The girl pouted and rebelled, and erelong Robert Schumann was requested to take lodgings elsewhere. Moodily he obeyed, but he managed to keep up a secret correspondence with Clara, through the help of her sister. Whenever Clara played in public, Robert was sure to be there, even though the distance were a hundred miles. He had given up playing, and now swung between composing and literature, having assumed the editorship of a musical magazine. When Clara now played in concert, she wore a train, and her hair was done up on the top of her head. Schumann's musical magazine was winning its way--the young man had a literary style. Mendelssohn commended the magazine, and its editor in turn commended Mendelssohn. A new star had been discovered on the horizon--a Pole, Chopin by name. And whenever Clara Wieck appeared, there were extended notices, lavish in praise, profuse in prophecy. Herz had written an article for a rival journal about Clara Wieck, wherein the statement was made that no woman trained on, that her playing was intuitive, and the limit quickly reached--marriage was death to a woman's art, etc. To this Schumann replied with needless heat, and his friends began to joke him about his "disinterestedness." He was getting moody, and there were times when he was silent for days. His passion for Clara Wieck was consuming his life. He resolved to go direct to Frederick Wieck and have it out. * * * * * They are always called "the Schumanns"--Robert and Clara. You can not separate them, any more than you can separate the great Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett. "Whomsoever God hath joined together, let no man put asunder," seems rather a needless injunction, since we know that man's efforts in the line of separation have ever but one result: opposition fans the flame. Just as Elizabeth Barrett's father forcibly opposed the mating of his daughter, so did Frederick Wieck oppose the love of his daughter Clara for Robert Schumann. And one can not blame the man so very much--he knew the young man and he knew the girl; and deducting fifty per cent for paternal pride, he saw that the girl was much the stronger character of the two. Clara had already a recognized reputation as a performer; her playing had made her father rich, and he was sure that greater things were to come. Beside that, she was only seventeen years old--a mere child. Robert was twenty-six, with most of his future before him--he was advised to win a name and place for himself before aspiring to the hand of a great artist: and so he was bowed out. He took the matter into the courts, and the decision was that, as she was now eighteen years old, she had the right to wed, if she were so minded. And so they were married; but Frederick Wieck was not present at the ceremony to give the bride away. * * * * *