He was so well poised that when summoned by Frederick the Great to come and play before him, he took a year to finish certain work he had on hand before he went. Then he would have forgotten the engagement, had not his son, who was Chamber Musician to the King, insisted that he come. In the presence of Frederick it was the King who was abashed, not he. He knew his kinship to Divinity so well that he did not even think to assert it. And surely he was one fit to stand in the presence of kings. For number, variety and excellence, only two men can be named as his competitors: these are Mozart and Handel. But in point of performance, simplicity and sterling manhood, Bach stands alone. [Illustration: FELIX MENDELSSOHN] FELIX MENDELSSOHN The correspondence of Goethe and Zelter displeases me. I always feel out of sorts when I have been reading it. Do you know that I am making great strides in water-colors? Schirmer comes to me every Saturday at eleven, and paints for two hours at a landscape, which he is going to make me a present of, because the subject occurred to him whilst I was playing the little "Rivulet" (which you know). It represents a fellow who saunters out of a dark forest into a sunny little nook; trees all about, with stems thick and thin; one has fallen across the rivulet; the ground is carpeted with soft, deep moss, full of ferns; there are stones garlanded with blackberry-bushes; it is fine warm weather; the whole will be charming. --_Mendelssohn to Devrient_ FELIX MENDELSSOHN Thirty-eight years is not a long life, but still it is long enough to do great things. Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy was born in the year Eighteen Hundred Nine, at Hamburg, and died at Leipzig in the year Eighteen Hundred Forty-seven. His career was a triumphal march. The road to success with him was no zigzag journey--from the first he went straight to the front. Whether as a baby he crowed in key, and cried to a one-two-three melody, as his old nurse used to aver, is a little doubtful, possibly. But all agree that he was the most precocious musical genius that ever lived, excepting Mozart; and Goethe, who knew them both, declared that Mendelssohn's music bore the same relationship to Mozart's as the talk of a grown-up cultured person to the prattle of a child. But then Goethe was not a musician, and sixty years had passed from the time Goethe saw Mozart before he met Mendelssohn. Goethe loved the brown-curled Jewish boy at sight; and whether on meeting Mozart he ever recovered from the taint of prejudice that most people feel when a prodigy is introduced, is a question. But who can wonder that the old poet's heart went out to the youthful Mendelssohn as soon as he saw him!