his second "Modern Suite" for piano (op.
14). This was the second of his compositions which he considered
worthy of preservation, its predecessor being the "First Modern
Suite," written the year before in Frankfort. Much other music had
already found its way upon paper, had been tried in the unsparing
fire of his criticism, which was even then vigorous and searching,
and had been marked for destruction--a symphony, among other efforts.
His reading at this time was of engrossing interest to him. He was
absorbed in the German poets; Goethe and Heine, whom he was now able
to read with ease in the original German, he knew by heart--a
devotion which was to find expression a few years later in his
"Idyls" and "Poems" (op. 28 and 31). He had begun also to read the
English poets. He devoured Byron and Shelley; and in Tennyson's
"Idyls of the King" he found the spark which kindled his especial
love for mediaeval lore and poetry. Yet while he was enamored of the
imaginative records of the Middle Ages, he had little interest, oddly
enough, in their tangible remains. He liked, for example, to summon a
vision of the valley of the Rhone, with its slow-moving human streams
flowing between Italy and the North, and with Sion still looking down
from its heights, where the bishops had been lords rather than
priests. But this was for him a purely imaginative enchantment. He
cared little about exploring the actual and visible memorials of the
past: to confront them as crumbling ruins gave him no pleasure, and,
as he used to say, he "hated the smells." It was this instinct which,
in his visits to the cathedrals, prompted him to stand as far back as
possible while the Mass was being said. To see in the dim distance
the white, pontifical figures moving gravely through the ritual, to
hear the low tones, enthralled and stirred him; but he shrank from
entering the sacristy, with its loud-voiced priests describing
perfunctorily the relics: that was a disillusionment not to be borne
with.

[Illustration: A SKETCH OF LISZT BY MACDOWELL DRAWN IN 1883]

Having found that his labours at Darmstadt were telling upon his
health, MacDowell resigned his position there and returned to
Frankfort. Here he divided his time between his private teaching and
his composition. He was ambitious also to secure some profitable
concert engagements as a pianist. He had made occasional appearances
at orchestral concerts in Wiesbaden, Frankfort, Darmstadt, but these
had