As a man Schumann was kind-hearted, generous, devoid of jealousy, and always ready and willing to recognise merit, great or small, in those with whom he came in contact. It was always easier for him to praise than to blame; so much so that in conducting an orchestra in rehearsal, it became impossible for him to find fault with the performers when necessity arose, and, if they did not find out their mistakes themselves, he allowed them to remain uncorrected! Although a faithful friend, he was eminently unsociable; he was very reserved and silent, and this peculiarity became more marked towards the latter part of his life, when his terrible malady was spreading its shadow over him. An amusing account of his silence is given in E. Hanslick's _Musikalischen Stationen_--"Wagner expressed himself thus to the author in 1846--'Schumann is a highly gifted musician, but an _impossible_ man. When I came from Paris I went to see Schumann; I related to him my Parisian experiences, spoke of the state of music in France, then of that in Germany, spoke of literature and politics; but he remained as good as dumb for nearly an hour. One cannot go on talking quite alone. An impossible man!'" Schumann's account, apparently of the same interview, is as follows:--"I have seldom met him; but he is a man of education and spirit; he talks, however, unceasingly, and that one cannot endure for very long together." Schumann has been described "as a man of moderately tall stature, well-built, and of a dignified and pleasant aspect. The outlines of his face, with its intellectual brow, and with its lower part inclining slightly to heaviness, are sufficiently familiar to us all; but we cannot see the dreamy, half-shut eyes kindle into animation at a word from some friend with whom he felt himself in sympathy." A description of him by his friend, Sterndale Bennett, is amusing, on the words of which S. Bennett wrote a little canon-- "Herr Schumann ist ein guter Mann, Er raucht Tabak als Niemand kann; Ein Mann vielleicht von dreissig Jahr, Mit kurze Nas' und kurze Haar." ("Herr Schumann is a first-rate man, He smokes as ne'er another can; A man of thirty, I suppose, Short is his hair, and short his nose.")