hand. One afternoon in December of this year a friend took
him to call upon a poet named Johann Mayrhofer, the words of a poem by
whom Schubert had set to music a few days before. They found the poet
at his lodgings, situated in one of the darkest and gloomiest streets
of the city. The apartment contained little furniture beyond a worn-out
piano and a worm-eaten bookcase filled with well-used books, and the
general air of neglect and dilapidation was heightened by the fact that
the window was overshadowed by a huge building on the opposite side of
the narrow street. Gloomy and cheerless as it was in appearance, the
room was in keeping with the character of the man who occupied it.
Johann Mayrhofer was regarded by his acquaintance as an hypochondriac,
whose general depression of spirits entered largely into his poetical
writings. But those who knew him intimately were aware of a gentle and
tender side to his ordinarily stern nature. He was, in fact, a 'lonely,
self-contained, self-taught man'--one whose gifts conveyed to him the
ability to discern and appreciate beauty, but at the same time left him
powerless to banish from his mind the thought of evil working its
destructive influence both upon himself and his surroundings. Upon the
impressionable mind of Schubert--already attuned to sadness--the
personality of Mayrhofer exercised a special charm, and the two at once
became fast friends. The attraction, however, was perfectly mutual, for
Schubert's friendship helped to mature Mayrhofer's powers, with the
result that the one wrote in order that the other might set to music
that which was written, and to this alliance we are indebted for some
of Schubert's finest songs.

Every moment that could be snatched from the drudgery of the
schoolroom was now devoted to composition, and the year following that
in which the acquaintance with Mayrhofer began furnishes the most
remarkable testimony to Schubert's powers. In this year (1815) he
composed no fewer than a hundred and thirty-seven songs, and six
operas and melodramas, in addition to a great deal of Church and
chamber music and pieces for the pianoforte. Of the songs, twenty-nine
were written in August alone, eight of this number bearing one date,
August 15, and seven more being produced on the 19th of the same
month. A wonderful year, indeed, and our astonishment is increased
when we reflect that many of these songs, written as they were under
conditions which would seem to