Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. September, 1863, No. LXXI.

In every person's memory there are niches fixed, and in those niches are sacred persons. These are such as never obtruded themselves upon you, staining the pane through which their light shone with their own images, but who became perfectly transparent to the word they uttered, the song they sang, or the work they did. Such a sacred person to me is the gifted woman who first interpreted for me Schumann's Albums.

Many years ago it was, as she told me, that she one day stood unperceived in the half-open door of her master, near the lesson-hour, and heard him softly rendering a theme which stole far into places of her heart, which had been awaiting its spell unconsciously. Presently he felt that there was a listener, and, hastily brushing away a tear, he placed the music in a far corner of the room, away from his répertoire. She confessed, that, afterward, when he was not present, she had looked on that which he evidently desired to conceal; she saw written, in pencil, upon it, "Sternenkranz." Thenceforth shops and catalogues were ransacked, but no "Sternenkranz" was found,-the word was evidently her master's own fancy; so she summoned all her heroism, one day, when Herr Otto complained of her indifference to the pieces he set before her, and informed him that she should perish at his feet, unless he would give her "Sternenkranz." Of course her guilt was manifest, and Herr Otto, in a spasm of anger at "prying women," as he called them, brought out the treasure, and with it others of a very rare album of Schumann's, to which he had given no names, leaving them to whisper their own names to each soul that could receive them: Star-Wreath it might be to one, Bower of Lilies to another. It was the same as with that white stone which the Seer of Patmos saw,-within it "a name written which no man knoweth, saving he that receiveth it."

This piece was to the lady a touch of consecration. Thenceforth she was known among us as "the Schumannite woman." I verily believe that to-day, next to the divine Clara herself, she is the best interpreter of Robert Schumann's works living; and if the love she has obtained for him is not as universal, it is just as fervent. Many silent and holy hours have I sat communing, through her, with him whom the Germans love to call their Tone-Poet; and the music remained to clothe with the full vesture of romance the meagre paragraphs of the journals which hinted his love, his sorrow, and at length his insanity and death. More, however, I longed to know of him,-of the wedlock of these Brownings of music; and more I came to know, in the way which, with this preface, I now proceed to relate.

A bitter December evening found me tumbling through snow and ice to accommodate a certain lyceum in one of our Northwestern cities. Cold winds from over the Lakes made me wish that the Modern Athens had kept its lecture-system at home; for it has always seemed to me, that, wherever this has gone, her eastern storms have gone with it. Such ugly thoughts were shamed, however, by the beaming welcome which shone from the face of the kindest of landladies, and at length completely thawed out of me by the glowing fire to which she introduced me, and which animated the coziest of rooms. Why has not some poet celebrated the experience of thawing? How deliciously each fibre of the thawee responds to the informing ray, evolving its own sweet sensation of release until all unite in a soft choral reverie! Carried thus, in a few moments, from the Arctic to the Tropic, I thought, as dear Heine says, my "sweet nothing-at-all thoughts," until a subtile breath of music won me back to life.

Heavens! what is that? A strain, strong and tender, pressed its way into the room, soothed my temples, then broke over me in a shower of pearls. Confused, I started up; and it was some moments before I understood that the music proceeded from the room adjoining mine in the hotel. Not altogether unfamiliar was the theme; the priestess of whom I have spoken had once brought it from the Holy of Holies, when she was appointed to stand; and now, remembering, I broke out with the word, "Florestan!"

As I uttered it, the music ceased with the dreary fall of an octave. Whether the musician had heard the exclamation, or whether such a terrible termination was in the music, I knew not: the latter was quite probable, for, alas! such fearful Icarus-falls are not rare in poor Schumann's music. However, I did not consider long, but, rising quickly, passed into the hall, and knocked gently at the door of the next room.

"Enter," replied a voice, eagerly, but softly.

Enter I did, and stood before a man of about forty winters. His face was so swart that I could see only the German in the blue eye, and at once imagined that a stream of Plutonic fire had streamed into his veins from some more Oriental race. I stammered out an apology for my intrusion, but told him how irresistible were such subtile threads as Schumann's "Carnival" had projected through the walls which separated our rooms.

"Florestan," I said, "was too much for me."

Then his eye lighted up as might that of some Arctic voyager, which, having for bleak months rested only on the glittering scales of the ice-dragon coiled about him, is suddenly filled with the warm spread of the Polar Sea. Taking my hand, he said,-

"In me, wanderer that I am,-in me, with the Heimweh in my heart never to be stilled but in that home where Schumann has already gone,-you see Florestan."

"Louis Boehner!"

Filled with wonder, and scarcely knowing what I did, I took a little piece of paper which he unwrapped from many folds and placed in my hand. On it these words were written:-

"Peace and joy attend thee, Louis Boehner! and mayst thou never want for such a friend as thou hast been to

ROBERT SCHUMANN."

I could say no word; never have I felt a profounder emotion than when, at this moment, I drew so near one whose brow Art had crowned with a living halo.

