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