of his work, and it is known that a single morning produced
no fewer than six songs. The afternoon would be devoted to
music-making at the house of a friend, or to a walk in the suburbs,
whilst the evening would be divided between a pipe at the Gasthaus
with his companions, and a visit to the theatre or the house of a
musical friend. The hours reserved for sleep were constantly being
curtailed by the encroachments of nightly pleasures, and yet he was
always ready to seize his pen and begin work directly he was awake.
The story even goes that he slept in his spectacles in order to save
the trouble and time of putting them on in the morning!

His omnivorous appetite for setting to music every poem which struck
his fancy--whether it were suited for the purpose of a song, or, what
is far more important, in any way worthy of the setting which he
proposed to give to it--was one of Schubert's most marked
characteristics. Another was the rapidity with which, having once
grasped the sense of the words, he translated them into music, and
such music, let it be remembered, as was destined in many cases to
live for ever. Like the 'Erl King,' the beautiful song the 'Wanderer'
was composed in the space of a few hours; again, with respect to the
strikingly beautiful collection of songs known as the 'Schoene
Muellerin,' the poems were lighted upon quite by accident. Schubert was
visiting a friend, and when the latter was called away he picked up a
volume of Mueller's poems which was lying upon the table; he grew
interested in them, the friend delayed his return, and finally
Schubert put the book in his pocket and went home. The next morning,
when the friend called to apologise for his detention and to inquire
for the missing volume, he found that Schubert had already set several
of the poems to music. What Schumann the composer wrote of Schubert
was true: 'Everything that he touched he turned into music.' One day
in the month of July, 1826, he was returning with his friends from a
Sunday walk through the village of Waehring, and, passing by a
beer-garden, he espied an acquaintance seated at one of the tables. On
joining him Schubert found he was reading a volume of Shakespeare; he
seized the book, and began turning over the pages, and then, drawing
his friends' attention to the line, 'Hark, hark, the lark,' he
exclaimed: 'Such a lovely melody has come into my head, if I had but
some music-paper!' One of his companions seized a bill-of-