of prudence and security, to a positively aggressive dogma. The
adherents of this dogma hypocritically look askance if they
happen to meet with a true man in music. They pretend to be shocked,
as though they had come across something improper. The spirit of
their shyness, which originally served to conceal their own
impotence, now attempts the defamation of other people's potency.
Defamatory insinuations and calumny find ready acceptance with the
representatives of German Philistinism, and appear to be at home
in that mean and paltry state of things which, as we have seen,
environs our musical affairs.

The principal ingredient, however, is an apparently judicious
caution in presence of that which one happens to be incapable of,
together with detraction of that which one would like to
accomplish one's self. It is sad, above all things, to find a man
so powerful and capable as Robert Schumann concerned in this
confusion, and in the end to see his name inscribed on the banner
of the new fraternity. The misfortune was that Schumann in his
later days attempted certain tasks for which he was not
qualified. And it is a pity to see that portion of his work, in
which he failed to reach the mark he had set himself, raised as
the insignia of the latest guild of musicians. A good deal of
Schumann's early endeavour was most worthy of admiration and
sympathy, and it has been cherished and nurtured by us (I am
proud here to rank myself with Liszt's friends) in a more
commendable and commending way than by his immediate adherents.
[Footnote: See Appendix D.] The latter, well aware that Schumann
had herein evinced true productivity, knowingly kept these things
in the background, perhaps because they could not play them in an
effective way. On the other hand, certain works of Schumann