The Project Gutenberg EBook of Old Fogy, by James Huneker

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Title: Old Fogy
His Musical Opinions and Grotesques

Author: James Huneker

Release Date: December 19, 2006 [EBook #20139]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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OLD FOGY

HIS MUSICAL OPINIONS
AND GROTESQUES

With an Introduction
and Edited

BY
JAMES HUNEKER

THEODORE PRESSER CO.
1712 Chestnut Street Philadelphia
London, Weekes & Co.

* * * * *

Copyright, 1913, by Theodore Presser Co.

International Copyright Secured.

Third Printing, 1923.

* * * * *

These Musical Opinions and Grotesques
are dedicated to

RAFAEL JOSEFFY

Whose beautiful art was ever a source of
delight to his fellow-countryman,

OLD FOGY

* * * * *

INTRODUCTION

My friend the publisher has asked me to tell you what I know about Old
Fogy, whose letters aroused much curiosity and comment when they
appeared from time to time in the columns of The Etude. I confess I do
this rather unwillingly. When I attempted to assemble my memories of the
eccentric and irascible musician I found that, despite his enormous
volubility and surface-frankness, the old gentleman seldom allowed us
more than a peep at his personality. His was the expansive temperament,
or, to employ a modern phrase, the dynamic temperament. Antiquated as
were his modes of thought, he would bewilder you with an excursion into
latter-day literature, and like a rift of light in a fogbank you then
caught a gleam of an entirely different mentality. One day I found him
reading a book by the French writer Huysmans, dealing with new art. And
he confessed to me that he admired Hauptmann's _Hannele_, though he
despised the same dramatist's _Weavers_. The truth is that no human
being is made all of a piece; we are, mentally at least, more of a
mosaic than we believe.

Let me hasten to negative