step2 painful experience taught me years ago the perils that lurk in ambush for a ,johnny-look-in-the-air4 ,flying in heavier-than-air machines fascinated me4 ,the fantastic stories of ,h4 ,g4 ,wells were ever a joy4 ,when the ,argonauts of the ,air appeared1 flying was practically assured1 although a ,paris mathematician had demonstrated with ineluctable logic that it was impossible2 as proved a member of the ,institute a century earlier that birds couldn't fly4 ,it was an illusion4 ,well1 the ,wrights flew1 even if ,langley did not--,langley1 the genuine father of the aeroplane4 ,living so long in ,france and ,belgium1 ,i had grown accustomed to the whirring of aerial motors1 a sound not unlike that of a motor-boat or the buzzing of a sawmill4 ,i became accustomed to this drone above the housetops1 and since my return to ,america ,i have often wondered why in the land where the aeroplane first flew1 so little public interest was manifested4 ,to be sure1 there are aero clubs1 but they never fly where the interest of the greater public can be intrigued4 ,either there is a hectic excitement over some record broken or else the aviator sulks in his tent4 ,is the money devil at the bottom of the trouble8 ,sport for sport's sake1 like art for art's sake1 is rarely encountered4 ,the government has taken up flying1 but that is for pragmatic purposes4 ,the aeroplane as a weapon of defence1 not the aeroplane as a new and agreeable pleasure4 ,we are not a disinterested nation2 even symphony concerts and opera and the salvation of souls are commercial propositions4 ,else would our skies be darkened by flying machines instead of smoke1 and our churches thronged with aviators4 ,walking on the famous and fatiguing ,boardwalk of ,atlantic ,city ,i suddenly heard a familiar buzzing in the air and looked up4 ,there it was1 a big flying boat like a prehistoric dragon-fly1 speeding from the ,inlet down to the million-dollar pier4 ,presently there were two of them flying1 and ,i felt as if ,i were in a civilised land4 ,on the trolleys were signs3 ,see the ,flying ,boats at the ,inlet6 ,i did1 the very next morning4 ,i had no notion of being a passenger4 ,i was not tempted by the thought4 ,but as ,satan finds work for idle hands1 ,i lounged down the beach to the ,kendrick biplane1 and stared my full at its slender proportions4 ,a young man in a bathing-suit explained to me the technique of flying1 and insinuated that hundreds and hundreds had flown during the season without accident4 ,afternoon saw me again on the sands1 an excited witness of a flight2 excited because ,i stood behind the motor when it was started for a preliminary tryout--tuning up is the slang phrase of the profession--and the cyclonic gale blew my hat away1 loosened my collar1 and made my teeth chatter4 ,such a tornadic roar6 ,i firmly resolved that never would ,i trust myself in such a devil's contrivance4 ,why1 it was actually riding the whirlwind--and1 perhaps1 reaping a watery grave4 ,what else but that8 ,on a blast of air you sail aloft and along4 ,when the air ceases you drop 7less than forty-five miles an hour74 ,and this in a flimsy box kite4 ,never for me6 ,not to-day1 baker1 call to-morrow with a crusty cottage6 as we used to say in dear old ,lunnon years ago4 ,nevertheless1 the poison was in my veins2 cunningly it began to work4 ,i saw a passenger1 a fat man1 weighing two hundred and four pounds--,i asked for the figures--trussed up like a calf in the arms of a slight1 muscular youth1 who carried him a limp burden and deposited him on a seat in the prow of the boat4 ,i turned my head away4 ,i am not easily stirred--having reported musical and theatrical happenings for a quarter of a century--but the sight of that stout male1 a man and a brother 7,i didn't know him from ,adam71 evoked a chord of pity in my breast4 ,i felt that ,i would never set eyes again on this prospective food for fishes4 ,i quickly left the spot and returned to my hotel1 determined to say1 ,retro me1 ,sathanas6 if that personage should happen to show me his hoofs1 horns1 and hide4 ,but he did not4 ,the devil is a subtle beast4 ,he had simply set jangling the wires of suggestion1 and my nerves accomplished the rest4 ,one morning1 a few days later1 ,i awoke parched with desire4 ,i drank much strong tea to steady me and smoked unremittingly4 ,again1 during the early afternoon1 ,i found myself up the beach4 ,my feet take hold on hell1 ,i said to myself1 but it was only hot sand4 ,i teased myself with speculations as to whether the game was worth the candle--yes1 ,i had got that far1 traversing a vast mental territory between the ,no-,sayer and the ,yes-,sayer4 ,i was doomed1 and ,i knew it