COPENHAGEN, 26/10/99. Hotel King of Denmark. MY DEAR SIR! Will you remit me in bad English to express my best thanks for your kind letter and for the sympathi you feel for my music. Of course it will be a great honor and pleasure for me to accept your dedication. Some years ago I thought it possible to shake hands with you in your own country. But unfortunately my delicat health does not seem to agree. At all events, if we are not to meet, I am glad to read in the papers of your artistical success in Amerika. With my best wishes, I am, dear Sir, Yours very truly, EDVARD GRIEG. [Illustration: FACSIMILE OF A LETTER FROM GRIEG TO MACDOWELL, ACCEPTING THE DEDICATION OF THE "NORSE" SONATA. ONE OF GRIEG'S RARE ATTEMPTS AT ENGLISH COMPOSITION (SEE PAGE 73)] I may quote also, in this place, because of its unusual interest, a letter written (in German) by Grieg to Mrs. MacDowell when he learned of her husband's collapse:-- CHRISTIANIA, December 14, 1905. DEAR MADAM: The news of MacDowell's serious illness has deeply affected me. Permit me therefore to express to you my own and my wife's sincerest sympathy for you. I am a great admirer of MacDowell's Muse, and would regard it as a severe blow if his best creative period should be so hastily broken off. From all that I hear of your husband, his qualities as a man are as remarkable as his qualities as an artist. He is a complete Personality, with an unusually sympathetic and sensitive nervous system. Such a temperament gives one the capacity not only for moods of the highest transport, but for an unspeakable sorrow tenfold more profound. This is the unsolvable riddle. An artist so ideally endowed [_ein so ideal angelegter Künstler_] as MacDowell must ask himself: Why have I received from nature this delicately strung lyre, if I were better off without it? So unmerciful is Life that every artist must ask himself this question. The only consolation is: Work--yes, even the severest labours. ... _But_: the artist is an optimist. Otherwise he would be no artist. He believes and hopes in the triumph of the good and the beautiful. He trusts in his lucky star till his last breath. And you, the wife of a highly gifted artist, will not and must not lose hope! In similar cases, happily, one often witnesses a seemingly inexplicable recovery. If it can give MacDowell a moment's cheer, say to him that he has in distant Norway a warm and understanding friend who feels for him, and wishes from his heart that for him, as for you, better times may soon come. With best greeting to you both, Your respectful EDVARD GRIEG.