This is not the picture of a man who was unqualified for his task, or indifferent, rebellious, or inept in its performance; it is the picture of a man of vital and electric temperament, with almost a genius—­certainly with an extraordinary gift—­for teaching.  His ideals were lofty; he dreamed of a relationship between university instruction and a liberal public culture which was not to be realised in his time.  He was anything but complacent; had he been less intolerant in his hatred of unintelligent and indolent thought on the subjects that were near his heart, his way would have been made far easier.

The results of his labours at the university, he finally came to feel, did not warrant the expenditure of the vitality and time that he was devoting to them.  He was, in a sense, an anachronism in the position in which he found himself.  Both in his ideals and in his plans for bringing about their fulfilment he had reached beyond his day.  The field was not yet ripe for his best efforts.  It became clear to him that he could not make his point of view operative in what he conceived as the need for a reformation of conditions affecting his work; and on January 18, 1904, after long and anxious deliberation and discussion with his wife, he tendered his resignation as head of the department.  His attitude in the matter was grievously misunderstood and misrepresented at the time, to his poignant distress and harassment.  The iron entered deeply into his soul:  it was the forerunner of tragedy.

When he took up his work at Columbia his activity as a concert pianist had, of course, to be virtually suspended.  With the exception of two short tours of a few weeks’ each, he gave up his public appearances altogether until the year of his sabbatical vacation (1902-03).  In December, 1902, he went on an extensive concert tour, which took him as far west as San Francisco and occupied all of that winter.  The following spring and summer were spent Abroad, in England and on the Continent.  In London he appeared in concert, playing his second concerto with the Philharmonic Society on May 14.  He returned to America in October, and resumed his work at Columbia.

Meanwhile his composition had continued uninterruptedly.  Indeed, the eight years during which he held his Columbia professorship were, in a creative sense, the most important of his life; for to this period belong the “Sea Pieces” (op. 55), the two superb sonatas, the “Norse” (op. 57) and the “Keltic” (op. 59), and the best of his songs—­the four of op. 56 ("Long Ago,” “The Swan Bent Low to the Lily,” “A Maid Sings Light,” “As the Gloaming Shadows Creep"), and the three of op. 58 ("Constancy,” “Sunrise,” “Merry Maiden Spring"):  a product which contains the finest flower of his inspiration, the quintessence of his art.[7] He wrote also during these years the three songs of op. 60 ("Tyrant Love,” “Fair Springtide,” “To the Golden Rod"); the “Fireside Tales” (op. 61); the “New England Idyls” (op. 62); numerous part-songs, transcriptions, arrangements; and, finally, the greater part of a suite for string orchestra which he never finished to his satisfaction:  in fact, nearly one quarter of the bulk of his entire work was composed during these eight years.  During this period, moreover, was published all of the music hitherto unprinted which he cared to preserve.