sketch to a certain very eminent painter--an instructor at the École
de Beaux Arts--and that the painter had been so much impressed by the
talent which it evidenced that he begged to propose to Mrs. MacDowell
that she submit her son to him for a three-years' course of free
instruction under his personal supervision, offering also to be
responsible for his support during that time. The issue was a
momentous one, and Mrs. MacDowell, in much perplexity of mind as to
the wisest settlement of her son's future, laid the matter before
Marmontel, who, fearful of losing one of his aptest pupils, urgently
advised her against diverting her son from a musical career. The
decision was finally left to MacDowell, and it was agreed that he
should continue his studies at the Conservatory. Although it seems
not unlikely that, with his natural facility as a painter and
draughtsman and his uncommon faculties of vision and imagination, he
would have achieved distinction as a painter, it may be questioned
whether in that case music would not have lost appreciably more than
art would have gained.

Conditions at the Conservatory were not to the taste of MacDowell,
for he found his notions of right artistic procedure frequently
opposed to those that prevailed among his teachers and fellow
students. His growing disaffection was brought to a head during the
summer of 1878. It was the year of the Exposition, and MacDowell and
his mother attended a festival concert at which Nicholas Rubinstein
played in memorable style Tchaikovsky's B-flat minor piano concerto.
His performance was a revelation to the young American. "I never can
learn to play like that if I stay here," he said resolutely to his
mother, as they left the concert hall. Mrs. MacDowell, whose fixed
principle it was to permit her son to decide his affairs according to
his lights, thereupon considered with him the merits of various