or equivocation; with a superb but sometimes calamitous disregard of
his own interests.

[Illustration: MACDOWELL IN 1892]

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.