when ,i began to circle about the machine4 ,courteously the bonny youth explained matters4 ,it was a ,glenn ,h4 ,curtiss hydro-aeroplane1 furnished with one of the new ,curtiss engines of ninety horse-power1 capable of flying seventy to ninety miles an hour1 of lifting four hundred pounds1 and weighing in all about a ton4 ,was it safe8 ,were the taut1 skinny piano wires that manipulated the steering-gear and the plane durable8 ,didn't they ever snap8 ,of course they were durable1 and1 of course1 they occasionally snapped4 ,what then8 ,why1 you drop1 in spiral fashion--volplane--charming vocable6 ,but if the engine8--same thing4 ,you would come to earth1 rather water1 as naturally as a child takes the breast4 ,nothing to fear4 ,young ,beryl ,kendrick is an ,atlantic ,city product--he was a professional swimmer and life-guard--and will look after you4 ,the price is fifteen dollars2 formerly twenty-five dollars1 but competition1 which is said to be the life of trade1 had operated in favour of the public4 ,rather emotionally ,i bade my man good day1 promising to return for a flight the next morning1 a promise ,i certainly did not mean to keep4 ,this stupendous announcement he received coolly4 ,flying to him was a quotidian banality4 ,and then ,i noticed that the blazing sun had become darkened4 ,was it an eclipse1 or were some horrid1 monstrous shapes like the supposititious spindles spoken of by ,langley devouring the light of our parent planet8 ,no1 it was the chamber of my skull that was full of shadows4 ,the obsession was complete4 ,i would go up1 but ,i must suffer terribly in the interim4 ,why should ,i fly and pay fifteen good shekels for the unwelcome privilege8 ,i computed the cost of various beverages1 and as a consoling thought recalled ,mark ,twain's story of the ,western editor who1 missing from his accustomed haunts1 was later found serenely drunk1 passionately reading to a group of miners from a table his lantern-illuminated speech1 in which he denounced the cruel raw waste of grain in the making of bread when so many honest men were starving for whisky4 ,yet did ,i feel that ,i would not begrudge my hard-earned royalties 7,i'm not a best-seller71 and thus tormented between the devil of cowardice and the deep sea of curiosity ,i retired and dreamed all night of fighting strange birds that attacked me in an aeroplane4 ,i shan't weary you with the further analysis of my soul-states during this tempestuous period4 ,i ate a light breakfast1 swallowed much tea4 ,then ,i resolutely went in company with a friend1 and we boarded an ,inlet car4 ,i had the day previous resorted to a major expedient of cowards4 ,i had said1 so as to bolster up my fluttering resolution1 that ,i was going to fly2 an expedient that seldom misses1 for ,i should never have been able to face the chief clerk1 the head waiter1 or the proprietor at the hotel if ,i failed to keep my promise4 ,boaster6 ,swaggerer6 ,i muttered to myself en route4 ,now are you satisfied8 ,thou tremblest1 carcass6 ,thou wouldst tremble much more if thou knewest whither ,i shall soon lead thee6 ,i quoted ,turenne1 and ,i was beginning to babble something about ,icarus--or was it ,phaeton1 or ,simon ,magus8--brought to earth in the ,colosseum by a prayer from the lips of ,saint ,peter--when we arrived4 ,how ,i hated the corner where we alighted4 ,it seemed mean and dingy and sinister in the dazzling sunlight--a red-hot ,saturday1 ,september #aa1 #aiae1 and the hour was #aj4cj ,a4 ,m4 ,a condemned criminal could not have noted more clearly every detail of the life he was about to quit4 ,we ploughed through the sand4 ,we reached the scaffold--at least it looked like one to me4 ,hello1 here's a church4 ,let's go in1 ,i felt like exclaiming in sheer desperation1 remembering ,dickens and ,mr4 ,wemmick4 ,i would have1 such was my blue funk1 quoted ,holy ,scripture to the sandlopers1 but ,i hadn't the chance4 ,i asked my friend1 and my voice sounded steady enough1 whether the wind and weather seemed propitious for flying4 ,never better was the reply1 and my heart went down to my boots4 ,i really think ,i should have escaped if a stout man with a piratical moustache hadn't approached me and asked3 ,going up to-day8 ,i marvelled at his calmness1 and wished for his instant dissolution1 but ,i gave an affirmative shake of the head4 ,cornered at last6 ,handing my watch1 hat1 and wallet to my friend1 ,i coldly awaited the final preparations4 ,i had forgotten my ear protector1 but cotton-wool would answer the purpose of making me partially deaf to the clangorous vibration of the propeller blades--which resemble in a magnified shape the innocent air-fans of offices and cafes4 ,i essayed one more joke--true gallows humour--before ,i was led like a lamb 7a tough one7 to the slaughter4 ,i asked an attendant to whom ,i had paid the official fee if my widows would be refunded the money in case of accident2 but this antique and tasteless witticism was indifferently received1 as it deserved4 ,finally the young man gave me a raincoat1 grabbed me around the waist1 and bidding me clasp his neck he carried me out into shallow water and sat me beside the air-pilot1 who looked like a mere lad in his bathing-clothes4 ,my hand must have been trembling 7ah1 that old piano hand71 for he inquiringly eyed me4 ,the motor was screaming as we flew through the water toward the ,inlet4 ,i hadn't courage of mind to make a farewell signal to my companion4 ,too late1 we're off6 ,i thought1 and at once my trepidation vanished4 ,i had for some unknown reason1 possibly because of absolute despair1 suffered a rich sea-change4 ,we churned the waves4 ,i saw tiny sails studding the deep blue4 ,men fished from the shore4 ,as we neared the ,inlet1 where a shambling wooden hotel stands on the sandy point1 the sound of the motor grew intenser4 ,we began to lift1 not all at once1 but gradually4 ,suddenly her nose poked skyward1 and the boat climbed the air with an ease that was astonishing4 ,no shock4 ,no jerkiness4 ,we simply glided aloft as if the sky were our native heath--you will pardon the ,hibernicism--and as if determined to pay a visit to the round blazing sun bathing naked in the brilliant blue4 ,and with the mounting ascent ,i became unconscious of my corporeal vesture4 ,i had become pure spirit4 ,i feared nothing4 ,the legend of angels became a certainty4 ,i was on the way to the ,fourth ,dimensional vista4 ,i recalled ,poincare's suggestion that there is no such thing as matter2 only holes in the ether4 ,nature embracing a vacuum instead of abhorring it4 ,a ,swiss cheese universe4 ,joseph ,conrad has said ,man on earth is an unforeseen accident which does not stand close investigation4 ,but man in the air8 ,man is destined to wings4 ,was ,i not proving it8 ,flying is the sport of gods1 and should be of humans now that the motor-car is become slightly promiscuous4 ,the ,inlet and thoroughfare at my feet were a network of silvery ribbons4 ,the heat was terrific1 the glare almost unbearable4 ,but ,i no longer sneezed4 ,aviation solves the hay-fever problem4 ,the wind forced me to clench my teeth4 ,we were hurled along at seventy miles an hour1 and up several thousand feet1 yet below the land seemed near enough to touch4 ,as we swung across the masts of yachts ,i wondered that we didn't graze them--so elusive was the crystal clearness of the atmosphere1 a magic mirror that made the remote contiguous4 ,the mast of the sunken schooner hard by the sand-bar looked like a lead-pencil one could grasp and write a message to ,mars4 ,hello6 ,i was become lyrical4 ,it is inescapable up in the air4 ,the blood seethes4 ,ecstasy sets in2 the kinetic ecstasy of a spinning-top4 ,i gazed at the pilot4 ,he twisted his wheel nonchalantly as if in an earthly automobile4 ,i looked over the sides of the cedar boat and was not giddy1 for ,i had lived years at the top of an apartment-house1 ten stories high1 from which ,i daily viewed policemen killing time on the sidewalks2 besides1 ,i have strong eyes and the stomach of a drover4 ,therefore1 no giddiness1 no nausea4 ,only exaltation as we swooped down to lower levels4 ,atlantic ,city1 bizarre1 yet meaningless1 outrageously planned and executed1 stretched its ugly shape beneath us2 the most striking objects were the exotic hyphenated hotel1 with its ,asiatic monoliths and dome1 and its vast1 grandiose neighbour1 a mound of concrete1 the biggest hotel in the world4 ,the piers were salient silhouettes4 ,a checker-board seemed the city1 which modulated into a tremendous arabesque of ocean and sky4 ,i preferred to stare seaward4 ,the absorbent cotton in my ears was transformed into gun-cotton1 so explosive the insistent drumming of the motor-engine4 ,otherwise1 we flew on even keel1 only an occasional dip and a sidewise swing reminding me that ,i wasn't footing the ordinary highway4 ,the initial intoxication began to wear off1 but not the sense of freedom1 a glorious freedom2 truly1 mankind will not be free till all fly4 ,alas6 though we become winged we remain mortal4 ,we may shed our cumbersome pedestrian habits1 but we take up in the air with us our petty souls4 ,i found myself indulging in very trite thoughts4 ,what a pity that war should be the first to degrade this delightful and stimulating sport6 ,worse followed4 ,why couldn't ,i own a machine8 ,base envy1 you see4 ,the socialistic