This will probably make
the letter appear very picturesque and piquant. The idea is not so
bad. Adio, clarissima Cara, cara Clarissima." Then follows the
"lexicon" of twenty words, including his own signature.
Although, in a semi-humorous vein, Schumann repeatedly alludes in
these letters to the "foregone conclusion" that they will some day be
printed, there is hardly any indication that such a thought was ever
in his mind while writing them. They are, in fact, full of confidences
and confessions, some of which he could not have been very ambitious
to see in print; such as his frequent appeals for "more ducats,"
during his student days, and his sophistically ingenious excuses for
needing so much money, placed side by side with his frank admission
that he had no talent for economy, and was very fond of cigars, wine,
and especially travelling. In one of the most amusing of the letters,
he advances twelve reasons why his mother should send him about $200
to enable him to see Switzerland and Italy. As a last, convincing
argument, he gently hints that it is very easy for a student in
Heidelberg to borrow money at 10 per cent.
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