Part 4

"This cured me for a while of all literary ambition. But the unquiet spirit within me would not rest, and during the following summer I wrote a sentimental tale, full of aspirations, large adjectives, and soft epithets. It was accepted by a well-known monthly, then supposed to be in the height of its prosperity. This was a grain of comfort, and I looked forward confidently to a long future of remuneration and renown, when a letter of regret arrived from the fair editress, returning my story, and explaining, that, being unable to meet her engagements, the magazine had been sold to pay her debts.

"This was bad; but my story was my own, and I accordingly despatched it to 'The Salmagundian,' a periodical of the highest reputation. There it was published, praised, and further contributions requested. Several weeks passed away. I indited a poem, entitled, 'Past and Future, or, Golden and Leaden Hours.' This also appeared in print, and my thirst for fame was beginning to be satisfied, when a polite note reached me from 'The Salmagundian' office, begging for another tale, and offering to pay me in _back numbers of the magazine_. I wrote no more."

"Art beguiled you then, perhaps?"

"Alas, yes, the siren! I had taken lessons from a very clever colorist, and was thoroughly imbued with his enthusiasm. 'I, too, am a painter,' I took for my motto; and, hiring a small studio in ---- Street, I bought a large canvas, on which I sketched out a picture which cost me much money, more time, and many anxious thoughts.

"It represented the interior of a church, at the dim end of which a marriage was being solemnized. In the foreground, a group of ten people, in anomalous costumes, was gathered round a youth supposed to be a rejected and despairing lover, who had fallen on the ground in a swoon. It was very affecting, I thought.--it would be very effective. Were _she_ to see it, she would be stung with remorse,--she would behold the probable effects of her present indifference,--she would relent.

"No one knew of my painting. I would keep it a profound secret, till it was a complete and glorious success. So I worked on in my quiet studio, draping before a cheval-glass for my women, attitudinizing and agonizing for my men, until the last touches were on, the varnish dry, and it was all ready for the Spring Exhibition. Then came doubts and speculations. Would it be accepted? Was it good, after all? Would Ellen like it? How would it seem among so many others? Should I take her to look at it? Should I tell her it was mine? Who would buy it?

"I had hired my studio under an assumed name, and under an assumed name sent my picture to the Academy. Now, when I went to see it, I found it, by some strange chance, hung next to a beautiful portrait by Huntington. The juxtaposition gave me a new idea. I saw at once what a villanous daub mine was, and went away oppressed with shame and a new-found modesty. Some time after this I strolled again into the Exhibition, in the hope of finding Miss Wilson; as I entered the vestibule, I met her coming out.

"'Oh, Mr. Martin!' she exclaimed, 'I am just going away, but I _must_ turn back, and show you the _funniest_ picture! So theatrical! So distorted!'

"'Does it hang next to a lady in a purple shawl, by Huntington?'

"'Yes. Of course I might have known you would appreciate it, you are such a good critic of pictures. Isn't it the very worst specimen of art you ever saw?'

"Can you imagine my feelings?"

"I think I can."

"This was not all, however. That afternoon I went to my now forsaken studio, previous to taking my departure from it forever. I was carefully packing my materials, when I heard a knock at the door. I opened it, and an elderly, shrewd-looking man walked into the room.

"'Are you T. Markham Worthington?' he asked.

"'I am a friend of his.'

"'Authorized to sell his picture in the Academy, Number ----?'

"'Yes.'

"'How much does he ask for it?'

"'How much are you willing to give?'

"'Not more than twenty-five dollars,'

"'That will do. Where shall it be sent?'

"He paid the money, wrote the address, and, bowing, left the studio. Twenty-five dollars just paid for the frame. Who had bought my picture? I looked at the card:--

'PARKER J. SPERRY, '_Yankee Pie Depot_, '126 ---- Street.'"

"Did you ever paint again?"

"Once only. I made a portrait of my sister-in-law, and sent it to her in a gorgeous frame. I happened to go into her sitting-room, one morning, when she was out, and found my picture hanging with its face to the wall. I turned it round. Directly across the mouth was pasted a white label, on which I saw neatly printed in India-ink,--'Queen of the Deplorables.' I took it home with me, and hung it in my library as a lesson to me for all future time.

"So," said Martin, throwing away the of his third cigar, "you have heard my experience. May you profit by it! I am now in the pork-packing business, and make a handsome income for my wife and two children. To-morrow I go to New York, to bring them into these wilds for change of air. And now, good night."

* * * * *

ROBERT AND CLARA SCHUMANN.

FLORESTAN'S STORY.

I.

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 coördinate 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,[A] 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."[B]

[Footnote A: The "Florestan" of the "Scènes Mignonnes"; "Chiara" is Clara herself; "Eusebius" was Robert Schumann.]

[Footnote B: See Dwight's _Journal of Music_, Vol. VIII. No. 3.]

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!

II.

Next morning, bright and early, I was in the artist-pilgrim's room, listening to that which it thrilled him to tell and me to hear. And first he told me the story of Schumann's love.

