insane asylum at Endenich, near Bonn, where he died July 20, 1856.  Schumann possessed a wealth of musical imagination which, if possibly equaled in a few instances, is nowhere surpassed in the records of his art.  For him music possessed all the attributes inherent in the other arts—­absolute color and flexibility of form.  That he attempted to express these phases of art expression, with an almost boundless trust in their applicability to tone and sound, not unfrequently makes them obscure to the last degree, but it also gave much of his composition a richness, depth, and subtilty of suggestive power which place them in a unique niche, and will always preserve them as objects of the greatest interest to the musical student.  There is no doubt that his increasing mental malady is evident in the chaotic character of some of his later orchestral compositions, but, in those works composed during his best period, splendor of imagination goes hand in hand with genuine art treatment.  This is specially noticeable in the songs and the piano-forte works.  Schumann was essentially lyrical and subjective, though his intellectual breadth and culture (almost unrivaled among his musical compeers) always kept him from narrowness as a composer.  He led the van in the formation of that pictorial and descriptive style of music which has asserted itself in German music, but his essentially lyric personality in his attitude to the outer world presented the external thoroughly saturated and modified by his own moods and feelings.

In his piano-forte works we find his most complete and satisfactory development as the artist composer.  Here the world, with its myriad impressions, its facts, its purposes, its tendencies, met the man and commingled in a series of exquisite creations, which are true tone pictures.  In this domain Beethoven alone was worthy to be compared with him, though the animus and scheme of the Beethoven piano-forte works grew out of a totally different method.

In personal appearance Schumann bore the marks of the man of genius.  As he reached middle age we are told of him that his figure was of middle height, inclined to stoutness, that his bearing was dignified, his movements slow.  His features, though irregular, produced an agreeable impression; his forehead was broad and high, the nose heavy, the eyes excessively bright, though generally veiled and downcast, the mouth delicately cut, the hair thick and brown, his cheeks full and ruddy.  His head was squarely formed, of an intensely powerful character, and the whole expression of his face sweet and genial.  Even when young he was distinguished by a kind of absent-mindedness that prevented him from taking much part in conversation.  Once, it is said, he entered a lady’s drawing-room to call, played a few chords on the piano, and smilingly left without speaking a word.  But, among intimate friends, he could be extraordinarily fluent and eloquent in discussing an interesting topic.  He was conscious