leaven had begun to work4 ,no use2 we shall remain human even in heaven or hell4 ,i have been asked to describe the sensation of flying4 ,i can't4 ,it seems so easy1 so natural4 ,if you have ever dreamed of flying1 ,i can only say that your dream will be realised in an aeroplane4 ,dreams do come true sometimes4 7,curiously enough1 ,i've not dreamed of flying since47 ,but as there is an end even to the most tedious story1 so mine must finish4 ,suddenly the sound of the engine ceased4 ,the silence was thrilling1 almost painful4 ,and then in huge circles1 as if we were descending the curves of an invisible corkscrew1 we came down1 the bow of the flying boat pointing at an angle of forty-five degrees4 ,still no dizziness1 only a sense of regret that the trip was so soon over4 ,it had endured an eternity1 but occupied precisely twenty-one minutes4 ,we reached the water and settled on the foam like a feather4 ,then we churned toward the beach2 again ,i was carried1 this time on to solid land1 where ,i had ridiculous trouble in getting the cotton from my harassed eardrums4 ,perhaps my hands were unsteady1 but if they were1 my feet were not4 ,i reached the ,inlet via the ,boardwalk1 making record time1 and drew the first happy sigh in a week as ,i sat down1 lighted a cigar1 and twiddled my fingers at a waiter4 ,even if ,i had enjoyed a new pleasure ,i didn't propose to give up the old ones4 ,then my nerves6 ,and when ,i meet ,gabriele d',annunzio ,i can look him in the eye4 ,he flew over ,trieste1 but ,i flew over my fears--a moral as well as a physical victory for a timid conservative4 ,,chapter ,,xxx ,,prayers ,,for ,,the ,,living 7,from the editorial page of the ,new ,york ,sun1 ,december #ca1 #aiaf7 ,it is a holy and wholesome thought to pray for the dead that they may be loosed from their sins2 and it is as holy a prayer that begs from the god of chance his pity for the living4 ,aye6 it is those who are about to live1 not to die1 that we should salute4 ,life is the eternal slayer2 death is but the final punctuation of the vital paragraph4 ,life is also the betrayer4 ,a cosmical conspiracy of deception encircles us4 ,we call it ,maya1 and flatter our finite sense of humour that we are no longer entrapped by the shining appearance of things when we say aloud3 ,stay1 thou art so subtle that we know you for what you are--the profoundest instinct of life3 its cruel delight in pretending to be what it is not4 ,we are now1 all of us who think that we think1 newly born ,fausts with eyes unbandaged of the supreme blinders1 ,time and ,space4 ,nature clothes the skeleton in a motley suit of flesh1 but our supersharpened ears overhear the rattling of the bones4 ,we are become so wise that love itself is no longer a sentiment1 only a sensation2 religion is first cousin to voluptuousness2 and if we are so minded we may jig to the tune of the stars up the dazzling staircase1 and sneer at the cloud-gates of the infinite inane4 ,naught succeeds like negation1 and we swear that in the house of the undertaker it is impolite to speak of shrouds4 ,we are nothing if not determinists4 ,and we believe that the devil deserves the hindmost4 ,we live in order to forget life4 ,for our delicate machinery of apperception there is no longer right or wrong2 vice and virtue are the acid and alkali of existence4 ,and as too much acid deranges the stomach1 so vice corrodes the soul1 and thus we are virtuous by compulsion4 ,yet we know that evil serves its purpose in the vast chemistry of being1 and if banished the consequences might not be for universal good2 other evils would follow in the train of a too comprehensive mitigation1 and our end a stale swamp of vain virtues4 ,resist not evil6 ,which may mean the reverse of what it seems to preach4 ,the master modern immoralist has said3 ,embrace evil6 that we may be over and done with it4 ,toys are our ideals2 glory1 goodness1 wealth1 health1 happiness2 all toys except health2 health of the body1 of the soul4 ,and the first shall be last4 ,the human soul in health8 ,but there is no spiritual health4 ,the mystic1 ,doctor ,tauler1 has said3 ,god does not reside in a vigorous body2 sinister2 nevertheless1 equitable4 ,the dolorous certitude that the most radiant of existences ends in the defeat of disease and death2 that happiness is relative1 a word empty of meaning in the light of experience1 and non-existent as an absolute2 that the only divine oasis in our feverish activities is sleep2 sleep the prelude to the profound and eternal silence--why then this gabble about soul-states and the peace that passeth all understanding8 ,simply because the red corpuscles that rule our destinies are1 when dynamic1 mighty