The farmer and mechanic. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 18??-19??, 1912-05-07

L "A /
doSlnatlcally overeonfdo,- -.
.poh art and life. May he continue
oiihS US, IN an ever increasing
Leaii, not only the ideas. but
"Hat IS the highest function Of the
ma.tNonnary OF cutture,-the actual
works. OF the master-minds Of
Eoiope Strindberg perhaps awaits
III MIN an American-Swedjeh inter
prefer and translator.
Huneker's Franz List"
nave Just finished a new work
~ mat mastery and individual art
Sii'lc, James Huneker. For wears.
nave anticipated this book Franz
ISL rom him l have heard of il
y .lme TO time. And now that
We nave Il, ! AN only too well real
re mat 1t has taken MANY wears to
coordinate the results of his Wet
research into the endless, inexhaust-
lole mines of List wealth. 1t often
seems the cheapest Of paStimes TO
pue d man into competition with him
sell rather than with others. But
mere need be no MISUNDERSTANDING Of
enE statement tina this is the most
soma, most permanent, most compre-
nenslvely complete book that Huneker
mas ever written. To say that this
pook was composed con amore is to
lndulge IN ludicrous understatement
only passionate p~reoccupation with
the theme, the man, his art, his
music ms genius, his personality,
could even have brought forth SO
'efse, SO momentOus, a book-dense
packed with brilliant gems of idea,
1ancy, imagination. 1t has taken
three readings to finish Though it
IS only four hundred and fifty pages
IN length. | didn't want to miss even
a word. For what we see is no List
ana Huneker-but List and his gen
oratinn hio L:-
his f1atterers and his worshippers,
women frail in morals as in frame,
great artists, great musicians, great
painters, great WrlterS-a great Euro
pean world. all moving in a sort Of
magnetic circle at the centre Of
which stands List. the magician
the white magic Of his w~iZardry
all about him. Huneker's opening
essay: THE Real and the Legen-
dairy is a masterpiece Of artistic
prOJectlOn-Of the man as he was,
and of the deity as he haunted the
world. Such a book as this is not
easy for one, not a musician, to read:
we are dazzled with the conflicting
r~efractiOnS from the mirrors of List
contemporaries, we do not know
surely, if List were really great as
composer: how much of him was
charlatan: if he was fundamentally
sincere as religionist; what the mas
ter crisis of his life were. But suffice
1t to say that such a bOo as tn S is
infinitely more difficult to write thar
a biography, full. accurate, authentic
in which the author Vehemently states
all things with i~rrevocable. finality il
regard to his hero. | know no othe1
book OF the kind with which to com
pare this ks Huneker's Owl
less significant and vaguely amateur
ish Chopin" Certainly James Hume.
ker's Franz List (Charles Serb
and most significant book Of it's kline
an excessively difficult kind L
write, by an American critic, that
have encountered.
II. G.. MoultOn's World Literature.
One Of the books which seems pc
culiarly timely in the true n i
r. G. Moulton's "World-Literature
The Macmillan Coz. never Sa v
him at Chicago-trying to imperson
ate all the characters in a play Q
Shakespeare, or trying to embody
complete Greek chorus. with VILE
; gestures and weird changes in voic'
infection, frantic movements indicat
ing the most passionate earnestness
| that | did not realize how unterrl
, fed a champion Of world literatur'
he was. In this book he holds GU
} this cosmic ideal,-which seems, t
: anyone but a mental prodigy Xix
5 Moulton. a rankly impossible dream
5 with sweet reasonableness and in
formed scholarship. It is, distinctly
not Comparative Literature that h
projects for inspection-but a schem
of comprehensive study, eWin lit
erature in perspective as a unity, no
as a sum total Of particular lltera
lures. He urges this study of the lit
!. eratures of the world in a cOnjuncuo'
A unified from the Q
I English-speaking people. The boo
is given up largely to s~ketching tn
t main outlines of a Of world
. literature-the Holy Bible, Classica
Epic and Tragedy, Shakespeare
Dante and Milton, Faust. colateTa
i studies. n comparative reading.
must be, eventually. and | believe !
the near future. recognized at leas
as a goal, in some sense, toward Whlc
r we must tend in the study of Itel
n AZURE. To take a single example an