rue, or else "you will have broken a heart
that loves but once."

It is only now, strange to say, that they began to use the "Du," that
second person singular of intimacy which all languages keep except the
English, which has banished its "thee and thou" to cold and formal
usages.

It was typical of Clara's attitude throughout this whole long struggle
that she was always as true to her father's wishes as could humanly be
expected. She obeyed him always, until he became unreasonable and a
tyrant beyond even the endurance of a German daughter. So now, though
Robert begged her to write him secretly, she refused with tears. But,
fortunately for them both, she did not long remain in the town where
they were separated like prisoners in neighbouring cells. She could
soon write him from other cities. As for Schumann, he determined to
make the most of the new hope, and to establish himself socially and
financially in a position which Wieck could not assail.

Gradually, with that same justice which made him able to criticise
appreciatively the music of men who wrote in another style than his, he
was able to feel an understanding for the position of even his
tormentor Wieck.

"Now we have only to obtain the affection and confidence of your
father, to whom I should so love to give that name, to whom I owe so
many of the joys of my life, so much good advice, and some sorrow as
well--and whom I should like to make so happy in his old days, that he
might say: 'What good children!' If he understood me better he would
have saved me many worries and would never have written me a letter
which made me two years older. Well, it is all over and forgiven now;
he is your father, and has brought you up to be everything that is
noble; he would like to weigh your future happiness as in a pair of
scales, and wishes to see you just as happy and well-protected as you
have always been under his fatherly care. I cannot argue with him."

Schumann works with new fury at his compositions, and plans ever larger
and larger works; but through all his music there reigns the influence
of Clara in a way unequalled, or at least never equally confessed by
any other musician. He writes her that the Davidsbuendlertaenze were
written in happiness and are full of "bridal thoughts, suggested by the
most delicious excitement that I have ever remembered." Of his "Ende
vom Lied" he says:

"When I was composing it, I must confess that I thought: 'Well, the end
of