l, so
nearly ideal, that--needless to say--it has not been repeated. But
while the experiment has not been duplicated, the story well merits a
repetition, especially in view of the fact that the woman's side of the
romance has only recently been given to the public in Litzmann's
biography, only half of which has been published in German and none in
English.

There can surely be no dispute that Robert Schumann was one of the most
original and individual of composers, and one of the broadest and
deepest-minded musicians in the history of the art. Nor can there be
any doubt that Clara Wieck was one of the richest dowered musicians who
ever shed glory upon her sex. Henry T. Finck was, perhaps, right, when
he called her "the most gifted woman that has ever chosen music as a
profession."

Robert Schumann showed his determined eccentricity before he was born,
for surely no child ever selected more unconventional parents. Would
you believe it? It was the mother who opposed the boy's taking up music
as a career! the father who wished him to follow his natural bent! and
it was the father who died while Schumann was young, leaving him to
struggle for years against his mother's will!

Not that Frau Schumann was anything but a lovable and a most beloved
mother. Robert's letters to her show a remarkable affection even for a
son. Indeed, as Reissmann says in his biography:

"As in most cases, Robert's youthful years belonged almost wholly to
his mother, and indeed her influence chiefly developed that pure
fervour of feeling to which his whole life bore witness; this, however,
soon estranged him from the busy world and was the prime factor in that
profound melancholy which often overcame him almost to suicide."

Frau Schumann wished Robert to study law, and sent him to the
University at Leipzig for that purpose and later to Heidelberg. He was
not the least interested in his legal studies, but loved to play the
piano, and write letters, and dream of literature, to idolise Jean Paul
Richter and to indulge a most commendable passion for good cigars. He
was not dilatory at love, and went through a varied apprenticeship
before his heart seemed ready for the fierce test it was put to in his
grand passion.

In 1827, he being then seventeen years old, we find him writing to a
schoolfellow a letter of magnificent melancholy; the tone of its
allusions to a certain young woman reminds one of Chopin's early love
letters. How sophomoric and