In portraying nature, he is in no sense a copyist.  He does not describe a scene, an occasion or an object, but suggests it, being an adept in the use of musical metaphor.  Robert Louis Stevenson says that the one art in literature is to omit.  “If I knew how to omit,” says he, “I should ask no other knowledge.”  Painters tell us that the highest evidence of skill in transferring nature to canvas is to avoid too much detail, and they squint up their eyes in order not to see too much.  These standards prove MacDowell the artist.  He does not make the mistake that so many preachers and public teachers do of presuming upon the ignorance or stupidity of his hearers, but leaves something to their imagination and inner artistic senses.

There is a reverence of nature, a depth of love that amounts almost to sadness, in this man’s work that stamps him the pantheist in the highest sense.  This is, I think, a common characteristic of the mystic.  Their consciousness of the oneness of all life is so perfect that God is seen even in its lowest forms.  Sermons are read in stones and books in the running brooks.  This suggests MacDowell’s kinship to Shakespeare, Ruskin, Emerson and Thoreau; but it is a limitless analogy.  All genius, in the end, is of one blood, and MacDowell is unquestionably a genius.

When one is entering upon a literary career, the first injunction is to “acquire a style.”  “But how?” asks the aspirant.  Some say by becoming familiar with the forms of expression of the best authors, and such advise that you read without stint.  Others bid you write, write incessantly about everything under the sun, until by long practice you evolve a style of your own, unhampered in its originality by the memory of the achievements of others resulting from much reading.  There are still others who advise an equal division of time between study of the classics and self-expression.  The latter is the most natural and common method and leads in time to the goal.  Perhaps the same is true of musical style.  Technical skill, accuracy, interpretation and appreciation come from studying and performing the works of others; then if one aspires to original work, let him compose, essaying any and everything until his own peculiar bent is discovered, unless it forces itself upon him with the insistence of destiny from the outset.

While the critics have admitted the freshness, originality and general excellence of MacDowell’s work and marveled over his versatility, his shorter piano pieces and songs are as yet most popular in the making of programmes.  However, Henry T. Finck says of his sonatas:  “As regards the sonatas, I ought to bear MacDowell a decided grudge.  After I had written and argued a hundred times that the sonata form was ‘played out,’ he went to work and wrote four sonatas to confute me.  To be sure, I might have my revenge and say they are ‘not sonatas’; but they are no more unorthodox than the sonatas of Chopin, Schumann, Liszt and Grieg, though they have a freedom of their own which is captivating.  They are brimful of individuality and charm; they will be heard often in the concert halls of the future.”