breeders of hope2 if the powers and principalities of darkness prevail1 our guardian angels1 the phagocytes1 are dominated by the leucocytes4 ,gods and devils1 ,ormuzd and ,ahriman1 and other phantasms of the sky1 may all be put on a microscopic slide and their struggles noted4 ,and the evil ones are ever victors in the diabolical game4 ,no need to insist on it4 ,in the heart of mankind there is a tiny shrine with its burning taper2 the idol is ,self2 the propitiatory light is for subliminal foes4 ,alas6 in vain4 ,we succumb1 and in our weakness we sink into the grave4 ,if only we were sure of the ,river ,styx afterward we should pay the ferry-tax with joy4 ,better ,hades than the poppy of oblivion4 ,ready to be anything in the ecstasy of being ever1 as ,sir ,thomas ,browne sagely remarks4 ,the pious and worthy ,doctor ,jeremy ,taylor1 who built cathedral-like structures of ,english prose to the greater glory of ,god and for the edification of ambitious rhetoricians1 has dwelt upon the efficacy of prayer in a singularly luminous passage3 ,holy prayer procures the ministry and services of angels4 ,it rescinds the decrees of ,god4 ,it cures sickness and obtains pardon4 ,it arrests the sun in its course and stays the wheels of the chariot of the moon4 ,it rules over all ,god's creatures and opens and shuts the storehouses of rain4 ,it unlocks the cabinet of the womb and quenches the violence of fire4 ,it stops the mouths of lions and reconciles our sufferance and weak faculties with the violence of torment and sharpness of persecution4 ,it pleases ,god and supplies all our needs4 ,but prayer that can do this much for us can do nothing at all without holiness1 for ,god heareth not sinners1 but if any man be a worshipper of ,god and doth ,his will1 him ,he heareth4 ,it should not be forgotten that ,taylor1 perhaps the greatest ,english prose-master save ,john ,milton1 was a stickler for good works as well as faith4 ,he was considered almost heterodox because of his violence of speech when the subject of death-bed repentance became a topic of discussion2 indeed1 his bishop remonstrated with him because of his stiff-necked opinions4 ,to joust through life as at a pleasure tournament and when the dews of death dampen the forehead to call on ,god in your extremity seemed to this eloquent divine an act of slinking cowardice4 ,far better face the evil one in a defiant spirit than knock for admittance at the back door of paradise and try to sneak by the winged policeman into a vulgar bliss3 unwon1 unhoped for1 undeserved4 ,therefore the rather startling statement1 ,god heareth not sinners1 read in the light of ,bishop ,taylor's fervent conception of man's duty1 hath its justification4 ,but this atmosphere of proverbial commonplaces and inspissated gloom should not be long maintained when the coursers of the sun are plunging southward in the new year2 when the ,huntsman is up at ,oyster ,bay and they are already past their first sleep in ,persia4 ,what a bold and adventurous piece of nature is man2 yet how he stares at life as a frowning entertainment4 ,why must we act our antipodes when all ,africa and her prodigies are in us8 ,ergo1 let us be cheerful4 ,god is with the world4 ,let us pray that during the ensuing year no rust shall colour our soul into a dingy red4 ,let us pray for the living that they may be loosed from their politics and see life steadily and whole4 ,let us pray that we may not take it on ourselves to feel holier than our neighbours4 ,let us pray that we be not cursed with the itching desire to reform our fellows1 for the way of the reformer is hard1 and he always gets what he deserves3 the contempt of his fellow men4 ,he is usually a hypocrite4 ,let us pray that we are not struck by religious zeal2 religious people are not always good people2 good people are not envious1 jealous1 penurious1 censorious1 or busybodies1 or too much bound up in the prospect of the mote in their brother's eye and unmindful of the beam in their own4 ,furthermore1 good people do not unveil with uncharitable joy the faults of women4 ,have faith4 ,have hope1 and remember that charity is as great as chastity4 ,let us pray for the misguided folk who1 forgetful of ,mother ,church1 her wisdom1 her consolations1 flock to the tents of lewd1 itinerant1 mumbo-jumbo howlers1 that blaspheme the sacred name as they epileptically leap1 shouting glory-kingdom-come and please settle at the captain's office4 ,though they run on all fours and bark as hyenas1 they shall not enter the city of the saints1 being money-changers in the ,temple1 and tripe-sellers of souls4 ,better ,tophet and its burning pitch than a wilderness of such apes of ,god4 ,some men and women of culture and social position indorse these sorry buffoons1 the apology for their paradoxical conduct being any port in a storm2 any degrading circus1 so it be followed by a mock salvation4 ,but salvation for whom8 ,what deity cares for such foaming at the mouth1 such fustian8 ,conversion is silent and comes from within1 and not to the din of brass-bands and screaming hallelujahs4 ,it takes all sorts of gods to make the cosmos1 but why return to the antics and fetishes of our primate ancestors1 the cave-dwellers8 ,this squirming and panting and brief reform true religion8 ,on the contrary it is a throwback to bestiality1 to the vilest instincts4 ,a soul that has to be saved by such means is a soul not worth the saving4 ,to the discard with it1 where1 flaming in purgatorial fires1 it may be refashioned for future reincarnation on some other planet4 ,abuse of drink is to be deplored1 but ,prohibition is more enslaving than alcohol4 ,paganism in its most exotic forms is preferable to this prize-ring ,christianity4 ,one may be zealous without wallowing in debasing superstition4 ,again1 let us pray for these imbeciles and for the charlatans who are blinding them4 ,neither arts and sciences nor politics and philosophies will save the soul4 ,the azure route lies beyond the gates of ivory and the gates of horn4 ,let us pray for our sisters1 the suffragettes1 who are still suffering from the injustice of ,man1 now some million of years4 ,let us pray that they be given the ballot to prove to them its utter futility as a cure-all4 ,with it they shall be neither happier nor different4 ,once a woman1 always a martyr4 ,let them not be deceived by illusive phrases4 ,if they had not been oppressed they would to-day be free6 ,alas6 free from their sex8 ,free from the burden of family8 ,free like men to carry on the rude labours of this ruder earth8 ,to what purpose8 ,to become second-rate men1 when nature has endowed them with qualities that men vainly emulate1 vainly seek to evoke their spirit in the arts and literature6 ,ages past woman should have attained that impossible goal1 oppression or no2 in fact1 adversity has made man what he is--and woman1 too4 ,pray1 that she may not be tempted by the mirage into the desert1 there to perish of thirst for the promised land4 ,nearly a century ago ,george ,sand was preaching the equality of the sexes1 and rightly enough4 ,what has come of it8 ,the vote8 ,political office8 ,professions1 business opportunities8 ,yes1 all these things1 but not universal happiness4 ,woman's sphere--stale phrase6--is any one she hankers after2 but let her not deceive herself4 ,her future will strangely resemble her past4 ,william ,dean ,howells was not wrong when he wrote3 ,woman has only her choice in self-sacrifice4 ,and sometimes not even the choosing4 ,why8 ,why are eclipses8 ,why are some men prohibitionists8 ,why do hens cluck after laying eggs8 ,let us pray for warring women that their politically ambitious leaders may no longer dupe them with fallacious promises--surely a pathetic fallacy4 ,but1 then1 females rush in where fools fear to tread4 ,and lastly1 beloved sisters and brothers1 let us heartily pray that our imperial democracy 7or is it a democratic empire871 our plutocratic republic 7or should we say republican plutocracy87 may be kept from war2 avoid the drums and tramplings of three conquests4 ,but by the ,eternal ,jehovah1 ,god of battles1 if we are forced to fight1 then let us fight like patriotic ,americans1 and not gently coo1 like pacifists and other sultry south winds4 ,a billion for preparedness1 but not a penny for pork1 say we4 ,and by the same token let us pray that those thundering humbugs and parasites who call themselves labour leaders--the blind leading the blind--for ever vanish4 ,because of their contumacious acts and egregious bamboozling of their victims1 because of their false promises of an earthly paradise and a golden age1 they deserve the harshest condemnation4 ,like certain ,oriental discourses1 our little ,morality which began in the mosque has rambled not far from the tavern4 ,nevertheless1 let us pray for the living as well as the dead4 ,oremus6 99 99 99 99 99 ,,books ,,by ,,james ,,huneker ,what some distinguished writers have said of them3 ,maurice ,maeterlinck wrote1 ,may #ae1 #aije3 ,do you know that ',iconoclasts' is the only book of high and universal critical worth that we have had for years--to be precise1 since ,georg ,brandes4 ,it is at once strong and fine1 supple and firm1 indulgent and sure4 ,and of ,ivory ,apes and ,peacocks he said1 among other things3 ,i have marvelled at the vigilance and clarity with which you follow and judge