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 Cecile Jeanrenaud, the beautiful, he did not throw himself at her feet and pour out a confession of love to her.  Far from it.  With a calmness that would make one feel like pinching him, were it not that after all the story has a “happy ending,” he left Frankfort at the end of six weeks, when his feelings were at their height, and in order to submit the state of his affections to a cool and unprejudiced scrutiny, he went to Scheveningen, Holland, where he spent a month.  Anything more characteristically Mendelssohnian can scarcely be imagined than this leisurely passing of judgment on his own heart.

Just what Cecile thought of his sudden departure we do not know.  No doubt by that time she had ceased twitting her mother on Felix’s supposed intentions to make Frau Mendelssohn of Mme. Jeanrenaud, for it must have become apparent that the attentions of the famous composer were not directed toward the beautiful mother, but toward the more beautiful daughter.  If, however, she felt at all uneasy at his going away at the time when he should have been preparing to declare himself, her doubts would have been dispelled could she have read some of the letters which he dispatched from Scheveningen.  That she herself was captivated by him there seems no doubt.  It was an amusing change from her preconceived notion of him.  She had imagined him a stiff, disagreeable, jealous old man, who wore a green velvet skull-cap and played tedious fugues.  This prejudice, needless to say, was dispelled at their first meeting, when she found the crabbed creation of her fancy a man of the world, with gracious, winning manners, and a brilliant conversationalist not only on music, but also on other topics.

[Illustration:  Fanny Hensel, sister of Mendelssohn.]

It is a curious coincidence that when Felix left Frankfort for Scheveningen, with the image of this fair being in his heart, the Caecilia Society should have presented him with a handsome dressing-case marked “F.  M.-B. and Caecilia.’” [1] He had come to Frankfort to conduct the Caecilia; he had met Caecilia; and now he was at the last moment reminded that he was leaving Caecilia behind; yet he was carrying Caecilia with him.  If there is anything prophetic in coincidences, everything pointed to the fact that Caecilia was to play a more prominent part in his life than that of a mere name.