art from this determination to give himself up to music there was no
pressing reason for his leaving the school, for it was reported that
the Emperor himself, having observed Schubert's beautiful voice and
wonderful power of expression, had evinced so much interest in his
progress as to offer him a foundation scholarship in the school, on
condition that he should qualify himself for examination during the
holidays. Schubert, however, had made up his mind, and towards the end
of the year 1813 he quitted the Convict, his farewell being signalised
by the composing of his first Symphony[22] in honour of the birthday
of Dr. Lang, the musical director. A year before this event took
place, the mother, who had worked unceasingly to keep the home
together on the slender means which her husband's calling provided,
had died. Her loss was keenly felt by the family, but by none more
than by Franz himself, who realised how much he owed to the love and
care bestowed upon him in his childhood by this excellent,
hard-working mother.

Schubert was now entering upon his seventeenth year, and stood at the
entrance of a career in music which, judging from his compositions at
the Convict school, must have seemed to his friends to be full of
promise. He himself was full of fire and energy, and longing to follow
in the footsteps of the great masters whose works had inspired his
earliest efforts. But, though as yet perhaps he failed to realise it,
his genius, whatever may have been the source of its inspiration, was
surely leading him towards the path wherein his strength chiefly
lay--a path almost untrodden, and which he alone was destined to adorn
with the choicest flowers of his imagination, in order that others
might enjoy their perfume for evermore--the pathway of song. Already
those early songs to which the school musicians had accorded a
sympathetic hearing as they flowed fresh from his pen evinced to those
capable of judging far more power and individuality than did any of
his more ambitious instrumental compositions.

But, as we have said, Schubert himself probably had not realised this
great truth as yet. He stood at the threshold of a future which gave
him no insight into its possibilities, which for him at that moment
conveyed no more than a hope of fulfilment of his one burning
desire--to write, write, write. It was the pure longing of the true
musician to make mankind at large partakers of his heavenly gift. Let
us remember this