The Free Lance.
“His good blade carves the casques of men., for the Free Lance
thrusteth sure.”
Vol. XVII.
A collection of sketches of musicians, as well as other beings
with “temperaments,” all subjects of dementia, melancholia, or
melomania —a riot of lurid tone in words—such is the nature of
“Melomaniacs,” a little-noticed book by James Huneker, issued
about two years ago. The book is a sort of excursion into Bohe
mian psychology, that land of emotions, moods and the artistic
temperament,—with the artistic temperameut gone mad. There is
a preponderance of Polish musicians, very Qiopinesque in their
manner and their music, long-haired and somewhat wild-eyed,
worshiping Nietzsche and Lingwood Evans with all their revolu
tionary and anarchistic creed. And it is probably from these two,
first a mental pathology of the artistic temperament gone mad;
second, a revelation of the sensation and moods which music can
induce in one susceptible to its influence; v it is from these two
features of the book that it has interest from a literary point of
view.
One of the most risque in conception of the sketches is “The
Disenchanted Symphony.” One Poblofjf, a more or less well
meaning Slav, is the leading figure in it. Pobloff loved mathe
matics more than music, and quoted Leibnitz: “Music is an occult
exercise of the mind unconsciously performing arithmetical cal
culations.” He, Pobloff, had studied under Lobatchewsky, and.
MARCH, 1904.
“MELOMANIACS.”
No. 9.