hday cake, around which
burned thirty-seven candles, one for each year, according to the good
old German fashion. My mother had written a few words descriptive of the
year each represented--from the cradle to the piano and the conductor's
desk--from his first attempt at composition, to "St. Paul," "Elijah,"
and the opera to come. In the centre stood the Light of Life, that,
alas! was so soon to fail. We little dreamt that it was his last
birthday we were celebrating.

The sounds of mirth, as the chords of harmony, were ere long to be
silenced. A few months later Mendelssohn's dearly beloved sister, Fanny
Hensel, suddenly died. It was a heavy blow from which he never quite
recovered, for the brother and sister were bound together by the closest
ties of affection, and the most striking artistic affinities. He spent
the summer in Switzerland, but returned enfeebled in health and
depressed in spirits. "His step is less elastic than before," says my
father, "but to see him at the piano, or to hear him talk about art and
artists, he is all life and fire."

The evening of the 8th of October was the last I was to spend at
Mendelssohn's house. He, my father, Rietz, and David had been playing
much classical music. In the course of an animated conversation which
followed, some knotty art question arose and led to a lively discussion.
Each of the authorities present was warmly defending his own opinion,
and there seemed little prospect of an immediate agreement, when
Mendelssohn, suddenly interrupting himself in the middle of a sentence,
turned on his heel and startled me with the unexpected question--

"What is the Aoristus primus of [Greek: typto], Felix?" I was at that
time a schoolboy in my fifteenth year, and so, quickly recovering from
my surprise, I gave the correct answer.

"Good," said he, and off we went to supper, the knotty point being thus
promptly settled.

* * * * *

I well remember the 9th of October of that year. From our windows we saw
Mendelssohn walking slowly and languidly through the garden towards our
house. As he came in, my mother inquired after his health, and he
answered, "_Grau in grau_" (Grey on grey). My father suggested a walk in
the Rosenthal, that beautiful park, in those days scarcely touched by
the hand of the landscape gardener. Mendelssohn acquiesced listlessly.
"Will you take me too?" asked my mother. "What do you say? shall we take
her?" broke in Mendelsso