surrounded
by enthusiastically effusive strangers who were voluble--and not
overpenetrating--in their expressions of appreciation, he presented a
picture of unhappiness, of mingled helplessness and discomfort, which
was almost pathetic in its genuineness of woe. I was standing near
him, and during a momentary lull in the amiable siege of which he was
the distressed object, he whispered tragically to me: "Can't we get
out of this?--Do you know the way to the back door?" I said I did, and
led him through an inconspicuous doorway into a comparatively deserted
corridor behind the staircase. I procured for him, through the
strategic employment of a passing servant, something to eat, and we
staid in concealment there until the function had come to an end, and
his wife had begun to search for him. He was quite happy, consuming
his salad and beer behind the stairs and telling me in detail his
conception of certain of the figures of Celtic mythology which he had
had in mind while composing his sonata.

To visitors at his house in Peterboro, he said one morning, on leaving
them, "I am going to the cabin to write some of my rotten melodies!"
He was sincerely distrustful concerning the worth of any composition
which he had finished; especially so, of course, concerning his more
youthful performances. He once sent a frantic telegram to Teresa
Carreno, upon learning from an announcement that she was to play his
early Concert Etude (op. 36) for the first time: "Don't put that
dreadful thing on your programme"; and for certain of his more popular
and hackneyed pieces, as the "Hexentanz" and the much-mauled and
over-sentimental song, "Thy Beaming Eyes," he had a detestation that
was amusing in its virulence. He regretted at times that his earlier
orchestral works--"Hamlet and Ophelia" and "Lancelot and Elaine"--had
been published; and he was invariably tormented by questionings and
misgivings after he had committed even his ripest work to his
publisher. Only the assurances of his wise and devoted wife at times
prevented him from recalling a completed work. Yet he was always
touched, delighted, and genuinely cheered by what he felt to be
sincere and thoughtful praise. To a writer who had published an
admiring article concerning some of his later music he wrote:

"MY DEAR MR.----:

"Your article was forwarded to me after all. I wish to thank you
for the warm-hearted and sympathetic enthusiasm which prompted
your writi