ot hurt
me, and I will work at it without the least murmur."

Taking lodgings at the house of Wieck, Schumann devoted himself to
piano-forte playing with intense ardor; but his zeal outran prudence.
To hasten his proficiency and acquire an independent action for each
finger, he contrived a mechanical apparatus which held the third
finger of the right hand immovable, while the others went through their
evolutions. The result was such a lameness of the hand that it was
incurable, and young Schumann's career as a virtuoso was for ever
checked. His deep sorrow, however, did not unman him long, for he turned
his attention to the study of composition and counterpoint under Kupsch,
and, afterward, Heinrich Dorn. He remained for three years under Wieck's
roof, and the companionship of the child Clara, whose marvelous musical
powers were the talk of Leipzig, was a sweet consolation to him in his
troubles and his toil, though ten years his junior. The love, which
became a part of his life, had already begun to flutter into unconscious
being in his feeling for a shy and reserved little girl.

Schumann tells us that the year 1834 was the most important one of his
life, for it witnessed the birth of the "N'eue Zeitschrift fur Musik,"
a journal which was to embody his notions of ideal music, and to be the
organ of a clique of enthusiasts in lifting the art out of Philistinism
and commonplace. The war-cry was "Reform in art," and never-ending
battle against the little and conventional ideas which were believed
then to be the curse of German music. Among the earlier contributors
were Wieck, Schumke, Knorr, Banck, and Schumann himself, who wrote
under the pseudonyms Florestan and Eusebius. Between his new journal and
composing, Schumann was kept busy, but he found time to persuade himself
that he was in love with Fraulein Ernestine von Fricken, a beautiful but
somewhat frivolous damsel, who became engaged to the young composer and
editor. Two years cooled off this passion, and a separation was mutually
agreed on. Perhaps Schumann recognized something, in the lovely child
who was swiftly blooming into maidenhood, which made his own inner soul
protest against any other attachment.

II.

It would have been very strange indeed if two such natures as Clara
Wieck and Robert Schumann had not gravitated toward each other during
the almost constant intercourse between them which took place between
1835 and 1838. Clara, born in 1820, had be