midst
unknown, unfolds itself to us as a record of continuous struggle,
relieved by occasional success. It is true that as he became better
known the appreciation of his works spread far beyond the confines of
his native city; at the same time it must be remembered that his
poverty was extreme. As yet his works had brought him little or
nothing; add to this his native bashfulness, together with the fact
that his marvellous productive powers were animated by no desire to
push himself where, as a composer, he had every right to be; that he
was always retiring, and always modestly undervaluing everything he
produced; that even when he had finished a fine composition it was
often put aside in some receptacle and forgotten; that, in a word, he
wrote, not for the public eye, not for praise, but simply and solely
because he was impelled by the spirit within him. When we consider all
this it need not surprise us to learn that Schubert's progress in a
worldly sense was slow and halting. Again, his physical strength was
by no means adapted to bear the immense strain which this continuous
labour involved; and when we learn that his mode of living was most
irregular (when he was not staying with friends he would be living
from hand to mouth in poor lodgings by himself), and that his
sensitive overstrung nature was denied the nourishment which it so
sorely needed--a result due in part to his distresses, but partly also
to his improvidence--we can form a tolerably clear picture of the
manner in which his days were passed.

Yet if his distresses and anxieties were so many dense clouds shutting
out, for months together, the sunshine and warmth from his life, that
life itself, taken as a whole, was by no means destitute of
happiness. The musical temperament is one which cannot be cast down
for long; let the cloud-rift be ever so small, it suffices to let in a
flood of sunshine to such a nature as that which Schubert possessed.
But how much happier might his life have been if, in the absence of
the ability to manage his own affairs to better advantage, some one
had been at hand to take this responsibility off his shoulders. Alas!
not one of his friends seems to have assumed this important part,
notwithstanding the affection they professed for him. Left to himself,
no sooner had his songs attained a marketable value than, pressed by
hunger and the other necessaries of life, he consented to part with
the copyright of the first twelve of