The "old schoolmaster," Wieck, trained his daughter more ambitiously than judiciously; and, indeed, none but one of the elect would ever have survived the tasks imposed on her childhood. Indeed, she had no childhood: at the piano she was kept through all the bright days, roving only from scale to scale, when she should have been roving from flower to flower. At length her genius asserted itself, and she entered into her destiny; thenceforth flowers bloomed for her out of exercise-books, and she could touch the notes which were sun-bursts, and those which were mosses beneath them. From this training she came before the best audience in Germany, and stood a sad-eyed, beautiful child of fourteen summers, and by acclamation was crowned the Queen of the Piano. Franz Liszt remembered his enthusiasm of that period, and many years afterward wrote in his extravagant way,--"When we heard Clara Wieck in Vienna, fifteen years ago, she drew her hearers after her into her poetic world, to which she floated upward in a magical car drawn by electric sparks and lifted by delicately prismatic, but nervously throbbing winglets." At her performance of Beethoven's F Minor Sonata, Grillparzer was inspired to write the following verses:--

"A weird magician, weary of the world, In sullen humor locked his charms all up Within a diamond casket, firmly clasped, And threw the key into the sea, and died. The manikins here tried with all their might; In vain! no tool can pick the flinty lock; His magic arts still slumber, like their master. A shepherd's child, along the sea-shore playing, Watches the waves, in hurrying, idle chase. Dreaming and thoughtless, as young maidens are, She dippeth her white fingers in the flood, And grasps, and lifts, and holds it! 'Tis the key. Up springs she, up, her heart still beating higher. The casket glances, as with eyes, before her. The key fits well, up flies the lid. The spirits All mount aloft, then bow themselves submissive To this their gracious, innocent, sweet mistress, Who with white fingers guides them in her play."

The first, perhaps, to recognize the surpassing ability of that child was the young editor of the "Zeitschrift." Robert Schumann. On her first appearance, he wrote,--"Others make poetry,--she is a poem." And soon afterward,--"She early lifted the veil of Isis. The child looks calmly up,--the man would, perhaps, be dazzled by the brilliancy."

From this moment there was an elasticity and purpose about the young composer, the secret of which no one knew, not even himself. Like one caught in the whorls of some happy dream, who will not pause to ask, "Whither?" he poured out before this child the half-revealed hopes striving within him; an equal spell was woven about her ingenuous and earnest heart, and their souls were joined in that purple morning; in due time they were to be rather _clenched_, through pain. It was under this baptismal touch of Love that Schumann wrote his first sonata,--"Florestan and Eusebius." It gained him at once a fame with all from whom fame was graceful.

In the light of this period of his life must be interpreted those wonderful little "pieces" which mystify whilst they fascinate; without it their meaning is as strange as their names. Often did he say,--"I can write only where my life is in unison with my works." "Listen now to these," said Florestan, as he opened an album and struck the piano; "these are the voices of a new life." The "Alternatives," with song, "My peace is o'er"; "Evening Thoughts"; "Impromptus," (whose first theme was written by Clara): these; seemed like the emotion of some newly winged aspirant released from its chrysalis, resting on its first flower. But faster than planets through the abysses Love moves on. Florestan ceased, and there was a long silence; and then he told the unspeakable portion of his story by performing these two: "Sternenkranz," "Warum." Who has ever scaled the rapture of the former, or fathomed the pathos of the latter? Every summit implies its precipice; and the star-wreath that crowned Love was snatched at by the Fate which soon burdened two hearts with the terrible questioning, _Wherefore?_

Thus: before these two were fully conscious of the love they bore each other, the shrewd eye of old Wieck had caught a glimpse of what was coming to pass. He had educated this girl to be an artist to bring _him_ fame; alas, it must be confessed that he thought also of certain prospective thalers. Willing as he was that all Leipsic should admire his daughter, he did not like the enthusiasm of the "Zeitschrift." He then began to warn Clara against "this Faust in modern garb, who, when he had gained one finger, would soon have the whole hand, and finally the poor soul into the bargain!" Stupid old schoolmaster, thou shouldst have known that it is Mephistopheles, and not Faust, that women hate!

The old man, finding that his warnings were of no avail, forbade all acquaintance, forbade Robert's visits to his house. Then, inaugurating at once Clara's career as a _virtuoso_, he took her to Vienna.

No wonder, that, when she appeared there, it was to be as the priestess of Beethoven. It takes something besides an academy to train artists up to Beethoven. Robert was forbidden to write to her; but the "Schwärmibriefe of Eusebius to Chiara," utterly unintelligible to the general reader of the "Zeitschrift," who, doubtless, fancied that its editor had gone mad, were quite clear to a certain little lady in Vienna, who consequently pined less than her father had anticipated.

"Amid all our musical soul-feasts," he writes, "there always peeps out an angel-face, which more than resembles a certain Clara. Why art thou not with us? (_Warum!_) And how thou wilt have thought of us last night, from the 'Meeresstille' to the flaming close of the A major symphony! I also thought of thee then, Chiara, pure one, bright one, whose hands are stretched towards Italy, whither thy longing draws thee, but thy dreamy eye still turned to us."

At length a sun-burst. In 1840 appeared the first number of Schumann's "Myrthen," whose dedication, _Seiner geliebten Braut_, breaks forth in the passionate and beautiful song,--"Thou my soul, O thou my heart!"