'What pleasure you have again given me! Your letter and Julie's, Brahms' variations on the theme which you have varied, the three volumes of Arnim Brentano's Wunherhorn.... I remember Herr Grimm very well, we used to be together with Brahms and Joachim at the railway-station [in Hanover]; greet him and above all Fräulein Leser. I shall write to Brahms myself....'
That this renewal of intercourse with her husband cheered and encouraged Frau Schumann for the performance of her arduous public duties during the autumn season will be readily believed. Under the necessity of a heavily increased weight of responsibility to her young children, she had bound herself to the fulfilment of a long list of concert engagements, which scarcely allowed her an interval of rest. Happily, the reports from Endenich continued favourable. Joachim, writing to Liszt on November 16, says:
'What a happiness it is that Schumann's condition is distinctly improved. I had a letter from him from Endenich lately. He relates some of our common experiences quite clearly, expressing himself in a kind, gentle way as though he had just awakened from a dream. Everything seems new to him, and he would like to participate in what is going on; asks about compositions, about friends; one may certainly hope for the best.'
On November 27, having had time to study Brahms' variations, he writes, in the course of a letter to his wife:
'The variations of Johannes delighted me at first sight and do so still more on deeper acquaintance. I shall myself write also to Brahms; does his portrait by de Laurens still hang in my study? He is the most attractive and gifted young fellow. I recall with delight the splendid impression he made that first time with his C major Sonata, and afterwards with the F sharp minor Sonata and the Scherzo in E flat minor. Oh, if I could only hear him again! I should like his ballades also.'
To Brahms, enclosed in the above:
'Could I but come to you myself, to see you again and to hear your splendid variations, or [to hear them] from my Clara of whose wonderful interpretation Joachim has written to me. How incomparably the whole is rounded off, how one recognises you in the rich brightness of the imagination and again in the profound art, united as I have not yet known them. The theme emerging here and there, but very secretly, then so vehement and tender. The theme then quite vanishing, and at the end, after the fourteenth [variation], so ingeniously written in canon in the second; how splendid is the fifteenth in G flat major, and the last. And I have to thank you, dear Johannes, for all your kindness and goodness to my Clara; she always writes to me about it. She sent me yesterday to my pleasure, as you perhaps know, volumes of my compositions and Jean Paul's Flegeljahre. Now I hope soon to see your handwriting, however great a treasure it is to me, in another form also. The winter is fairly mild. You know the Bonn neighbourhood. I enjoy Beethoven's statue and the beautiful view of the Siebengebirge. We saw each other last in Hanover. Only write soon to
'Your affectionate and appreciative
'R. Schumann.'
Brahms' answer speaks for itself: