This state continued for over two years, until his final release, January 23, 1908, as he had just entered his forty-seventh year. The old Westminster Hotel had been the MacDowell home through the long illness. From here is but a step to St. George's Episcopal Church, where a simple service was held. On the following day the composer was taken to Peterboro, his summer home, a spot destined to play its part, due to the untiring efforts of Mrs. MacDowell, in the development of music in America.
Mr. Gilman tells us:
"His grave is on an open hill-top, commanding one of the spacious and beautiful views he had loved. On a bronze tablet are these lines of his own, used as a motto for his 'From a Log Cabin,' the last music he ever wrote:
'A house of dreams untold
It looks out over the whispering tree-tops
And faces the setting sun.'"
XXII
CLAUDE ACHILLE DEBUSSY
"I love music too much to speak of it otherwise than
passionately."
DEBUSSY
"Art is always progressive; it cannot return to the past, which
is definitely dead. Only imbeciles and cowards look backward.
Then—Let us work!"
DEBUSSY