Ill
health, poverty and lack of appreciation of his life work had not the
power to destroy his optimism. He bravely waged an unequal combat with
the three, when many a man would have fallen on his own sword to end
the bitter struggle with either one of them. From out the gloom he
sang thus:
"The dark hath many dear avails,
The dark distils divinest dews;
The dark is rich with nightingales,
With dreams and with the heavenly Muse."
Just at the awakening of public appreciation of his work and
recognition of his right to rank as America's greatest composer of
music, MacDowell died to the world of men through a mental collapse
brought on by over-work, and for two years, forgetting that there was
such a thing as music, the great tone-poet dwelt in a soundless world.
Sorrow for such a fate at the zenith of a career of so much promise
was world-wide, and many hoped that he would emerge from the dark,
after a time, with his genius enriched by long subjective communion
with the "heavenly Muse"; but he had dwelt too long in the abstract
world of sound and had heard the music of the spheres until earth
tones became fainter and fainter and finally ceased altogether.
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