He reminds one of Brahms, a genial giant, who was deeply devoted in a filial way to Clara Schumann after the death of Schumann, but who never married, and of whom I find no recorded romance.

CHAPTER VI.

ROBERT SCHUMANN AND CLARA WIECK

“I am not satisfied with any man who despises music.  For music is a gift of God.  It will drive away the devil and makes people cheerful.  Occupied with it, man forgets all anger, unchastity, pride, and other vices.  Next to theology, I give music the next place and highest praise.”—­MARTIN LUTHER.

By a little violence to chronology, I am putting last of all the story of Schumann’s love-life, because it marks the highest point of musical amour.

If music have any effect at all upon character, especially upon the amorous development and activity of character, that effect ought to be discoverable—­if discoverable it is—­with double distinctness where two musicians have fallen in love with each other, and with each other’s music.  There are many instances where both the lovers were musically inclined, but in practically every case, save in one, there has been a great disparity between their abilities.

The whimsical Fates, however, decided to make one trial of the experiment of bringing two musicians of the first class into a sphere of mutual influence and affection.  The result was so beautiful, 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.”