rably criticised. Boehmer wished to specialise in Bach, and if
Schwarz set himself against one thing more than another, it was a
one-sided musical taste: within the bounds of classicism, the master
demanded catholic sympathies; those students who had romantic leanings
towards Chopin and Schumann, were castigated with severely classical
compositions; and, vice versa, he had insisted on Boehmer widening his
horizon on Schubert and Mendelssohn. And there were also several
others, who, having been dragged forward by Schwarz, from inefficient
beginnings, now left him, to write their acquired skill to Schrievers'
credit. Furst was the greatest riddle of all. It was he who, on
subsequent concert-tours, was to have extended the fame of the
Conservatorium; he was the show pupil of the institution, and, in the
coming PRUFUNGEN, was to have distinguished himself, and his master
with him, by playing Beethoven's Concerto in E flat.

Other teachers besides Schwarz had been forsaken for the new-comer, but
in no case by so large a body of students. They bore their losses
philosophically. Bendel, one of the few masters who spoke English--it
was against the principles of Schwarz to know a word of it: foreign
pupils had to learn his language, not he theirs--Bendel, frequented
chiefly by the American colony, was of a phlegmatic temperament and not
easily roused. He alluded to the backsliders with an ironical jest,
preferring to believe that they were the losers. But Schwarz was of a
diametrically opposite nature. In the short, thickset man, with the
all-seeing eyes, and the head of carefully waved hair, just streaked
with grey--a head at once too massive and too fine for the clumsy
body--in Schwarz, dwelt a fierce and indomitable pride. His was one of
those moody, sensitive natures, quick to resent, always on the look-out
for offence. He was ever ready to translate things into the personal;
for though he had an overweening sense of his own importance, there was
yet room in him for a secret doubt; and with this doubt, he, as it
were, put other people to the test. The loss of the flower of his flock
made him doubly unsure; he felt himself a marked man, for Bendel and
other enemies to jeer at. Aloud, he spoke long and vehemently, as if
mere noisy words would heal the wound. And the pupils who had remained
faithful to him, gathered all the more closely round him, and burned as
he did. If wishes could have injured or killed, Furst's career would