himself. Yet it was destined to delight them all.

Felix was in Frankfort six weeks. So short a period rarely leads to a
decisive event in a man's life, but did so in Mendelssohn's case. He
occupied lodgings in a house on the Schöne Aussicht (Beautiful View),
with an outlook upon the river. But there was another beautiful view
in Frankfort which occupied his attention far more, for among those he
met during his sojourn in the city on the Main was Cécile,--Cécile
Charlotte Sophie Jeanrenaud. Her father, long dead, had been the
pastor of the French Walloon Reformed Church in Frankfort, where his
widow and children moved in the best social circles of the city.
Cécile, then seventeen (ten years younger than Felix), was a "beauty"
of a most delicate type. Mme. Jeanrenaud still was a fine-looking
woman, and possibly because of this fact, coupled with Felix's shy
manner in the presence of Cécile, now that for the first time his heart
was deeply touched, it was at first supposed that he was courting the
mother; and her children, Cécile included, twitted her on it.

Now Felix acted in a manner characteristic of his bringing up and of
the bent of his genius. Mozart, Beethoven, Chopin, Schumann, Liszt,
Wagner--not one of these hesitated a moment where his heart was
concerned. If anything, they were too impetuous. They are the masters
of the passionate expression in music; Mendelssohn's music is of the
refined, delicate type--like his own bringing up. The perfectly
polished "Songs without Words," the smoothly flowing symphonies, the
lyric violin concerto--these are most typical of his genius. Only here
and there in his works are there fitful flashes of deeper significance,
as in certain dramatic passages of the "Elijah" oratorio. And so, when
Felix found himself possessed of a passion for Cécile Jeanrenaud, the
beautiful, he did not throw himself at her feet and pour out a