ann has had his day, Wagner is having his, and Brahms will be
ruler of all tomorrow. _Eheu Fugaces!_

There was a time, _mes enfants_, when I played at all the Schumann
piano music. The _Abegg_ variations, the _Papillons_, the
_Intermezzi_--"an extension of the _Papillons_," said Schumann--_Die
Davidsbuendler_, that wonderful _toccata in C_, the best double-note
study in existence--because it is music first, technics afterward--the
seldom attempted _Allegro, opus 8_, the _Carnaval_, tender and dazzling
miniatures, the twelve settings of Paganini, much more musical than
Liszt's, the _Impromptus_, a delicate compliment to his Clara. It is
always Clara with this Robert, like that other Robert, the strong-souled
English husband of Elizabeth Browning. Schumann's whole life romance
centered in his wife. A man in love with his wife and that man a
musician! Why, the entire episode must seem abnormal to the flighty,
capricious younger set, the Bayreuth set, for example. But it was an
ideal union, the woman a sympathetic artist, the composer writing for
her, writing songs, piano music, even criticism for and about her.
Decidedly one of the prettiest and most wholesome pictures in the
history of any art.

Then I attacked the _F-sharp Minor Sonata_, with its wondrous
introduction like the vast, somber portals to some fantastic Gothic
pile. The _Fantasiestuecke opus 12_, still remain Schumann at his
happiest, and easiest comprehended. The _Symphonic Variations_ are the
greatest of all, greater than the _Concerto_ or the _Fantasie in C_.
These almost persuade one that their author is a fit companion for
Beethoven and Chopin. There is invention, workmanship, and a solidity
that never for a moment clashes with the tide of romantic passion
surging beneath. Here he strikes fire and the blaze is glorious.

The _F-minor Sonata_--the so-called _Concert sans orchestre_--a
truncated, unequal though interesting work; the _Arabesque_, the
_Blumenstueck_, the marvelous and too seldom played _Humoreske_, opus 20,
every one throbbing with feeling; the eight _Novelletten_, almost, but
not quite successful attempts at a new form; the genial but
unsatisfactory _G-minor Sonata_, the _Nachtstuecke_, and the _Vienna
Carnaval_, opus 26, are not all of these the unpremeditated outpourings
of a genuine poet, a poet of sensibility, of exquisite feeling?

I must not forget those idylls of childhood, the _Kinderscenen_, the
half-crazy _Kreisleriana_, true