Her musical education had been received from a German uncle, who had been instructed by Herr Wieck, the father of Clara Schumann.

He had been a great lover of Schumann's dreamy and spiritual music, and had taught her the young composer's pieces for children, and among them Romance and the Traumerei.
He had taught her to play the two tone poems together in changing keys, beginning with the Traumerei and returning again to its beautiful and haunting strains.

Gretchen interpreted these poems with all the color of true feeling, and under her bow they became enchantment to a musical ear and a delight to even as unmusical a soul as Mrs.Woods.
Gretchen's chief literary pleasure had been the study of the German poets.

She had a poetic mind, and had learned to produce good rhymes.

The songs of Uhland, Heine, and Schiller delighted her.