The New York herald., 1921-02-20
ny W. j. HENDERSON.

M portance passes away con-
vention voices itself in the
platitude: 1T is too soon TO make a
correct estimate Of his work" When
is It time TO make such an estimate {?
Fifty years hence. when the magnet
ism OF his touch upon human life has
become only memory? Without
doubt half a century hence those who
take up any Of the books OF the late
James Gibbons Huneker will realize
that this man lived intensely in the
spirit of his time and that his feryid
literary art recorded the activities OF
letters, painting. the drama, music,
with fidelity and keenest sympathy.
But we Of to-day are still vibrating
with the waves of his power.
Those who knew him best some
times made the error of charging him
with a want of fixed convictions. Such
a view Of his intellectual output
showed a fundamental misconception
of the man. Huneker was above all
things an explorer. Whenever he
heard of a new territory in the world
Of art he went to IL. camped out in II,
saturated himself with its atmosphere,
clothed himself in its garments
adapted himself to its customs and in
the end gave out his requirements
with all the passion OF his burning
mind.
A new god was TO him always
true god He prostrated himself be-
fore the strange altar and became
worshipper. There was no effort in
tho act; il was inevitable. He could
no more help it than he could help
writing hymns in praise of his newly
discovered deity, For him there was
no tarrying in the fiowery valleys. He
was necessarily scaling the mountains
in search not OF the edelweis but of
some wondrous blossom not heard OF
before. Almost could one hear his
soul chanting Tennyson's lines:
Men my brothers, men the workers,
ever reaping something new;
That which they have done but earnest
OF the things that they shall do"
Tho same trend of mind made him an
eager traveller in the byways of letters
and art His reading was omntvorous.
He revelled in Stendahl. and the other
intellectual aristocrats OF his kind, VINO
fed their inner appetites with style. y
stylist, no matter of what kind or what
nation, had an irresistible witchery Tor
Huneker He confessed to long and
arduous study of Robert Louis Steven
son. to whose delicate mosaics In
words" his own flamboyant manner
bore no resemblance. He bowed IN
reverence before the works OF Flaubert,
from whom he may have borrowed some
OF those big sonorities which made his
own writing lyric and in some moments
even bardic.
Pursued the New God.
The pursuit OF the new god was eager.
II In the end he found the religion OF
this deity hollow or cold. he turned his
hack upon the god and faced the latest
singer who seemed TO him TO have de-
scended from Olympus. The men and
women who made the arts were always
dear to him, but the arts were dearer.
What attracted him most in the artist
was quality. That explains MS long
sustained enthusiasm about Miss Gar
den. She radiated individuality which
appealed to him irresistibly. But no per
sonality blinded him to the eternal veri-
ties OF art No painter or actor or
singer ever shattered his own faith. And
that Is why he so often abandoned GER
tain once adored individualities and
never again mentioned them IN his
writings They had proved false TO his
ideals The potency OF an Individuality
sometimes threw strange spell upon
his mind, but when the enchantmens
was broken that personality was dead
10 him for all time.
How many new masters of music did
he discover How many OF them lived
with him longer than ten years? Chopin
dweit with him from the time when he
first began the study Of the piano. The
poetic. independent spirit Of the com
poser. the inexhaustible variety OF his
Imagination, the brilliance OF his deco
rative art. the voluptuous forms of his
style appealed with supreme force TO
Iuncker But in his later years ne went
back TO the fountain OF modern music.
During one or his periods of absence
from the field or music criticism he
wrote 10 the author OF these lines
When | get music thirst | go home
and play. oh. 20 slowly. an invention Of
zach" That was Characteristic OF the
man. His head may have been among
the stars. but his fec. were always on
the ground.
As a literary worker Mr.. Huneker
was primarily a prose styllst. He knew
verse and loved II. but the technic OF
lyric utterancc never interested him as
did that Of prose. Reference has all
ready been made 70 his study Of Steven
SON. and those who knew him can well
understand his admiration for ultimate
finish. But splendor always aroused
him lie had the soul Of Venetian Of
the seventeenth century. All that was
most voluptuous IN form and color filled
him w.sh 4 sort OF divine rapture which
sought utterance in sonorous phrase
ology
hts Comment on FIsubert.
n We arc for the moment astonshed
to learn that he never delved deeply