Page:Great Men and Famous Women Volume 8.djvu/193

MENDELSSOHN 331 sohn says, " so very beautifully, that I was obliged to collect myself to prevent my being overcome, -and to enable me to beat time steadily." Rarely, indeed, has a composer so truly realized his own conception as Mendelssohn did in the great tone-picture which he drew of the Prophet of Carmel and the wilderness. " I figured to myself," he says, " Elijah as a grand, mighty prophet, such as might again reappear in our own day, energetic and zealous, stern, wrathful, and gloomy, a striking contrast to the court myrmidons and popular rabble — in fact, in opposition to the whole world, and yet borne on angel's wings ! " Nothing can be finer than this, with that exquisite touch in the last words, " in opposition to the zv hole world, and yet borne on angel's wings." After returning to Germany he was soon busily employed in recasting some portions of " Elijah " with which he was not satisfied ; he had also another ora- torio on even a grander scale, " Christus," already commenced ; and at last, after all his life-long seeking in vain for a good libretto for an opera, he had begun to set one written by Geibel, the German poet, " Loreley," to music. But his friends now noticed how worn and weary he used oftentimes to look, and how strangely irritable he frequently was, and there can hardly be a doubt that some form of the cerebral disease from which his father and several of his relations had died, was already, deep-seated and obscure, disquieting him. The sudden an- nouncement of the death of his sister, Fanny Hensel, herself a musical genius, to whom he was very fondly attached, on his return to Frankfort from his last visit to England in May, 1847, terribly affected him. He fell to the ground with a loud shriek, and it was long before he recovered consciousness. Indeed, it may be said that he never really recovered from this shock. In the summer he went with his wife and children, and in company with his brother Paul and his family, on a tour in Switzerland, where he hoped that complete idleness as regards music, life in the open air, sketching, and intercourse with chosen friends, might once more give strength to his enfeebled nerves. And for a time the beauty of the mountains and the lakes seemed to bring him rest, and again he began to work at his oratorio " Christus ; " but still his friends continued anxious about him. He looked broken down and aged, a constant agitation seemed to possess him, and the least thing would often strangely affect and upset him. In September he returned to Leipsic ; he was then more cheerful, and able to talk about music and to write, although he could not resume the conductor- ship of the Gewandhaus concerts. He again had projects in view. Jenny Lind was to sing in his " Elijah," at Vienna, whither he would go and conduct, and he was about to publish some new songs. One day in October he went to call upon his friend, Madame Frege, a gifted lady who, he said, sang his songs better than, anyone else, to consult her about some new songs. She sang them over to hiru several times, and then, as it was getting dark, she went out of the room for a few minutes to order lights. When she returned he was lying on the sofa, shiv- ering with cold, and in agonizing pain. Leeches were applied, and he partially recovered ; but another attack followed, and this was the last.