Students of German music and composers will need no word to bring before them the fulness of this incident. But to others I may briefly mention some facts connected with Schumann's "Carnival, or Scènes Mignonnes, on Four Notes." Not by any means representing the pure depths of Schumann's soul, this strange medley is yet pregnant with historic associations. The composer wrote it in his young days, stringing twenty-two little pieces on four letters composing the name of Asch, a town of Saxony, "whither," according to Sobolewski, "Schumann's thoughts frequently strayed, because at that time there was an object there interesting to his sensitive soul." In the letters A, S, C, H, it must be remembered that the H in German stands for our B natural, and S or es for E flat. The Leipsic "Neue Zeitschrift für Musik" was begun and for ten years edited by Schumann,-in what spirit we may gather from his own words:-"The musical state of Germany, at that time, was not very encouraging. On the stage Rossini yet reigned, and on the piano Herz and Hünten excluded all others. And yet how few years had passed since Beethoven, Weber, and Schubert lived among us! True, Mendelssohn's star was ascending, and there were wonderful whispers of a certain Pole, Chopin; but it was later that these gained their lasting influence. One day the idea took possession of our young and hot heads,-Let us not idly look on; take hold, and reform it; take hold, and the Poetry of Art shall be again enthroned!" Then gathered together a Protestant-league of music, whose Luther and Melancthon in one was Schumann. The Devil at which they threw their inkstands and semi-breves was the Philistines, which is the general term amongst German students, artists, poets, etc., for prosaic, narrow, hard, ungenial, commonplace respectabilities. "Young Germany" was making itself felt in all co?rdinate directions: forming new schools of plastic Art in Munich and Dresden,-a sharp and spirited Bohemian literature at Frankfort, under the lead of Heine and Boerne; and now, music being the last to yield in Germany, because most revered, as it is with religion in other countries, a new vitality brought together in Kühne's cellar in Leipsic the revolutionists, "who talked of Callot, Hoffmann, and Jean Paul, of Beethoven and Franz Schubert, and of the three foreign Romanticists beyond the Rhine, the friends of the new phenomenon in French poetry, Victor Hugo." This was the Davidsbund, or League of David (the last of the "Scènes Mignonnes" is named "Marche des Davidsbündler contre les Philistines"). An agreeable writer in the "Weimarer Somitagsblatt" has given us a fine sketch of this company, which we will quote.

"The head of the table was occupied by a lively, flexible man of middle age, intellectual in conversation, and overflowing with sharp and witty remarks. He was the instructor of more than one of the young musicians around him, who all listened to his observations with profound attention. He was very fond of monopolizing the conversation and suffering himself to be admired. For he called many a young, highly promising musician his pupil, and had, besides, the certain consciousness of having moulded his daughter Clara, at that time a girl of fourteen, into a prodigy, whose first appearance delighted the whole world, and whose subsequent artist-activity became the pride of her native city, Leipsic. By his side sat a quiet, thoughtful young man of twenty-three, with melancholy eyes. But lately a student in Heidelberg, he had now devoted himself entirely to music, had removed to Leipsic and was now a pupil of the 'old schoolmaster,' as the father of Clara Wieck liked to be called. Young Robert Schumann had good reason to be melancholy. After long struggles, he had only been able to devote himself entirely to music comparatively late in life, and had been obliged to pass a part of his precious youth in studies which were as uncongenial as possible to his artist-spirit. He had finally decided for the career of a virtuoso, and was pursuing the study of the piano with an almost morbid zeal, when the disabling of one of his fingers, a consequence of his over-exertions, obliged him to give up this career forever. He did not yet suspect that this accident would prove fortunate for him in the end, by directing him to his true vocation, composition. Perhaps, too, it was the first germ of love, in the garb of admiration for the wondrous talent of Clara, which made young Robert so quiet and dreamy. His companions were all the more lively. There sat the eccentric Louis Boehner,1 who long ago had served as the model for E.T.A. Hoffmann's fantastic pictures. Here J.P. Lyser, a painter by profession, but a poet as well, and a musician besides. Here Carl Bauck, the indefatigable, yet unsuccessful composer of songs,-now, in his capacity of critic, the paper bugbear of the Dresden artists. He had just returned from Italy, and believed himself in possession of the true secret of the art of singing, the monopoly of which every singing-master is wont to claim for himself. C.F. Becker, too, the eminent organist and industrious collector, belonged to this circle, as well as many more young and old artists of more or less merit and talent."2

Florestan then stood before me; and with him, although invisible, stood that sacred circle, which had unconsciously borne within it the germs of so many future sorrows and glories.

"With him," said Louis Boehner, "I began life, when we were boys together at Heidelberg; with him I stood when the dawn of a better day, which since has blessed hill and vale, was glowing for his eye alone; this breast held his sorrows and his hopes, when he was struggling to reach his Clara; these hands saved him when in his madness he cast himself into the Rhine; these eyes dropped their hot tears on his eyelids when they were closed in death."

Overcome by his emotion, he sat down and sobbed aloud.

At that moment, hearing my name called loudly in the hall, I went out, and was informed that my audience was waiting at the Lyceum, and had been waiting nearly fifteen minutes!