had absorbed from that mathematician many of the radical
theories concerning the problematic fourth dimension. And in the
eternal scheme of things, was not music, with the vertical struct
ure of harmony and the horizontal flow of melody, but another
dimension in Time? Convinced that in music lay the solution of
this particular mathematical problem, Pobloff, a la Strauss, work
ed for over a year on a symphonic poem, which he' jocularly
christened “The Abysm.” Could he but trace the fourth dimen
sion to tone, to his tones, then would his name resound through
out the ages. Pobloff was Kapellmeister of the Royal Filhar
monie Orchestra, and the description of its rehearsal of the
symphonic poem Huneker sketches with his lurid word-painting
of the diabolical Salv music:
“The free-fantasia of the poem was reached, and, roaring,
the music neared its climacteric point.” “Now,” whispered
Pobloff, stooping, “when the pianissimo begins I shall watch
for the abysm.” As the wind sweepingly rushes to a howling
apex so came the propulsive crash of the climax. The tone
rapidly subsided and receded; for the composer had so cunning
ly scored it the groups of instruments were withdrawn without
losing the thread of the musical tale. The tone, spun to a needle
fineness rushed up the fingerboards of the violins accompanied
by the harp in a billowing glissando, and, then, on ragged rims
of wide thunder, a gust of air seemed to melt lights, men, instru
ments into a darkness that, froze the eyeballs. With a scorch
ing wiff of sulphur and violets, a thin spiral scream, the music
tapered into the sepulchral clang of' a tam-tam, and Pobloff,
his broad face awash with fear, saw by a solitary wavering gas
jet that he was alone upomhis knees, Not a musician was to
be seen. Not a sound save'dull noises from the street without.
. . . . “Oh, it is the Fourth Dimension, they have found my
black abysm! Oh, why did I not fall into it with the ignorant
dogs!” He was crying this over and over, when the doors
were smashed, and Poloff taken, half delirious, to his home.
In three sketches, “Isolde's Mother,” “The Rim of Finer
Issues,” and “An Ibsen Girl,” the author' depicts the artistic
temperament in woman. I-lis women are strenuous, self-willed
and masculine, rather brawny and unamiable, imbued with
Browning, Ibsen and the omnipresent Nietzsche. They talk alto
gether astoundingly of individualism as the salvation of the race,