Schumann was fortunate in being so well situated pecuniarily that he was not obliged to earn his living during the years of the development of his genius. After his return to Leipsic he studied in private, surrounding himself with a few talented friends. Not content with their own mutual instruction in the spirit and beauty of old masterworks, and the enthusiastic appreciation of the productions of younger composers; firmly believing in the possibility of a new and brilliant epoch of musical art, these young men desired to do all in their power to realize their hopes. In pursuance of this idea they started a magazine, "Die neue Zeitschrift für Musik," which for many years was destined to exercise a wide influence in Germany. Its principal mission was to plead for a more poetic conception of music, and this cause was presented in an entirely new poetic language. Poetry and prose, reality and fiction were combined in a very ingenious manner. A society of Davidites was founded, more in fiction than reality, not confined to a circle of enthusiasts, but comprising all the old masters as well as those then living, Mozart and Bach as well as Berlioz, Chopin and Mendelssohn. All writers of meaningless trivialities or dry, unpoetic formalities were attacked as "Philistines." In a similar way Schumann combined fiction and reality in this literary occupation by substituting for his own individuality three different characters, to personify the different sides of his nature, Florestan representing all that was passionate, manly, energetic; Eusebius embracing all that was sweet, tender or imaginative; with the more objective, experienced and reconciling figure of old Raro, acting as moderator of both. Some years before this paper was started, Schumann had made his literary debut by contributions to other magazines, his first work, when he was twenty-one years old, being that glorious article on Chopin's opus 2, giving a most poetic record of the feeling which the music of the rising genius had awakened within him. His own paper made its first appearance in April, 1834, and Schumann, who soon became its sole editor and proprietor, kept this position until 1844, when he took up his residence in Dresden. That small portion of his time which was unoccupied with journalistic work, was devoted to composing, the fruits being a number of piano works of striking originality and of a great variety of moods and forms. [Illustration: In German A flat is As, B natural is H, and E flat is Es.]