It is his unfailing charm, and it is everywhere manifest in his later work: that spontaneity and _insouciance_, that utter absence of self-consciousness, which is in nothing so surprising as in its serene antithesis to what one has come to accept--too readily, it may be--as the dominant accent of musical modernity.
These pieces have an inescapable fragrance, tenderness, and zest.

"To a Wild Rose," "Will o' the Wisp," "In Autumn," "From Uncle Remus," and "By a Meadow Brook" are slight in poetic substance, though executed with charm and humour; but the five other pieces--"At an Old Trysting Place," "From an Indian Lodge," "To a Water-lily," "A Deserted Farm," and "Told at Sunset"-- are of a different calibre.

With the exception of "To a Water-lily," whose quality is uncomplex and unconcealed, these tone-poems in little are a curious blend of what, lacking an apter name, one must call nature-poetry, and psychological suggestion; and they are remarkable for the manner in which they focus great richness of emotion into limited space.

"At an Old Trysting Place," "From an Indian Lodge," "A Deserted Farm," and "Told at Sunset," imply a consecutive dramatic purpose which is emphasised by their connection through a hint of thematic community.

The element of drama, though, is not insisted upon--indeed, a large portion of the searching charm of these pieces lies in their tactful reticence.
In the "Sea Pieces" of op.