When Clara Wieck returned home, she gave herself up to work with fresh ardor, studying composition under Heinrich Dorn, singing under the celebrated Mieksch, and even violin-playing, so great was her ambition for musical accomplishments.  From 1836 to 1838 she made an extended musical tour through Germany, and was welcomed as a musico-poetic ideal by the enthusiasts who gathered around her.  The poet Grillparzer spoke of her as “the innocent child who first unlocked the casket in which Beethoven buried his mighty heart,” and it must be confessed that Clara Wieck, even as a young girl, did more than any other pianist to develop a love of and appreciation for the music of the Titan of composers.

Long before Schumann distinctly contemplated the image of Clara as the beloved one, the half of his soul, he had divined her genius, and expressed his opinion of her in no stinted terms of praise.  When she was as yet only thirteen, he had written of her in his journal:  “As I know people who, having but just heard Clara, yet rejoice in their anticipation of their next occasion of hearing her, I ask, What sustains this continual interest in her?  Is it the ‘wonder child’ herself, at whose stretches of tenths people shake their heads while they are amazed at them, or the most difficult difficulties which she sportively flings toward the public like flower garlands?  Is it the special pride of the city with which a people regards its own natives?  Is it that she presents to us the most interesting productions of recent art in as short a time as possible?  Is it that the masses understand that art should not depend on the caprices of a few enthusiasts, who would direct us back to a century over whose corpse the wheels of time are hastening?  I know not; I only feel that here we are subdued by genius, which men still hold in respect.  In short, we here divine the presence of a power of which much is spoken, while few indeed possess it....  Early she drew the veil of Isis aside.  Serenely the child looks up; older eyes, perhaps, would have been blinded by that radiant light....  To Clara we dare no longer apply the measuring scale of age, but only that of fulfillment....  Clara Wieck is the first German artist....  Pearls do not float on the surface; they must be sought for in the deep, often with danger.  But Clara is an intrepid diver.”

The child whose genius he admired ripened into a lovely young woman, and Schumann became conscious that there had been growing in his heart for years a deep, ardent love.  He had fancied himself in love more than once, but now he felt that he could make no mistake as to the genuineness of his feelings.  In 1836 he confessed his feelings to the object of his affections, and discovered that he not only loved but was loved, for two such gifted and sympathetic natures could hardly be thrown together for years without the growth of a mutual tenderness.  The marriage project was not favored by Papa Wieck, much as he liked the young