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 mediaeval 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 enjoyed books of travel, biographies, dramatic literature.  Mark Twain he adored, and delighted to quote, and almost to the end of his life he read with inexhaustible pleasure Joel Chandler Harris’s “Uncle Remus.”  In the later years of his activity he fell captive to the new and unaccustomed music of Fiona Macleod’s exquisite prose and verse; he wanted to dedicate his “New England Idyls” to the author of “Pharais” and “From the Hills of Dream,” and wrote for her permission; but the identity of the mysterious author was then jealously guarded, and his letter must have gone astray; for it was never answered.

His erudition was extraordinary.  He exemplified in a marked degree the truth that the typical modern music-maker touches hands with the whole body of culture and the humanities in a sense which would have been simply incredible to Mozart or Schubert.  He was, intellectually, one of the most fully and brilliantly equipped composers in the history of musical art.  He had read widely and curiously in many literatures, and the knowledge which he had acquired he applied to the elucidation of aesthetic and philosophical problems touching the theory and practice of music.  He had meditated deeply concerning the art of which he was always a tireless student—­had come to conclusions concerning its actual and assumed records, its tendencies, its potentialities.  He was a vigorous and original critic, and he had shrewd, cogent, and clear-cut reasons for the particular views at which he had arrived; whether one could always agree with them or not, they invariably commanded respect.  Yet his erudition was seldom displayed.  One came upon it unexpectedly in conversation with him, through the accident of some reference or the discussion of some disputed point of fact.

In his appearance MacDowell suggested a fusion of Scandinavian and American types.  His eyes, of a light and brilliant blue, were perhaps his most salient feature.  They betrayed his inextinguishable humour.  When he was amused—­and he was seldom, in conversation, grave for long—­they lit up with an extraordinary animation; he had an unconscious trick of blinking them rapidly once or twice, with the effect of a fugitive twinkle, which was oddly infectious.  His laugh, too, was communicative; he did not often laugh aloud; his enjoyment found vent in a low, rich chuckle, which, with the lighting up of his eyes, was wholly and immediately irresistible.  The large head, the strong, rather boyish face, with