the new literary and artistic movements in all countries4 ,i do not know of criticism more pure and sure than yours4 7,october1 #aiae47 99 99 99 99 99 ,of ,visionaries ,remy de ,gourmont wrote1 ,june #bb1 #aijf3 ,i am convinced that you have written a very curious1 very beautiful book1 and one of that sort comes to us rarely4 99 99 99 99 99 ,paul ,bourget wrote1 ,lundi de ,paques1 #aiji1 of ,egoists3 ,i have browsed through the pages of your book and found that you touch in a sympathetic style on diverse problems1 artistic and literary4 ,in the case of ,stendhal your catholicity of treatment is extremely rare and courageous4 99 99 99 99 99 ,dr4 ,georg ,brandes1 the versatile and profound ,danish critic1 wrote3 ,i find your breadth of view and its expression more ,european than ,american2 but the essential thing is that you are an artist to your very marrow4 99 99 99 99 99 ,,ivory ,,apes ,,and ,,peacocks #abmo4 #a4ej net ,out of the depressing welter of our ,american writing upon aesthetics1 with its incredible thinness and triteness and paltriness1 its intellectual sterility1 its miraculous dulness1 its limitless and appalling vapidity1 ,mr4 ,james ,huneker1 and the small and honorable minority of his peers1 emerge with a conspicuousness that is both comforting and disgraceful4444 ,susceptibility1 clairvoyance1 immediacy of response1 are his2 he is the friend of any talent that is fine and strange and frank enough to incur the dislike of the mighty army of ,bourbons1 ,puritans1 and ,boeotians4 ,he is innocent of prepossessions4 ,he is infinitely flexible and generous4 ,yet if1 in the twenty years that we have been reading him1 he has ever praised a commonplace talent1 we have no recollection of it4 ,his critical tact is well-nigh infallible4444 ,his position among writers on aesthetics is anomalous and incredible3 no merchant traffics in his heart1 yet he commands a large1 an eager1 an affectionate public4 ,is it because he is both vivid and acute1 robust yet fine-fingered1 tolerant yet unyielding1 astringent yet tender--a mellow pessimist1 a kindly cynic8 ,or is it rather because he is1 primarily1 a temperament--dynamic1 contagious1 lovable1 inveterately alive--expressing itself through the most transparent of the arts8 --,,lawrence ,,gilman1 in ,north ,american ,review 7,october1 #aiae74 99 99 99 99 99 ,,new ,,cosmopolis #abmo4 #a4ej net ,mr4 ,james ,huneker1 critic of music in the first place1 is a craftsman of diverse accomplishment who occupies a distinctive and distinguished place among present-day ,american essayists4 ,he is intensely 'modern1' well read in recent ,european writers1 and not lacking sympathy with the more rebellious spirits4 ,ancient serenity has laid no chastening hand on his thought and style1 but he has achieved at times a fineness of expression that lifts his work above that of the many eager and artistic souls who strive to be the thinkers of ,new ,england to-day4 ,he flings off his impressions at fervent heat2 he is not ashamed to be enthusiastic2 and he cannot escape that large sentimentality which1 to less disciplined transatlantic writers1 is known nakedly as 'heart interest4' ,out of his chaos of reading and observation he has1 however1 evolved a criticism of life that makes for intellectual cultivation1 although it is of a ,bohemian rather than an academic kind4 ,given a different environment1 another training1 ,mr4 ,huneker might have emerged as an ,american ,walter ,pater4 --,london ,athenaeum 7,november #f1 #aiae74 99 99 99 99 99 ,,melomaniacs #abmo4 #a4ej net ,it would be difficult to sum up ',melomaniacs' in a phrase4 ,never did a book1 in my opinion at any rate1 exhibit greater contrasts1 not1 perhaps1 of strength and weakness1 but of clearness and obscurity4 ,it is inexplicably uneven1 as if the writer were perpetually playing on the boundary line that divides sanity of thought from intellectual chaos4 ,there is method in the madness1 but it is a method of intangible ideas4 ,nevertheless1 there is genius written over a large portion of it1 and to a musician the wealth of musical imagination is a living spring of thought4 --,,harold ,e4 ,,gorst1 in ,london ,saturday ,review 7,dec4 #h1aijf74 99 99 99 99 99 ,,visionaries #abmo4 #a4ej net ,in ',the ,spiral ,road' and in some of the other stories both fantasy and narrative may be compared with ,hawthorne in his most unearthly moods4 ,the younger man has read his ,nietzsche and has cast off his heritage of simple morals4 ,hawthorne's ,puritanism finds no echo in these modern souls1 all sceptical1 wavering1 and unblessed4 ,but ,hawthorne's splendor of vision and his power of sympathy with a tormented mind do live again in the best of ,mr4 ,huneker's stories4 --,london ,academy 7,feb4 #c1 #aijf74 99 99 99 99 99 ,,iconoclasts3 ,a ,book of ,dramatists #abmo4 #a4ej net ,his style is a little jerky1 but it is one of those rare styles in which we are led to expect some significance1 if not wit1 in every sentence4 --,g4 ,k4 ,,chesterton1 in ,london ,daily ,news4 99 99 99 99 99 ,,mezzotints ,,in ,,modern ,,music #abmo4 #a4ej net ,mr4 ,huneker is1 in the best sense1 a critic2 he listens to the music and gives you his impressions as rapidly and in as few words as possible2 or he sketches the composers in fine1 broad1 sweeping strokes with a magnificent disregard for unimportant details4 ,and as ,mr4 ,huneker is1 as ,i have said1 a powerful personality1 a man of quick brain and an energetic imagination1 a man of moods and temperament--a string that vibrates and sings in response to music--we get in these essays of his a distinctly original and very valuable contribution to the world's tiny musical literature4 --,j4 ,f4 ,,runciman1 in ,london ,saturday ,review4 99 99 99 99 99 ,,franz ,,liszt ,,with ,,numerous ,,illustrations #abmo4 #b4jj net 99 99 99 99 99 ,,chopin3 ,the ,man and ,his ,music #abmo4 #b4jj net 99 99 99 99 99 ,,overtones3 ,a ,book of ,temperaments ,,with ,,frontispiece ,,portrait ,,of ,,richard ,,strauss #abmo4 #a4ej net ,in some respects ,mr4 ,huneker must be reckoned the most brilliant of all living writers on matters musical4 --,academy1 ,london4 99 99 99 99 99 ,,the ,,pathos ,,of ,,distance ,a ,book of a ,thousand and ,one ,moments #abmo4 #b4jj net ,he talks about ,bergson as well as ,matisse2 he never can keep still about ,wagner2 he hauls over his ,french library of modern immortals1 and he gives a touch to ,george ,moore1 to ,arthur ,davies1 and to many another valiant worker in paint1 music1 and letters4 ,the book is stimulating2 brilliant even with an unexpected brilliancy4 --,chicago ,tribune4 99 99 99 99 99 ,,promenades ,,of ,,an ,,impressionist #abmo4 #a4ej net ,we like best such sober essays as those which analyze for us the technical contributions of ,cezanne and ,rodin4 ,here ,mr4 ,huneker is a real interpreter1 and here his long experience of men and ways in art counts for much4 ,charming1 in the slighter vein1 are such appreciations as the ,monticelli and ,chardin4 --,,frank ,,jewett ,,mather1 ,jr41 in ,new ,york ,nation and ,evening ,post4 99 99 99 99 99 ,,egoists ,,with ,,portrait ,,and ,,facsimile ,,reproductions #abmo4 #a4ej net ,closely and yet lightly written1 full of facts1 yet as amusing as a bit of discursive talk1 penetrating1 candid1 and very shrewd4 --,,royal ,,cortissoz1 in the ,new ,york ,tribune4 99 99 99 99 99 ,,charles ,,scribner',s ,,sons1 ,,new ,,york 99 99 99 99 99 ,,transcriber',s ,,notes ,the original punctuation and spelling were retained1 with the exception of a few printer's mistakes4 ,the text contains also inconsistently spelled words4 ,the oe ligature is indicated by oe4 99 99 99 99 99 ,the full list of changes to the text is as following3 p4 #aj ,lizst changed to ,liszt p4 #bd ,henri de ,regnier changed to ,henri de ,regnier p4 #dj immediable changed to irremediable p4 #ff ,maurice ,barres changed to ,maurice ,barres p4 #gg idylic changed to idyllic p4 #hc a critic should be ever so4 7,consider changed to a critic should be ever so4 ,consider ,explanation3 the opening bracket 7with no corresponding closing bracket7 was removed4 p4 #ajh hippogrifs changed to hippogriffs p4 #aab misanthrophy changed to misanthropy p4 #aaf ,huysman's changed to ,huysmans's p4 #aag1 p4 #bgf ,barbey d',aurevilly changed to ,barbey d',aurevilly p4 #abg promegranates changed to pomegranates p4 #acc ,musica changed to ,musical p4 #aef ,cujol changed to ,cajal p4 #afe ,facino ,cano changed to ,facino ,cane p4 #afh ,frederic ,chopin changed to ,frederic ,chopin p4 #bdd ,i'm a ,social-,democrat now4 changed to ,i'm a ,social-,democrat now4 ,explanation3 opening double quote added4 p4 #bdf sich changed to such p4 #bdf exclaims ,maeterlinck1 yet changed to exclaims ,maeterlinck1 yet ,explanation3 the double quote was moved to the next sentence4 p4 #cbg ,de ,beriot changed to ,de ,beriot 99 99 99 99 99 ,please note that the text contains inconsistently spelled words or phrases that were not changed4 ,the following is a list of those words4 ,the number in brackets denotes the number of occurences of each such word or phrase4 - ,cafe 7#a71 ,cafe 7#a7 - ,eugene ,ysaye 7#a71 ,eugene ,ysaye 7#a7 - ,karl ,heymann 7#a71 ,carl ,heyman 7#a7 - ,trocadero 7#a71 ,trocadero 7#b7 - bird-like 7#a71 birdlike 7#a7 - bric-a-brac 7#a71 bric-a-brac 7#a7 - free-will 7#a71 free will 7#a7 - ruse 7#a71 ruse 7#a7 - shadow-land 7#a71 shadow land 7#a7