admirable interpreter of music to the cultivated public of Boston. What a
musical composition ought to mean to an intelligent person he could make
known in language of a fine literary texture, and with a rare spiritual
insight he voiced its poetic and aesthetic values. If the better-trained
musicians of more recent years look upon his musical judgments with
somewhat of disapproval, as not being sufficiently technical, they ought
not to forget that he prepared the way for them as no one else could have
done it, and that he had a fine skill in bringing educated persons to a
just appreciation of what music is as an art. As Mr. William F. Apthorp
has well said, "his musical instincts and perceptions were, in a certain
high respect, of the finest. He was irresistibly drawn towards what is
pure, noble, and beautiful, and felt these things with infinite keenness."

Dwight's last years were spent in furthering the interests of the Harvard
Musical Association, in writing about his beloved art, and in the society
of his many generous friends. He had a talent for friendship, and during
his lifetime he was intimately associated with almost every man and woman
of note in Boston. He was of a quiet, gentlemanly habit of life, took the
world in the way of one who appreciates it and desires to secure from it
the most of good, was warmly attached to the children of his friends and
found the keenest delight in their presence, loved all that is graceful
and beautiful, and devoted himself with unceasing ardor to the art for
which he did so much to secure a just appreciation.

On the occasion of his eightieth birthday his friends and admirers were
brought together in the rooms of the Harvard Musical Association. It was a
red-letter day in his life, and he greatly appreciated it. A few months
later, September 5, 1893, his life came to an end--a life that had been in
no way great, but that had been spent in the loving and faithful service
of his fellow-men. At his funeral, Mrs. Julia Ward Howe, an intimate