Schumann as a critic was eminently catholic and comprehensive.  Deeply appreciative of the old lights of music, he received with enthusiasm all the fresh additions contributed by musical genius to the progress of his age.  Eschewing the cold, objective, technical form of criticism, his method of approaching the work of others was eminently subjective, casting on them the illumination which one man of genius gives to another.  The cast of his articles was somewhat dramatic and conversational, and the characters represented as contributing their opinions to the symposium of discussion were modeled on actual personages.  He himself was personified under the dual form of Florestan and Eusebius, the “two souls in his breast”—­the former, the fiery iconoclast, impulsive in his judgments and reckless in attacking prejudices; the latter, the mild, genial, receptive dreamer.  Master Raro, who stood for Wieck, also typified the calm, speculative side of Schumann’s nature.  Chiara represented Clara Wieck, and personified the feminine side of art.  So the various personages were all modeled after associates of Schumann, and, aside from the freshness and fascination which this method gave his style, it enabled him to approach his subjects from many sides.  The name of the imaginary society was the Davids-bund, probably from King David and his celebrated harp, or perhaps in virtue of David’s victories over the Philistines of his day.

As an illustration of Schumann’s style and method of treating musical subjects, we can not do better than give his article on Chopin’s “Don Juan Fantasia”:  “Eusebius entered not long ago.  You know his pale face and the ironical smile with which he awakens expectation.  I sat with Florestan at the piano-forte.  Florestan is, as you know, one of those rare musical minds that foresee, as it were, coming novel or extraordinary things.  But he encountered a surprise today.  With the words ‘Off with your hats, gentlemen! a genius,’ Eusebius laid down a piece of music.  We were not allowed to see the title-page.  I turned over the music vacantly; the veiled enjoyment of music which one does not hear has something magical in it.  And besides this, it seems that every composer has something different in the note forms.  Beethoven looks differently from Mozart on paper; the difference resembles that between Jean Paul’s and Goethe’s prose.  But here it seemed as if eyes, strange, were glancing up to me—­flower eyes, basilisk eyes, peacock’s eyes, maiden’s eyes; in many places it looked yet brighter.  I thought I saw Mozart’s ‘La ci darem la mano’ wound through a hundred chords. Leporello seemed to wink at me, and Don Juan hurried past in his white mantle.  ‘Now play it,’ said Florestan.  Eusebius consented, and we, in the recess of a window, listened.  Eusebius played as though he were inspired, and led forward countless forms filled with the liveliest, warmest life; it seemed that the inspiration of the moment gave to his