nes prior to embarking at
Hamburg on his first visit to England. Several circumstances had
combined to render the present a favourable moment for undertaking the
journey. The Moscheleses, and another friend named Klingemann, who had
been a constant visitor at the Berlin house until called away to
occupy a London post, had assured him of a warm welcome; it was his
father's wish, shared by Zelter also, that he should travel, and he
for his own part was desirous of showing that he could support himself
by music. Abraham Mendelssohn had, indeed, designed this visit as the
first portion of a lengthened tour which would enable Felix to see
more of various countries, and assist him in choosing that which
offered the best opportunities for his life-work.

The London musical season was at its height when he arrived, but his
first letters home were chiefly occupied with descriptions of the city
itself, and how it had affected him. 'It is fearful! it is maddening!'
he writes to Fanny three days after he had settled into his Great
Portland Street lodgings.[30] 'London is the grandest and most
complicated monster on the face of the earth.... Things roll and carry
me along as in a vortex. Not in the last six months at Berlin have I
seen so many contrasts and such variety as in these three days....
Could you see me at the exquisite grand-piano which Clementi has sent
me for the whole of my stay here, by the cheerful fireside' (the open
grate fire was a novelty to one who had come from the land of closed
stoves), 'in my own four walls ... and could you see the immense
four-post bed in the next room in which I might go to sleep in the
most literal sense of the word, the many-coloured curtains and quaint
furniture, my breakfast-tea with dry toast still before me, the
servant-girl in curl-papers, who has just brought me my newly-hemmed
black necktie, and asks what further orders I have ... and could you
but see the highly respectable, fog-enveloped street, and hear the
pitiable voice with which a beggar down there pours forth his ditty
(he will soon be outscreamed by the street-sellers), and could you
picture to yourselves that from here to the City is three-quarters of
an hour's drive, and that in all the cross streets of which one has
glimpses the noise, clamour, and bustle are the same, if not greater,
and that after that one has only traversed about a quarter of London,
then you might understand how it is that I am half distracted!'