“I must tell you what a silly child I was then.  When Ernestine came to us I said, ’Just wait till you learn to know Schumann, he is my favorite of all my acquaintances,’ But she did not care to know you, since she said she knew a gentleman in Asch, whom she liked much better.  That made me mad; but it was not long before she began to like you better and it soon went so far that every time you came I had to call her.  I was glad to do this since I was pleased that she liked you.  But you talked more and more with her and cut me short; that hurt me a good deal; but I consoled myself by saying it was only natural since you were with me all the time; and, besides, Ernestine was more grown-up than I. Still queer feelings filled my heart, so young it was, and so warmly it beat even then.  When we went walking you talked to Ernestine and poked fun at me.  Father shipped me off to Dresden on that account, where I again grew hopeful, and I said to myself, ’How pretty it would be if he were only your husband,’”

From Dresden, Clara wrote to “Lieber Herr Schumann,” a quizzical letter advising him to drink “less Bavarian beer; not to turn night into day; to let your girl friends know that you think of them; to compose industriously, and to write more in your paper, since the readers wish it.”

Schumann, unconsciously to himself, had given Clara reason enough to persuade a child of her years that he loved her more than he did, or more than he thought he did.  He thought he was interested only in the marvellous child-artist.  He found in the musical newspaper which he edited an opportunity to promulgate his high opinion of her.  It is needless to say that the praises he lavished in print, would be no more cordial than those he bestowed on her in the privacy of the home.  For he and she seemed to be as son and daughter to old Wieck, who was also greatly interested in the critical ideals of Schumann, and joined him zealously in the organisation and conducting of the Neue Zeitschrift fuer Musik.  This, Schumann made the most wonderfully catholic and prophetic critical organ that ever existed for art; and in the editing of it he approved himself to posterity as a musical critic never approached for discriminating the good from the bad; for daring to discover and to acclaim new genius without fear, or without waiting for death to close the lifelong catalogue or to serve as a guide for an estimate.  For some time Wieck joined hands and pen with Schumann in this great cause, till gradually his fears for the career of the jealously guarded Clara caused a widening rift between the old man and the young.

Clara was to Schumann first a brilliant young sister, for whom he prophesied such a career as that of Schubert, Paganini, and Chopin, and for whom he cherished an affectionate concern.  Yet as early as 1832, when she was only thirteen, and he twenty-two, he could write to his “Dear honoured Clara,” “I often think of you, not as a brother of his sister, or merely in friendship, but rather as a pilgrim thinking of a distant shrine.”  He began to dedicate compositions to her, and he took her opinion seriously.  His Opus 5, written in 1833, was based on a theme by Clara, and, according to Reissman, showed a feeling of “reverence for her genius rather than of love.”