at Leipsic.  How much he was beloved by the public appears from the fact that at the next Gewandhaus concert the directors placed on the programme, “Wer ein Holdes Weib Errungen” (He who a Lovely Wife has Won) from “Fidelio,” and that when the number was reached, and Felix raised his baton, the audience burst into applause which continued a long time.  It was their congratulations to their idol on his betrothal.

[Illustration:  Cecile, wife of Mendelssohn.]

“Les Feliciens” was the title given to Felix and Cecile by his sister Fanny later in life.  At this time Mendelssohn himself was indescribably happy.  At least, he could not himself find words in which to express all he felt.  It is pleasant to find that a great composer is no exception to the rule which makes lovers “too happy for words.”  “But what words am I to use in describing my happiness?” he writes to his sister.  “I do not know and am dumb, but not for the same reason as the monkeys on the Orinoco—­far from it.”

We gain an idea of Cecile’s social position from Felix’s statement, contained in this same letter, that he and his fiancee are obliged to make one hundred and sixty-three calls in Frankfort.  This was written before he had returned to his duties in Leipsic.  Christmas again found him with his betrothed and again writing to Fanny—­this time about a portrait of Cecile, which her family had given him.  “They gave me a portrait of her on Christmas, but it only stirred up afresh my wrath against all bad artists.  She looks like an ordinary young woman flattered.” (Rather a good bit of criticism.) “It really is too bad that with such a sitter the fellow could not have shown a spark of poetry.”  It is quite evident that Felix was much in love with his fair fiancee.

He and Cecile were married in her father’s former church in March, 1837.  During their honeymoon Felix wrote to his friend, Eduard Devrient, the famous actor, from the Bavarian highlands.  A rare spirit of peace and contentment breathes through the letter.  “You know that I am here with my wife, my dear Cecile, and that it is our wedding tour; that we already are an old married couple of six weeks’ standing.  There is so much to tell you that I know not how to make a beginning.  Picture it to yourself.  I can only say that I am too happy, too glad; and yet not at all beside myself, as I should have expected to be, but calm and accustomed, as though it could not be otherwise.  But you should know my Cecile!” Evidently such a love as was here described was not a mere sentimental flash in the pan.  It was an affection founded on reciprocal tastes and sympathies, the kind that usually lasts.  Cecile was refined and delicate, and beautiful.  She was just the woman to grace the home that a fastidious man like Mendelssohn would want to establish.