_I consider MacDowell the ideally endowed composer.--Edvard
Grieg._



[Illustration]




FROM MACDOWELL'S COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY LECTURES.

(Published as _Critical and Historical Essays_).


_For it is in the nature of the spiritual part of mankind to
shrink from the earth, to aspire to something higher; a bird
soaring in the blue above us has something of the ethereal; we
give wings to our angels. On the other hand, a serpent impresses
us as something sinister. Trees, with their strange fight against
all the laws of gravity, striving upward unceasingly, bring us
something of hope and faith; the sight of them cheers us. A land
without trees is depressing and gloomy.

In spite of the strange twistings of ultra modern music, a simple
melody still embodies the same pathos for us that it did for our
grandparents.

We put our guest, the poetic thought, that comes to us like a
homing bird from out the mystery of the blue sky--we put this