In every person's memory there are niches fixed, and in those niches are
sacred persons. These are such as never obtruded themselves upon you,
staining the pane through which their light shone with their own images,
but who became perfectly transparent to the word they uttered, the song
they sang, or the work they did. Such a sacred person to me is the
gifted woman who first interpreted for me Schumann's Albums. Many years
ago it was, as she told me, that she one day stood unperceived in the
half-open door of her master, near the lesson-hour, and heard him softly
rendering a theme which stole far into places of her heart, which had
been awaiting its spell unconsciously. Presently he felt that there was
a listener, and, hastily brushing away a tear, he placed the music in a
far corner of the room, away from his _répertoire_. She confessed, that,
afterward, when he was not present, she had looked on that which he
evidently desired to conceal; she saw written, in pencil, upon it,
"Sternenkranz." Thenceforth shops and catalogues were ransacked, but no
"Sternenkranz" was found,--the word was evidently her master's own
fancy; so she summoned all her heroism, one day, when Herr Otto
complained of her indifference to the pieces he set before her, and
informed him that she should perish at his feet, unless he would give
her "Sternenkranz." Of course her guilt was manifest, and Herr Otto, in
a spasm of anger at "prying women," as he called them, brought out the
treasure, and with it others of a very rare album of Schumann's, to
which he had given no names, leaving them to whisper their own names to
each soul that could receive them: Star-Wreath it might be to one, Bower
of Lilies to another. It was the same as with that white stone which the
Seer of Patmos saw,--within it "a name written which no man knoweth,
saving he that receiveth it."
This piece was to the lady a touch of consecration. Thenceforth she was
known among us as "the Schumannite woman." I verily believe that to-day,
next to the divine Clara herself, she is the best interpreter of Robert
Schumann's works living; and if the love she has obtained for him is not
as universal, it is just as fervent. Many silent and holy hours have I
sat communing, through her, with him whom the Germans love to call their
Tone-Poet; and the music remained to clothe with the full vesture of
romance the meagre paragraphs of the journals which hinted his love, his
sorrow, and at length his insanity and death. More, however, I longed to
know of him,--of the wedlock of these Brownings of music; and more I
came to know, in the way which, with this preface, I now proceed to
relate.
A bitter December evening found me tumbling through snow and ice to
accommodate a certain lyceum in one of our Northwestern cities. Cold
winds from over the Lakes made me wish that the Modern Athens had kept
its lecture-system at home; for it has always seemed to me, that,
wherever this has gone, her eastern storms have gone with it. Such ugly
thoughts were shamed, however, by the beaming welcome which shone from
the face of the kindest of landladies, and at length completely thawed
out of me by the glowing fire to which she introduced me, and which
animated the coziest of rooms. Why has not some poet celebrated the
experience of thawing? How deliciously each fibre of the thawee responds
to the informing ray, evolving its own sweet sensation of release until
all unite in a soft choral reverie! Carried thus, in a few moments, from
the Arctic to the Tropic, I thought, as dear Heine says, my "sweet
nothing-at-all thoughts," until a subtile breath of music won me back to
life.
Heavens! what is that? A strain, strong and tender, pressed its way into
the room, soothed my temples, then broke over me in a shower of pearls.
Confused, I started up; and it was some moments before I understood that
the music proceeded from the room adjoining mine in the hotel. Not
altogether unfamiliar was the theme; the priestess of whom I have spoken
had once brought it from the Holy of Holies, when she was appointed to
stand; and now, remembering, I broke out with the word, "Florestan!"
As I uttered it, the music ceased with the dreary fall of an octave.
Whether the musician had heard the exclamation, or whether such a
terrible termination was in the music, I knew not: the latter was quite
probable, for, alas! such fearful Icarus-falls are not rare in poor
Schumann's music. However, I did not consider long, but, rising quickly,
passed into the hall, and knocked gently at the door of the next room.
"Enter," replied a voice, eagerly, but softly.
Enter I did, and stood before a man of about forty winters. His face was
so swart that I could see only the German in the blue eye, and at once
imagined that a stream of Plutonic fire had streamed into his veins from
some more Oriental race. I stammered out an apology for my intrusion,
but told him how irresistible were such subtile threads as Schumann's
"Carnival" had projected through the walls which separated our rooms.
"Florestan," I said, "was too much for me."
Then his eye lighted up as might that of some Arctic voyager, which,
having for bleak months rested only on the glittering scales of the
ice-dragon coiled about him, is suddenly filled with the warm spread of
the Polar Sea. Taking my hand, he said,--
"In me, wanderer that I am,--in me, with the _Heimweh_ in my heart never
to be stilled but in that home where Schumann has already gone,--you see
Florestan."
"Louis Boehner!"
Filled with wonder, and scarcely knowing what I did, I took a little
piece of paper which he unwrapped from many folds and placed in my hand.
On it these words were written:--
"_Peace and joy attend thee, Louis Boehner! and mayst thou never
want for such a friend as thou hast been to_