He might well have felt some pride in the sum of his achievements at this time. He had not completed his twenty-seventh year; yet he had published a concerto and two orchestral works of important dimensions--"Hamlet and Ophelia" and "Lancelot and Elaine"; most of the music that he had so far written had been publicly performed, and almost invariably praised with warmth; and he was becoming known in Europe and at home. His material affairs, however, were far from being in a satisfactory or promising condition; for there was little more than a precarious income to be counted upon from his compositions; and he had given up teaching. Musicians from America began coming to the little Wiesbaden retreat to visit the composer and his wife, and he was repeatedly urged to return to America and assume his share in the development of the musical art of his country. It was finally decided that, all things considered, conditions would be more favorable in the United States; and in September, 1888, the MacDowells sold their Wiesbaden cottage, not without many pangs, and sailed for their own shores. [Illustration: MACDOWELL AND TEMPLETON STRONG From a photograph taken at Wiesbaden in 1888] They settled in Boston, as being less huge and tumultuous than New York, and took lodgings in Mount Vernon Street. In later years they lived successively at 13 West Cedar Street and at 38 Chestnut Street. Though all of his more important music was as yet unwritten, MacDowell found himself already established in the view of the musical public as a composer abundantly worthy of honour at the hands of his countrymen. He made his first public appearance in America, in the double capacity of pianist and composer, at a Kneisel Quartet concert in Chickering Hall, Boston, on November 19, 1888, playing the Prelude, Intermezzo, and Presto from his first piano suite, and, with Kneisel and his associates, the piano part in Goldmark's B-flat Quintet. He was cordially received, and Mr. Apthorp, writing in the _Transcript_ of his piano playing, praised his technique as "ample and brilliant," and as being especially admirable "in the higher phases of playing"; "he plays," wrote this critic, "with admirable truth of sentiment and musical understanding." Of the early and immature suite he could not well write with much enthusiasm, though he found in it "life and brightness."