of emancipation from older forms of expression, of the rim of
finer issues, of compressing into a single page of prose or music
the vivid impression of a moment, a lifetime, an eternity.
In this phase of his character studies, Huneker's pages form an
excellent preachment upon these certain tendencies to an ultra
refinement of modern modes of expression, of aesthetics in gen
eral. The evolution of literature, art and in a large measure of
philosophic thought is from the objective to the subjective, from
the real to the ideal. Then in art, as mode of expression, comes
the introspective, the psychologic period, and we have deep analy
sis and dissection of moods and emotions, individualism; out of
this arises the phychologic novel, Nietzsche and his individualism,
with him Strauss and his symphonic poem setting of “Also Sprach
Zarathustra,” which the author in another work characterizes as
“this weltering symphony of sin, sorrow and cruel passions.”
Further on in the work just quoted Huneker seizes the key-note
of the whole matter when he says of “Also Sprach Zarathustra
“It is complex with the diseased complexity of the age , and its
strivings are the agonized strivings of a morbid Titian.” Nothing
could better describe the emptiness, the vanity, the hollowness of
this euphistic individualism, and the whole of “Melomaniacs” is
a most artifully contrived and executed expose of the manner in
which many dilettanti have forced this empty rim of nothingness
upon modern art in music and literature.
In “The Piper of Dreams,” perhaps the most powerfully writ
ten of any of the sketches, we have another composer, Illowsld,
gone music-mad, aiming at instilling anarchy in the minds of the
common people through his lurid corrosive music. Fie finds
something lacking in the classical music, something which Chopin
approaches in the mad martial riot of the “Revolt” Polonaise,
something which Wagner tried to supply in the Nibelungen
Cycle, “Tristan” and “Parsifal” with color, costume, lights and
scenery. In describing this revolutionary music of Illowsld,
Pluneker’s descriptive and imaginative poems are at their height,
parts of it appeal to one as an intellectual debauch almost: