ir
peculiarities and experiences on the keyboard. It is needless to say
that the tension of mind in such experiments is apt to reach the
breaking strain. We are under bonds for the moderate use of every
faculty, and he who misuses any of God's gifts may not hope to go
unscathed.

The exquisite quality of Robert Schumann's imagination served to make
him shun the society of vulgar people. The inability to grasp things
intuitively harassed him, and he acquired a habit of keeping silence,
except with the elect. He lived within himself, unless Clara were by,
and then he leaned on her.

And what a strong, brave and beautiful soul she was! In a sense she
sacrificed her own career for the man she loved. And by giving all, she
won all.

Most descriptions of women begin by telling how the individual looked
and what she wore. No pen-portraits of Clara Schumann have come down to
us, for the reason that she was too great, too elusive in spirit, for
any snapshot artist to attempt her. She never looked twice the same. In
feature she was commonplace, her form lacked the classic touch, and her
raiment was as plain as the plumage of a brown thrush in an autumn
hedgerow. She was as homely as George Eliot, Mary Wollstonecraft, Rosa
Bonheur, George Sand, or Madame De Stael. No two of the women named
looked alike, but I once saw a composite photograph of their portraits
and the picture sent no thrills along my keel. Their splendor was a
matter of spirit. Have you ever seen the Duse?--there is but one. In
repose this woman's face is absolute nullity. She starts with a
blank--you would never take a second glance at her at a pink tea. Her
dress is bargain day, her form so-so, her features clay.

But mayhap she will lift her hand and resting her chin upon it will look
at you out of half-closed eyes that never are twice alike. If you are
speaking you will suddenly become aware that she is listening, and then
you will become uncomfortable and try to stop, but can not; for you will
realize that you have been talking at random, and you want to redeem
yourself.

The presence of this plain woman is a challenge--she knows! Yet she
never contradicts, and when she wills it, she will lead you out of the
maze and make you at peace with yourself; for our quarrel with the world
is only a quarrel with self. When we are at peace with self we are at
peace with God.

The Duse is a surprise, in that her homeliness of face masks an
intellect that is a rev