The promptness with which all the leading music publishers of Germany issued complete editions of Schumann's vocal and pianoforte compositions, as soon as the copyright had expired, shows how profitable they must be. But during his lifetime it was quite otherwise, and in a letter to Kossmaly he adduces the following four reasons for this state of affairs: "(1) inherent difficulties of form and contents; (2) because, not being a virtuoso, I cannot perform them in public; (3) because I am the editor of my musical paper, in which I could not allude to them; (4) because Fink is editor of the other paper, and would not allude to them." Elsewhere he remarks, concerning this rival editor: "It is really most contemptible on Fink's part not to have mentioned a single one of my pianoforte compositions in nine [seven] years, although they are always of such a character that it is impossible to overlook them. It is not for my name's sake that I am annoyed, but because I know what the future course of music is to be." It was in behalf of this tendency that he toiled on his paper, which at first barely paid its expenses, having only 500 subscribers several years after its foundation. And he not only avoided puffing his own compositions, but even inserted a contribution by his friend Kossmaly in which he was placed in the second rank of vocal composers! Yet, though he printed the article, he complains about it in a private letter: "In your article on the Lied, I was a little grieved that you placed me in the _second_ class. I do not lay claim to the first, but I think I have a claim to a place of _my own_, and least of all do I wish to see myself associated with Reissiger, Curschmann, etc. I know that my aims, my resources, are far beyond theirs, and I hope you will concede this and not accuse me of vanity, which is far from me."