Produced by David Edwards, Ewa "czupirek" Jaros and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive) TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES The original punctuation and spelling were retained, with the exception of a few printer's mistakes. The text contains also inconsistently spelled words. The full list of both changes to the text and the inconsistencies in spelling can be found at the end of this file. BOOKS BY JAMES HUNEKER PUBLISHED BY CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS UNICORNS. 12mo, _net_, $1.75 IVORY APES AND PEACOCKS. 12mo, _net_, $1.50 NEW COSMOPOLIS. 12mo, _net_, $1.50 THE PATHOS OF DISTANCE. 12mo, _net_, $2.00 FRANZ LISZT. Illustrated. 12mo, _net_, $2.00 PROMENADES OF AN IMPRESSIONIST. 12mo, _net_, $1.50 EGOISTS: A BOOK OF SUPERMEN. 12mo, _net_, $1.50 ICONOCLASTS: A BOOK OF DRAMATISTS. 12mo, _net_, $1.50 OVERTONES: A BOOK OF TEMPERAMENTS. 12mo, _net_, $1.50 MEZZOTINTS IN MODERN MUSIC. 12mo, _net_, $1.50 CHOPIN: THE MAN AND HIS MUSIC. With Portrait. 12mo, _net_, $2.00 VISIONARIES. 12mo, _net_, $1.50 MELOMANIACS. 12mo, _net_, $1.50 UNICORNS UNICORNS BY JAMES HUNEKER "I would write on the lintels of the door-post, 'Whim.'" --_Emerson_ NEW YORK CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 1917 COPYRIGHT, 1917, by CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS Published September, 1917 COPYRIGHT, 1906, BY THE NEW YORK HERALD COMPANY COPYRIGHT, 1907, BY THE RIDGEWAY COMPANY COPYRIGHT, 1909, 1911, 1916, 1917, BY THE SUN PRINTING AND PUBLISHING CO. COPYRIGHT, 1914, 1915, 1916, 1917, BY THE NEW YORK TIMES COMPANY COPYRIGHT, 1915, 1916, BY PUCK PUBLISHING CO. COPYRIGHT, 1917, BY NORTH AMERICAN COPYRIGHT, 1917, BY THE NEW YORK EVENING MAIL THIS BOOK OF SPLEEN AND GOSSIP IS INSCRIBED TO MY FRIEND EDWARD ZIEGLER "Come! let us lay a crazy lance in rest And tilt at windmills under a wild sky." --_John Galsworthy._ "He is a fribble, a sonsy faddle, whose conceits veer with the breeze like a creaking weather-vane. As the sterile moon hath her librations, so must he boast of his oscillations, thinking them eternal verities. A very cockatoo in his perched-up vanity and prodigious clatter...." [_From "The Velvet Cactus." Anonymous. Printed at the Sign of the Cat and Cameo, Threadneedle Street, London. A.D. 1723. Rare._] CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE