Lanier had a hard, brave struggle to maintain his ideals in the face of a continually thwarting fate that would have caused many a man, stronger physically than he, to become discouraged, despairing.  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.

Then, after having admitted his greatness during those two shadowed years, when the hand of death rang down the curtain on his earth-drama, his contemporaries began to examine more critically into the why and wherefore of the decision that accorded him leadership.

A well-known critic calls him the American Grieg, but while applauding the fanciful style of the Norwegian, one often hears MacDowell accused of being merely capricious.  But what is caprice?

Bishop Trench reminds us in his famous treatise that the word is derived from capra, “a goat,” and represents, in a picturesque manner, a mental movement as unaccountable, as little to be calculated on beforehand, as the springs and bounds of that whimsical animal.

The work of MacDowell certainly has the characteristic vigor and vividness, the unstudied activity, the unexpected leaps and springs that the derivation of the word “caprice” suggests.  And, if one cares for mysticism, it is interesting to know that according to the teachings of the ancient science of astrology, which is having a considerable revival at present, the composer is entitled to unconventional methods and an unusual combination of qualities, as he was born on the cusp between the zodiacal signs of Sagittarius and Capricornus.  The latter sign produces people who will work well independently, but are very restless when under orders or hampered by rules and regulations.  They love freedom, are fine entertainers, have little self-esteem, are inclined to be either on the heights