VISIONARIES

BY

JAMES HUNEKER

NEW YORK
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
1916

COPYRIGHT, 1905,
BY CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS

Published October, 1905.

A
MON CHER MAÎTRE

REMY DE GOURMONT
PARIS

CONTENTS

VISIONARIES

I

A MASTER OF COBWEBS

I

Alixe Van Kuyp sat in the first-tier box presented to her husband with the accustomed heavy courtesy of the Société Harmonique. She went early to the hall that she might hear the entire music-making of the evening—Van Kuyp's tone-poem, Sordello, was on the programme between a Weber overture and a Beethoven symphony, an unusual honour for a young American composer. If she had gone late, it would have seemed an affectation, she reasoned. Her husband kept within doors; she could tell him all. And then, was there not Elvard Rentgen?

She regretted that she had invited the Parisian critic to her box. It happened at a soirée, where he showed his savage profile among admiring musical lambs. But he was never punctual at musical affairs. This consoled Alixe.

Perhaps he would forget her impulsive, foolish speech,—"without him the music would fall upon unheeding ears,—he, who interpreted art for the multitude, the holder of the critical key that unlocked masterpieces." She had felt the banality of her compliment as she uttered it, and she knew the man who listened, his glance incredulous, his mouth smiling, could not be deceived. Rentgen had been too many years in the candy shop to care