the citizens and Philistines are naturally excessively courteous. I
consider it a disadvantage for a young man, especially for a student,
to live in a town where the student only and solely rules and
flourishes. Repression alone favors the free development of a youth,
and the everlasting loafing with students greatly limits
many-sidedness of thought, and consequently exerts a bad influence on
practical life. This is one great advantage Leipsic has over
Heidelberg--which, in fact, a large city always has over a small
one.... On the other hand, Heidelberg has this advantage, that the
grandeur and beauty of the natural scenery prevent the students from
spending so much of their time in drinking; for which reason the
students here are ten times more sober than in Leipsic."

Schumann himself, as we have said, was fond of a glass of good wine.
On his first journey, at Prague, he tells us, the Tokay made him
happy. And in another place he exclaims, "Every day I should like to
drink champagne to excite myself." But, though of a solitary
disposition, he did not care to drink alone, for "only in the intimate
circle of sympathetic hearts does the vine's blood become transfused
into our own and warm it to enthusiasm." Schumann's special vice was
the constant smoking of very strong cigars; nor does he appear to have
devoted to gastronomic matters the attention necessary to nourish such
an abnormally active brain as his. At one time he lived on potatoes
alone for several weeks; at another he saved on his meals to get money
for French lessons; and although he took enough interest in a good
_menu_ to copy it in a letter, he repeatedly laments the time which is
uselessly wasted in eating. Such tenets, combined with his smoking
habit, doubtless helped to shatter his powers, leading finally to the
lunatic asylum and a comparatively early death.