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
fingers a power beyond the ordinary measure of their cunning. It is true
that Florestan's whole applause was expressed in nothing but a happy
smile, and the remark that the variations might have been written by
Beethoven or Franz Schubert, had either of these been a piano virtuoso;
but how surprised he was when, turning to the title-page, he read 'La ci
darem la mano, varie pour le piano-forte, par Frederic Chopin, Ouvre 2,'
and with what astonishment we both cried out, '