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Show THE CITIZEN muiimimiiiiiniiiiMimiMiiiiHiiiiiiiiiiimiiiiiiiHWiiuiiiiiMiuMiuuiiiiiiHmiMiimmiMiiimiuiiiiiHUiiiMimiiiiiiuiMiMiuiiiiHiiiimumiMmHiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiini THINGS BOOKISH of the subjects are known by everybody. The manner of these essays is, however, the thing of importance to us now. It is the inimitable touch of James Huneker, and so well have his judgments stood the test of time that many of these essays would not re- quire the changing of a word today, As he was human, it is only just to ad mit that some of his enthusiasms turned out to be gaudy peacocks who could not withstand the hard knocks of time, and just as truly there were some who arrived at greatness whom he did not recognize on the way, but these are the exceptions, and few prophets need claim so few exceptions. For America he performed the service I Edited By WILLIAM C. WINDER, Jr. HUNEKER, INDIVIDUALIST. dren when Huneker started to tell the country that art is a great adventure and not merely a thing invented for Many months have come dancing to us as vivid realities and slipped off the uplifting of the mind. James Hunekers first love, was muagain into the night of eternity since James Gibbons Huneker lay his unsic, and although he later became our quiet mind and body down to enjoy a first critic in all the arts, his piano long, dreamless 'sleep. But to me he and his Chopin were always nearest has never seemed more splendidly his heart. While almost a boy he left alive than during these few days when Philadelphia, his birth-placand jourmy thoughts have been often on him neyed to Paris with the intention of and as I have dipped again and again studying under Diszt, the venerable into those books of his which I have Magyar then being still at the height so admired and which have started me of his glory. While he did not ever off on so many interesting and fascistudy under Liszt, he did take piano nating mental journeys. And tonight, under that masters great pupil, Theolooking at the portrait of this defiant dore Ritter, and also under George old satyr, I cannot help wondering Mathias, the splendid pupil of Chopin. what sort of an argument he started Hunekers understanding of music was with Saint Peter when he reached the deep and thorough, in many respects more so than that of any other Amerigate and announced that Old Fogy had arrived for the show. Of course I can. The two greatest interpreters of fully realize that during our Victorian Chopin, de Pachmann and Rafael Josef-fy-, recognized in Huneker the man period, his chances of success in such an encounter would have been rather who knew most intimately the work slight, but surely the eligibility rules of their idol. His books on music are are altered somewhat from time to simply beyond the lay reader. It is a time as men evolve new deities and noteworthy fact that he never lowered his standards to instruct the kindernew concepts of right and wrong. Other days, other ways! And, further- garten. In writing on any subject, and more, as no two men have the same especially on music, he took for grantheaven in mind, each according to his ed that he had an intelligent audiown likes and dislikes, we can very ence. The Mezzotints in Modern well depend upon it that the genial Music, Chopin: The Man and His James would do a little questioning Music, Franz Liszt all of these are for his own benefit. No eons of stupid intensely interesting as books, but they satisfaction for that man, no standing contain so much highly technical around in the lugubrious paradise of knowledge which passes us by unthe ninety and nine. His would have touched. Even his Old Fogy, that to be a thing of gladness and joy, with delightfully informal series of essays, artists of .the first grade! and pianos, most of them on music and the musiand the music of Bach and Beethoven cians, reveals an astounding amount of and JoHahn Strauss and especially erudition. Chopin 'and plenty of Pilsner beer It would be very misleading to think, from Prague, and a bit of scandal for though, that music occupied all of the conversation, and a few primrose time of this man. His alert mind acpaths along which one might dance. complished prodigies in other fields He never catered to royal favor while as well. To assert that he was a alive, so I think he would make his great critic, is of course to admit that he was thoroughly informed, for no just demands wherever he landed. And when I come to think about it criticism of any merit is possible unI do not of know men less it is based upon a sound knowlseriously, many who deserve better, treatment for past edge of the subject undertaken. I services rendered than does this man. maintain that it is impossible to propAlmost single handed he. battled erly criticize any book without a good against the Victorian bondage which knowledge of the author and his other had well nigh strangled artistic enbooks as well. Hunekers reading had deavor here since the death of Poe. been vast and comprehensive, and his He won, and what