An English lady, Mrs. Florence Fenwick Miller, known not only as a writer, but as an ardent advocate of woman suffrage, has in one of her books written a chapter which she entitles "A Genius Wasted--Fanny Mendelssohn." She says: "One of the saddest instances with which the world has ever become acquainted, of gifts repressed and faculties wasted because of the sex of their possessor, is that of Fanny Mendelssohn, the sister of the famous composer, Felix Mendelssohn. With natural powers apparently fully as great as her brother's, Fanny was not, indeed, denied all opportunity of cultivating them, but was effectually prevented from utilising them, and, therefore, from fully developing her genius or from displaying its force." These two Jewish children were members of a family in which both intellect, in its widest meaning, and musical talent, specifically, were hereditary. Their mother began to teach music both to the boy and the girl in their early years. Fanny, who was five years older than her brother, was naturally more advanced than he; and when the two children were allowed to show off their powers as pianists, it was Fanny who always won the most applause. They passed from their mother's elementary tuition to that of superior teachers, L. Berger and afterward Zeiter, and the former of these indicated Fanny as being, in his opinion, the future great musician. But a father and mother with a maiden of genius on their hands were like a hen whose duckling takes to the water. The difference of the training of Fanny and Felix Mendelssohn, as distinguished from their musical education, is effectually indicated by the following letter from their father to Fanny, written when she was fourteen years old. After referring in terms of satisfaction to the compositions of both his son and daughter, Abraham Mendelssohn proceeded to say to the latter of his two gifted children: "What you wrote to me about your musical occupations, with reference to and in comparison with Felix, was both rightly thought and expressed. Music will, perhaps, become _his_ profession (Felix was at this time only nine years old. Fanny was fourteen), whilst for _you_ it can and must be only an ornament, never the root of your being and doing. We may, therefore, pardon him some ambition and desire to be acknowledged in a pursuit which appears to him important, while it does you credit that you have always shown yourself good and sensible in these matters; and your very joy at the praise he earns proves that you might, in his place, have merited equal approval. Remain true to these sentiments and to this line of conduct; they are feminine, and only what is truly feminine is an ornament to your sex."