tisfactory and profitable to himself. He found both Raff
and Heymann artistic mentors of an inspiring kind; in Raff,
particularly, he encountered a most sympathetic and encouraging
preceptor, and an influence at once potent and engrossing--a force
which was to direct the currents of his own temperament into definite
artistic channels.

For Heymann as a pianist MacDowell had a fervent admiration. He spoke
of him as "a marvel," whose technique "seemed mysteriously capable of
anything." "When I went to him," MacDowell has said, "I had already
transposed most of the fugues and preludes of Bach (Paris ideas of
'thoroughness'!) and had gone through much rough technical work.
Heymann let me do what I wanted; but in hearing him practise and play
I learned more in a week than I ever had before." When Heymann, who
had already begun to show symptoms of the mental disorder which
ultimately overcame him, left the Conservatory in 1881, he
recommended MacDowell as his successor--a proposal which was
cordially seconded by Raff. But there were antagonistic influences at
work within the Conservatory. MacDowell's candidacy was opposed by
certain of the professors, on account, it was said, of his "youth";
but also, doubtless, because of the advocacy of Heymann, who was not
popular with his colleagues; for he dared, MacDowell has said, "to
play the classics as if they had been written by men with blood in
their veins." So MacDowell failed to get the appointment. He
continued, unofficially, as a pupil of Heymann, and went to him
constantly for criticism and advice.

MacDowell began at this time to take private pupils, and one of these
pupils, an American, Miss Marian Nevins, was later to become his
wife. He was then living in lodgings kept by a venerable German
spinster who was the daughter of one of Napoleon's officers. She was
very fond of her young lodger, and through her he became acquainted
with the work of Erckmann-Chartrian, whose tales deeply engrossed him
at this time. Later he moved to the Cafe Milani, on the Zeil, at that
time an institution of considerable celebrity. As a teacher he made a
rather prominent place for himself; the recommendation of Raff--who
had said to one of MacDowell's pupils that he expected "great things"
of him--had helped at the start, and his personality counted for not
a little. His appearance at this time (he was then nineteen years
old) is described as having been strikingly unlike that of the
typical