Amid all this labor his public playing had to be given up, but composition went steadily on.  During the eight years of the Columbia professorship, some of the most important works of his life were produced; among them were, Sea Pieces the two later Sonatas, the Norse and the Keltic, Fireside Tales, and New England Idyls.  The Woodland Sketches had already been published and some of his finest songs.  Indeed nearly one quarter of all his compositions were the fruit of those eight years while he held the post at Columbia.

In 1896 he bought some property near Peterboro, New Hampshire—­fifteen acres with a small farmhouse and other buildings, and fifty acres of forest.  The buildings were remodeled into a rambling but comfortable dwelling, and here, amid woods and hills he loved, he spent the summer of each year.  He built a little log cabin in the woods near by, and here he wrote some of his best music.

In 1904 MacDowell left Columbia, but continued his private piano classes, and sometimes admitted free such students as were unable to pay.  After his arduous labors at Columbia, which had been a great drain on his vitality, he should have had a complete rest and change.  Had he done so, the collapse which was imminent might have been averted.  But he took no rest though in the spring of 1905 he began to show signs of nervous breakdown.  The following summer was spent, as usual, in Peterboro but it seemed to bring no relief to the exhausted composer.  In the fall of that year his ailment appeared worse.  Although he seemed perfectly well in body, his mind gradually became like that of a child.  The writer was privileged to see him on one occasion, and retains an ineffaceable memory of the composer in his white flannels, seated in a large easy chair, taking little notice of what was passing about him, seldom recognizing his friends or visitors, but giving the hand of his devoted wife a devoted squeeze when she moved to his side to speak to him.

This state continued for over two years, until his final release, January 23, 1908, as he had just entered his forty-seventh year.  The old Westminster Hotel had been the MacDowell home through the long illness.  From here is but a step to St. George’s Episcopal Church, where a simple service was held.  On the following day the composer was taken to Peterboro, his summer home, a spot destined to play its part, due to the untiring efforts of Mrs. MacDowell, in the development of music in America.

Mr. Gilman tells us: 

“His grave is on an open hill-top, commanding one of the spacious and beautiful views he had loved.  On a bronze tablet are these lines of his own, used as a motto for his ‘From a Log Cabin,’ the last music he ever wrote: 

  ’A house of dreams untold
  It looks out over the whispering tree-tops
  And faces the setting sun.’”

XXII

CLAUDE ACHILLE DEBUSSY