The Romantics Where definitions fail, the word appears at the right time. The word proves the existence of things, even if they cannot be sharply defined. The word is the artistic form of a transient emotion; it was made for things which were nameless till its creation; it was girded with associations which fastened themselves on to this conception. Such a word is Romance. Romance is not a return to the popular, to nature, nor to the mediæval, it is no love for the legendary or the symbolic or the most delicate forms of the most delicate stirrings of the soul. It was indeed the one of these things to one set of persons and another for others; but in reality it is none of these and all of these. If I say it is an _oppositum_ to _synthesis_, or intimateness from the point of view of all possibilities, I have defined it very coldly. But its essential point seems to be its reactionary character. It aims not at raising structures, but at reading souls, and it finds a thousand ways of so doing. These thousand ways cannot be crammed into one definition. We strike only gently the chord of the word, so symbolic, so harmoniously chiming. It is a feeling whose value is not to be analysed. Near the great architect Beethoven lived the first musical Romantic, the well-beloved Franz Schubert. He felt the burden of existence as only musicians can feel it. But he had inexhaustible fountains of consolation, which sang to him melodies almost more profusely than to Mozart, and he did his utmost to throw the melodies, without too much pedantry or Titan-pride, into songs, symphonies, quartets, and impromptus, as the inspiration took him. He had no long life for working, but he used his time well. It is now many, many years since his death, and still numbers of his works are unpublished. His best teacher was the people, and their songs and dances. The unsophisticated musical feeling, which came to light in this popular song and national dance--the simple natural phrases, the speaking soul, the genuine sense for drama--these were the formative principles of his immortal songs, and these gave the character to his piano music also. Men have been studying his numerous national dances as in a Bible of the dance for fifty years. There are still rare and beautiful flowers to be found among them; others have been picked out by the virtuosos, and transformed to hothouse plants in many forms, not always so stylish as Liszt’s Soirées de Vienne. The case has been the same with his four-hand Marches, whether Caractéristique, Héroique, or Militaire. If we return to their original forms, a surprising air as from country meadows meets us.