He is a sworn foe to "the traps that snare the attention from
poor or mediocre workmanship--the traps of sentimentalism, of false
feeling, of cheap pathos, of the cheap moral." He is on the trail of
those pious mountebanks who "clutter the marketplaces with their booths,
mischievous half-art and tubs of tripe and soft soap." Superficially, as
I say, he seems to have made little progress in this benign _pogrom_.
But under the surface, concealed from a first glance, he has undoubtedly
left a mark--faint, perhaps, but still a mark. To be a civilized man in
America is measurably less difficult, despite the war, than it used to
be, say, in 1890. One may at least speak of "Die Walkuere" without being
laughed at as a half-wit, and read Stirner without being confused with
Castro and Raisuli, and argue that Huxley got the better of Gladstone
without being challenged at the polls. I know of no man who pushed in
that direction harder than James Huneker.
FOOTNOTES:
[31] The Science of English Verse; New York, Scribner, 1880.
[32] Masks and Minstrels of New Germany; Boston, John W.
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