"The heart of Robert Schumann was a lyre so delicate, and with strings
so sensitive, that the effect of his pains and his joys, both always in
extremes, was as if you gave an Æolian harp to be swept now by a cold
north-wind and now by a hot sirocco. His spirit wore on to the confines
of his flesh, and was not warmly covered thereby, but only veiled. Under
his grief he seemed stronger; but when his joy came, when Clara was his
own, and went through Europe with him, giving expression to the voices
within, which, to him, had been unutterable,--then we saw that the
emotions which would have been safe, had they been suffered to well up
gently from the first, could come forth now only as a fierce and perhaps
devastating torrent.
"Schumann saddened his intimate friends by times of insanity, five or
six years before the world at large knew anything of it. At such times
he imagined himself again cruelly separated from the patient and tender
being who never left his side; and he would write pieces full of
distractions, in the midst of each of which, however, some touchingly
beautiful theme would float up, like a fair island through seething
seas. Then there were longer intervals, of seven and eight months, in
which he was perfectly sane; at which times he would write with a
wearing persistence which none could restrain: he would put our advice
aside gently, saying,--'A long life is before me; but it must be lived
in a few years.' And, indeed, the works which have reached farthest into
hearts that loved him most deeply date from these times. I remember,
that, when he sat down to compose his last symphony, he said,--'It is
almost accomplished; but the invisible mansion needs another chamber.'
"Once when I was at Frankfort, Clara Schumann sent me this word:
'Hasten.' I left all my affairs, and came to watch for many months
beside this beloved one. It was not a wild delirium which had taken
possession of him; the only fit of that kind was that in which he tried
to drown himself in the Rhine,--at the time when the papers got hold of
the terrible secret. His insanity was manifested in his conviction that
he was occupied by the souls of Beethoven and Schubert. Much in the
manner of your American mediums, he would be seized by a controlling
power,--would snatch a pencil, and dash out upon paper the wildest
discords. These we would play for him, at his request, from morning till
night,--during much of which time he would seem to be in a happy trance.
Of this music no chord or melody was true; they were jangling memories
of his earlier works.
"One day he called his wife and myself, and took our hands in his
own:--'Beethoven says that my earthly music is over; it cannot be
understood here; he writes for angels, and I shall write for them.'
Then, turning to me, he said,--'Louis, my friend, farewell! This is my
last prayer for you,'--handing me the paper which I have shown you; 'and
now leave us, to come again and kiss me when I am cold.'
"Then I left him alone with his Clara.
"A month from that time, Schumann was no more."
* * * * *
Out under the glowing sunset, I clasped hands parting with Louis
Boehner, and said, as my voice would let me.--"Take this paper, and when
you would have a friend, such as you have been to Robert Schumann, come
and help me to be that friend."
* * * * *