. Both were wholly devoted to all that
was true and noble, and both felt the same antipathy to whatever was
trivial or superficial. Together they moved along the pathway of life;
together they won their laurels. "To admire one or the other was to
admire both," says Liszt, "for, though they sang in different tongues,
their life music made but one noble harmony. The annals of art will
never divide the memory of these two, and their names can never be
spoken separately."

And now Schumann's happiness began to take tangible form and show itself
to the world. Hitherto his compositions had been chiefly for the
pianoforte, but now his genius burst forth in song. Cycle followed cycle
during the next few years, and the fortunate lover sang of his
happiness in strains of such romantic beauty that their charm can never
fade while love and music have power to sway the passions of mankind.
The warm feeling and emotion in the poems of Rueckert, of Chamisso, of
Heine, were echoed and intensified by the choicest melodies of the art
that is said to begin its expression where language ends. That Clara had
some direct share in these songs, besides publishing many of her own,
there can be no manner of doubt. She certainly formed their inspiration,
and must have assisted in the task of preparing them.

These works placed Schumann in the foremost rank of song composers, and
he is now held equal to Schubert and Franz in this form, if not actually
the greatest song-writer in the world. Franz is more delicate, Schubert
more simply melodious, but Schumann's songs are endowed with a warm
vigour of strong emotion that has never been equalled. His
contemporaries felt their force, but hardly realized their full power,
for one of the writers on Schumann's own paper accorded them only a
secondary rank. "In your essay on song-writing," the composer replies,
"it has somewhat distressed me that you should have placed me in the
second rank. I do not ask to stand in the first, but I think I have some
pretensions to a place _of my own_." Posterity has been proud to place
him with the foremost.

In other matters besides those relating to art, the marriage was
perfectly happy. Both husband and wife possessed simple domestic tastes,
and both were endowed with the innate modesty that prevented their being
harmed by the continual praise of the world. They lived for each other,
and for their children. He modelled his compositions on lines to suit
her artistic