A Day with Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy Part 3

"By-the-by," said Schumann, "David's antics remind me that Mendelssohn can make Witches and other queer creatures, dance, as well as Fairies."

"Villain," exclaimed David, and he began to recite dramatically the invocation from the "First Walpurgis Night," while Mendelssohn played the flas.h.i.+ng accompaniment.

"Come with flappers, Fire and clappers; Hop with hopsticks, Brooms and mopsticks; Through the night-gloom lead and follow In and out each rocky hollow.

Owls and ravens Howl with us and scare the cravens."

"Ah," said Mendelssohn, "I don't think the old poet would really have cared for my setting, though he admired my playing, and was always most friendly to me."

"Yes," said Schumann, warmly; "Goethe liked you because you were successful, and prosperous. Now Beethoven was poor: therefore Beethoven must first be loftily patronised and then contemptuously snubbed. I can never forgive Goethe for that. And as for poor Schubert, well, Goethe ignored him, and actually thought he had misinterpreted the Erl-king! It would be comic if it were not painful."

"Poor Schubert!" said Mendelssohn with a sigh; "he met always Fortune's frown, never her smile."

"Don't you think," said Bennett, "that his genius was the better for his poverty--that he learned in suffering what he taught in song?"

"No, I do not!" replied Mendelssohn warmly. "That is a vile doctrine invented by a callous world to excuse its cruelty."

"I believe there's something in it, though," said Bennett.

"There is some truth in it, but not much," answered Mendelssohn, his eyes flas.h.i.+ng as he spoke. "It is true that the artist learns by suffering, because the artist is more sensitive and feels more deeply than others. But enough of suffering comes to all of us, even the most fortunate, without the sordid, gratuitous misery engendered by poverty."

"I agree with Mendelssohn," said Schumann. "To say that poverty is the proper stimulus of genius is to talk pernicious nonsense. Poverty slays, it does not nourish; poverty narrows the vision, it does not enn.o.ble; poverty lowers the moral standard and makes a man sordid. You can't get good art out of that."

[Ill.u.s.tration: _Painting by N. M. Price._ THE MAYBELLS AND THE FLOWERS.

"Now I no more can stay at home.

The Maybells call me so.

The flowers to the dance all roam, Then, why should I not go?"]

"Perhaps I have been more fortunate than most artists," said Mendelssohn softly. "When I think of all that my dear father and mother did for us, I can scarcely restrain tears of grat.i.tude. Almost more valuable than their careful encouragement was their n.o.ble, serious common-sense. My mother, whom Heaven long preserve to me, was not the woman to let me, or any of us, live in a fool's paradise, and my dear dead father was too good a man of business to set me walking in a blind alley. Ah!" he continued, with glistening eyes, "the great musical times we had in the dear old Berlin house!"

"Yes," said David; "Your house was on the Leipzig Road. You see, even then, the finger of fate pointed the way to this place."

"Indeed," said Schumann, with a sigh, "You certainly had extraordinary opportunities. Not that I've been badly used, though."

"Your father was genuinely proud of you," said David. "I remember his epigram: 'Once I was the son of my father; now I am the father of my son.'"

Mendelssohn nodded with a smile, and, turning to me, said in explanation, "You must know that my father's father was a famous philosopher."

"Well!" said Schumann, rising, "I must be going."

Bennett and David also prepared to leave, and I rose with them.

"Wait a moment," said Mendelssohn; and going to the door he called softly, "Cecile, are you there?"

He went out for a moment, and returned with a beautiful and charming girl, who greeted the three visitors warmly.

Mendelssohn then presented me, saying, gently and almost proudly, "This is my wife."

I bowed deeply.

"You are from England?" said the lady, with the sweetest of smiles; "I declare I am quite jealous of your country, my husband loves it so much."

"We are very proud of his affection," I replied.

She turned to Schumann and said softly, "And how is Clara?"

"Oh, she is well;" he replied with a glad smile.

"And the father?" she added.

"We have been much worried," he said gravely; "but we shall marry this year in spite of all he may do."

"She is worth all your struggles," said Mendelssohn warmly; "she is a charming lady, and an excellent musician. You will be very happy."

"Thanks, thanks," replied Schumann, with evident pleasure.

Mendelssohn turned to me and shook my hand warmly. "I have been glad to meet you, and to hear you; for you sing like a musician. I shall not say good-bye. You will call again, I hope, before you leave Leipzig. Perhaps we may meet, too, in England. I am now writing something that I hope my English friends will like."

"What is it, sir?" I asked.

"It is an oratorio on the subject of Elijah," he replied.

"It is bound to be good," said Schumann enthusiastically. "Posterity will call you the man who never failed."

"Ah!" said Mendelssohn almost sadly, "you are all good and kind, but you praise me too much. Perhaps posterity will remember me for my little pieces rather than for my greater efforts. Perhaps it will remember me best, not as the master, but as the servant; for in my way I have tried very hard to glorify the great men who went before me--Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert--Bach most of all. Even if every note of my writing should perish, perhaps future generations will think kindly of me, remembering that it was I, the Jew by birth, who gave back to Christianity that imperishable setting of its tragedy and glory."

With these words in my ears I pa.s.sed out into the pleasant streets of Mendelssohn's chosen city.