is better still, he interest in the personalities of his lived to know that he had won. No musicians, artists and writers was so country, in the world has at this time lively that in almost every criticism or to its credit a finer and abler group study which he makes, he enlivens it of critics of life and letters than the with some sort of personal informaAmerica of today, but they are one arid tion which throws a new and more all the spiritual sons of Huneker. Each human light on the subject in quesone is doing his share in opening the tion. In the books of literary criticism, gaps in the wall of ignorance and prejudice which Huneker first dared to Iconoclasts, Egoists, The Pathos pierce, but in the contemplation of of Distance," Ivory Apes and Peatheir splendid efforts and beautiful cocks, Unicorns, and Bedouins, ft effects It is well to stop for a moment one could almost call the roll of evto honor the name of the leader of the ery man or .woman of importance of .vanguard. The work today is being . the last forty years, and of nearly y carried on by such men as. Mencken, country. .The. matter which they Van Lewissohn, Macy, Doren, Brooks, t'coritain, while new and startlirig at Hackett, Gilman, Van Vechten and the'timri of writing, is now taken for many others, but they were all chil granted in many instances and many e, . that Georg Brandes, the great Danish country although they have had a considerable vogue in France, Germany, England, and Visionaries has even been translated into Bohemian. The subjects are not the emotions of all men as we know them, but they are of the clash of ideas among the highly civilized few, the importance to real life of things of real beauty. The Painted Veils, his only novel, printed privately just before his death and in a limited edition, is more than anything else a lifting of the veil of the true inwardness of Huneker himself. Here is none of the formality of the studies and criticisms, although the book is full of rich and fruitful allusions. In two or three different chapters throughout the book do we find Huneker discussing life and letters and immortality and women with a splendid frankness and rare insight. As a novel I could not class it particularly high, although it would have pleased me to do so, but as a human document, showing various phases of this fascinating artist-critiit is of value. This surpassing book, together with- his Old Fogy, also privately a collection of essays on music printed, and musicians which I mentioned before, will stand out as the of James Huneker, even far more than his acknowledged autobiography, Steeple Jack. In the two volumes of Steeplejack, I found really less of Huneker than I did of a thousand and one other people about whom the book is really written. To read these volumes is simply to learn what a vast mountain of critic, did for the continent. They were both prophets howling In the wilderness, proclaiming the new names of the worthy to a more or less indifferent public. If James Huneker discerned a work that was honest, original, beautiful, a really living thing, he immediately made its clause his own. That this work of art frankly did not contain anything of the uplift in it; that its attempt was not solely to elevate the mind; that it did not point a moral lesson ; these things, or rather omissions, did not bother him in the least. Too long, far too long, had criticism praised solemnly or condemned absolutely on these three grounds. A thing of joy or beauty without its attending moral lesson was to them simply immoral and without the pale. These doleful judgments forbade life to anything spontaneous and HIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIMIIIIIIII joyous. The youthful Huneker entered the ring, and the battle was on, to be waged for years between pedantic preI judice and oppression, combined with an apathetic public, on one side, while on the other side, was the .eternal voice f of restless youth embodied in James 5 and all occasions Huneker. Of such is Americas (debt to this man, and it is a big debt, too, its effects going far beyond our realization. Young America is now learning how to speak, how to make splendid utterance of its hopes and longings, knowing that it can now articulate spontaneously as its heart dicc - Anglo-America- n . . self-reveali- ng FLOWERS I For The Garden ! E S HOBDAYS Toward the two books of short ies, Flower Shop I tates. 246 South Main stor- Melomaniacs and Visionaries, Huneker felt with more tolerance than toward his critical works. They have not met with a very great favor in this ; i Street (Keith Emporium) Thoi. Hobday, Prop. Phone Wasatch 987 1 hi f I I if iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiniiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiuiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiifiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiilllll,,,l,,,,,l,l,,lllllllllllllllllllll . 1 E-S-ere AnotHiex' Wee It TUESDAY, MAY 15 an Francisco vs. Salt Lake s Game Called at 3 p. m. ev-.er- Double Header Sunday, May 20 First Game Called at 1:30 I |