Confident and positive to a fault in his adherence to and expression of his principles, he was as morbidly dubious concerning his own performances as he was uneasy under praise. He was tortured by doubts of the value of each new work that he completed, after the flush and ardour generated in its actual expression had passed; and he listened to open praise of it in evident discomfort. I have a memory of him on a certain occasion in a private house following a recital at which he had played, almost for the first time, his then newly finished "Keltic" Sonata. Standing in the center of a crowded room, surrounded by enthusiastically effusive strangers who were voluble—and not overpenetrating—in their expressions of appreciation, he presented a picture of unhappiness, of mingled helplessness and discomfort, which was almost pathetic in its genuineness of woe. I was standing near him, and during a momentary lull in the amiable siege of which he was the distressed object, he whispered tragically to me: "Can't we get out of this?—Do you know the way to the back door?" I said I did, and led him through an inconspicuous doorway into a comparatively deserted corridor behind the staircase. I procured for him, through the strategic employment of a passing servant, something to eat, and we staid in concealment there until the function had come to an end, and his wife had begun to search for him. He was quite happy, consuming his salad and beer behind the stairs and telling me in detail his conception of certain of the figures of Celtic mythology which he had had in mind while composing his sonata.
To visitors at his house in Peterboro, he said one morning, on leaving them, "I am going to the cabin to write some of my rotten melodies!" He was sincerely distrustful concerning the worth of any composition which he had finished; especially so, of course, concerning his more youthful performances. He once sent a frantic telegram to Teresa Carreño, upon learning from an announcement that she was to play his early Concert Étude (op. 36) for the first time: "Don't put that dreadful thing on your programme"; and for certain of his more popular and hackneyed pieces, as the "Hexentanz" and the much-mauled and over-sentimental song, "Thy Beaming Eyes," he had a detestation that was amusing in its virulence. He regretted at times that his earlier orchestral works—"Hamlet and Ophelia" and "Lancelot and Elaine"—had been published; and he was invariably tormented by questionings and misgivings after he had committed even his ripest work to his publisher. Only the assurances of his wise and devoted wife at times prevented him from recalling a completed work. Yet he was always touched, delighted, and genuinely cheered by what he felt to be sincere and thoughtful praise. To a writer who had published an admiring article concerning some of his later music he wrote:
"MY DEAR MR. ______:
"Your article was forwarded to me after all. I wish to thank you for the warm-hearted and sympathetic enthusiasm which prompted your writing it. While my outgivings have always been sincere, I feel only too often their inadequacy to express my ideals; thus what you speak of as accomplishment I fear is often but attempt. Certainly your sympathy for my aims is most welcome and precious to me, and I thank you again most heartily."
Those who knew the man only through his music have thought of him as wholly a dreamer and a recluse, a poet brooding in detachment, and unfriendly to the pedestrian and homely things of the world. Nothing could be further from the truth. He was overflowingly human, notably full-blooded. On his "farm" (as he called it) at Peterboro he lived, when he was not composing, a robust and vigorous outdoor life. He was an ardent sportsman, and he spent much of his time in the woods and fields, fishing, riding, walking, hunting. He had a special relish for gardening and for photography, and he liked to undertake laborious jobs in carpentry, at which he was quite deft. That his feeling for the things of the natural world was acutely sensitive and coloured by imagination and emotion is abundantly evidenced in his music. He was fond of taking long, leisurely drives and rides through the rich and varied hill country about Peterboro, and many of the impressions that were then garnered and stored have found issue in some of his most intimate and affecting music—as in the "Woodland Sketches" and "New England Idyls." He had an odd, naive tenderness for growing things and for the creatures of the woods: it distressed him to have his wife water some of the flowers in the garden without watering them all; and though an excellent shot, he never brought down game without a pang—it used to be said at Peterboro that for this reason he only "pretended to hunt," despite his expertness as a marksman.
In his intellectual interests and equipment he presented a striking contrast to the brainlessness of the average musician. His tastes were singularly varied and catholic. An omnivorous reader of poetry, an inquisitive delver in the byways of mediæval literature, an authority in mythological detail, he was at the same time keenly interested in contemporary affairs. He read, and discussed with eagerness and acumen, scientific, economic, and historical deliverances; and he enjoyed books of travel, biographies, dramatic literature. Mark Twain he adored, and delighted to quote, and almost to the end of his life he read with inexhaustible pleasure Joel Chandler Harris's "Uncle Remus." In the later years of his activity he fell captive to the new and unaccustomed music of Fiona Macleod's exquisite prose and verse; he wanted to dedicate his "New England Idyls" to the author of "Pharais" and "From the Hills of Dream," and wrote for her permission; but the identity of the mysterious author was then jealously guarded, and his letter must have gone astray; for it was never answered.
His erudition was extraordinary. He exemplified in a marked degree the truth that the typical modern music-maker touches hands with the whole body of culture and the humanities in a sense which would have been simply incredible to Mozart or Schubert. He was, intellectually, one of the most fully and brilliantly equipped composers in the history of musical art. He had read widely and curiously in many literatures, and the knowledge which he had acquired he applied to the elucidation of aesthetic and philosophical problems touching the theory and practice of music. He had meditated deeply concerning the art of which he was always a tireless student—had come to conclusions concerning its actual and assumed records, its tendencies, its potentialities. He was a vigorous and original critic, and he had shrewd, cogent, and clear-cut reasons for the particular views at which he had arrived; whether one could always agree with them or not, they invariably commanded respect. Yet his erudition was seldom displayed. One came upon it unexpectedly in conversation with him, through the accident of some reference or the discussion of some disputed point of fact.
In his appearance MacDowell suggested a fusion of Scandinavian and American types. His eyes, of a light and brilliant blue, were perhaps his most salient feature. They betrayed his inextinguishable humour. When he was amused—and he was seldom, in conversation, grave for long—they lit up with an extraordinary animation; he had an unconscious trick of blinking them rapidly once or twice, with the effect of a fugitive twinkle, which was oddly infectious. His laugh, too, was communicative; he did not often laugh aloud; his enjoyment found vent in a low, rich chuckle, which, with the lighting up of his eyes, was wholly and immediately irresistible. The large head, the strong, rather boyish face, with its singular mobility and often sweetness of expression, the bright, vital eyes, set wide apart, the abundant (though not long), dark hair tinged with grey, the white skin, the sensitive mouth, rather large and full-lipped, the strong jaws, the sturdy and athletic build,—he was somewhat above medium height, with broad shoulders, powerful arms, and large, muscular, finely shaped hands,—his general air of physical soundness and vigour: all these combined to form an outer personality that was strongly attractive. His movements were quick and decisive. To strangers, even when he felt at ease, his manner was diffident, yet of an indescribable, almost childlike, simplicity and charm. His voice in speaking was low-pitched and subdued, like his laugh; in conversation, when he was entirely himself, he could be brilliantly effective and witty, and his mirth-loving propensities were irrepressible.
His sense of humour, which was of true Celtic richness, was fluent and inexhaustible. To an admirer who had affirmed in print that certain imaginative felicities in some of the verse which he wrote for his songs recalled at moments the phrasing of Whitman and Shakespeare, he wrote:
"I will confide in you that if, in the next world, I should happen upon the wraiths of Shakespeare, Whitman, and Co., I would light out without delay. Good heavens! I blush at the thought of it! A header through a cloud would be the only thing.—Seriously, I was deeply touched by your praise and wish I were more worthy."