The grand tour had practically only begun, and was now to be resumed, but the visit to England was exercising over Mendelssohn's mind a strong influence which, though not unconnected with the success and fame it had brought to him, might with more justice be ascribed to the sympathetic appreciation and kindness which he had received at the hands of the English. 'A prophet is not without honour, save in his own country,' and Berlin had so far held back the encouragement that strangers were so willing to accord him. Moreover, for one of his artistically sensitive temperament London possessed a magnetic charm that was lacking in Berlin. At home his very youth seemed to count against him, but in London it was, if anything, in his favour. The fame of his visit, however, had preceded him to Berlin, and shortly after his return he was offered the Professorship of Music at the University, an honour which he at once declined, feeling that its acceptance would not only interfere with his freedom in composition, but bind him down to an occupation which he confessed was not his forte. This Chair had been specially created in the hope that he would fill it, and it marks the first, though by no means the last, attempt on the part of the Berliners to secure his services for their city.
In the May following he set forth once more on his travels, bound for Venice, Florence, and Rome. He could not pass through Weimar, however, without paying a visit to Goethe; it proved to be the last meeting, and it was filled with incidents that left a deep impression on his mind. Never had the sympathy and friendship between the two been closer or more confidential than on this occasion. 'There is much in my spirit that you must light up for me,' said Goethe to Felix one day when they had been conversing together. Goethe called upon him continually for music, but showed an indifference towards Beethoven's works; Felix, however, insisted that he must endure some of the master, and played to him the first movement of the 'C minor Symphony.' Goethe listened for a few moments, and then said: 'That does not touch one at all; it only astonishes one.' But Felix played on, and presently, after some murmuring to himself, the poet burst out with: 'It is very great, it is wild! It seems as though the house were falling! What must it be with the whole orchestra!'
The tour was a long one, for several cities had to be visited before he could cross the Swiss frontier. Each day brought its full measure of incident and delightful sight-seeing. It was in Switzerland, however, that Mendelssohn's passionate love for Nature was stirred to its depths. His Alpine walks were a revelation of Nature in her most decided moods, and one particular walk over the Wengern Alp was destined to be long remembered. The mountain summits were glittering in the morning air, every undulation and the face of every hill clear and distinct. Formerly it was their height alone that had impressed him, 'now it was their boundless extent that he particularly felt—their huge, broad masses; the close connection of all those enormous fortresses, which seemed to be crowding together and stretching out their hands to each other.'
He loved all beautiful things, but he loved the sea best of all; it seemed to him to express in its varying moods every feeling which he himself possessed. 'When there is a storm at Chiatamene,' he wrote to Fanny when she was visiting Italy, 'and the grey sea is foaming, think of me.' And now as he approached Naples, and saw the sea sparkling in the sunlit bay, he exclaims: 'To me it is the finest object in Nature! I love it almost more than the sky. I always feel happy when I see before me the wide expanse of waters.' Again, the ancientness of Nature herself conveyed far more to him than any legend of antiquity connected with the works of man; he could not feel in 'crumbling mason work' the interest and fascination that existed for him in the unchanged outlines of the hills, or in the fact that the waves lapped the island which formed the refuge of Brutus, and the lichen-covered rocks bent over them then just as they did now. These were monuments on which no names were scribbled, no inscriptions carved, and to such he clung.
Yet in Rome itself he found a centre of unending interest and fascination. 'All its measureless delights lay as a free gift before him; every day he picked out afresh some great historic object: one day a ramble about the ruins of the ancient city, another day the Borghese Gallery or the Capitol, or else St. Peter's or the Vatican. So each day was one never to be forgotten, and this sort of dallying left each impression firmer and stronger. If Venice seemed like the gravestone of its own past, its ruinous, modern palaces and the enduring remembrance of a bygone supremacy giving it a disquieting, mournful impression, the past of Rome struck him as history itself; its monuments ennobled, and made one at the same moment serious and joyful, for there was joy in feeling how human creations may survive a thousand years and yet possess their quickening restoring, influence. Each day some new image of that past imprinted itself on his mind, and then came the twilight, and the day was at an end.'
The tour was not completed until the spring of the following year (1832), and during that interval two sad notes had been struck—the first being the death of Edward Ritz, the young violinist, Felix's closest friend, from whom he admitted that he had taken the model of his delicate, musical handwriting; and the second that of Goethe. In connection with the latter loss Felix felt deeply for Zelter, for he knew how the old man had worshipped and leant upon the master-poet. 'Mark my words,' said Mendelssohn, when he received the sad intelligence, 'it will not be long now before Zelter dies!' The words were but too prophetic, for in less than two months from the day on which they were spoken Zelter had followed the master he loved so well.
Before the latter event happened, however, Mendelssohn had returned to London. His affection for the City had now become a settled part of his nature. Even amidst the sunshine of Naples, with the glittering sea before his eyes, he had longed for London. 'That smoky nest is fated to be now and ever my favourite residence,' he writes; 'my heart swells when I think of it.' Even with the love he felt for those who were awaiting his return to the Berlin home it must have been hard for him to tear himself away from London, where his genius and his attractive personality found recognition at every turn. Consequently it is not surprising that he should have found his way back to his 'smoky nest' before very long—this time accompanied by his father. It was Abraham Mendelssohn's first visit, and it served to bring out more clearly than ever the closeness of the bond which united them. Felix nursed his father through an illness of three weeks' duration with a tenderness and solicitude that called forth a touching tribute from the patient. 'I cannot express,' writes Abraham to Leah, 'what he has been to me, what a treasure of love, patience, endurance, thoughtfulness, and tender care he has lavished on me; and much as I owe him indirectly for a thousand kindnesses and attentions from others, I owe him far more for what he has done for me himself.'
Two years later Mendelssohn was mourning the loss of this parent, whose sudden death had cast a deep gloom over a time when everything seemed to promise happily for the young composer. Only a month before the sad event Felix had joined the home-party at Berlin, and the house had once more assumed the full and complete life of its earlier days. The merriment, the joyous laughter were as hearty and resounding as they had been of yore, and there the father and mother had sat watching the fun—Abraham by this time quite blind, but keenly interested in all that was going on. Now the first definite break in that happy circle had come, shutting out the past for ever!
The extraordinary fullness which characterised Mendelssohn's life—'he lived years whilst others would have lived only weeks,' was the true remark of one who knew him well—reminds us of the impracticability of giving anything like a complete description of even its chief incidents. The stage at which our story has arrived does not, it is true, show him at the pinnacle of his fame as a composer, but if we entertained any doubts as to his greatness or his popularity at this time, we have only to imagine ourselves present at the scene which was being enacted on a certain afternoon in May, 1836, in the music-hall at Düsseldorf to be assured on both of these points. The long, low-pitched room is filled with an excited and enthusiastic audience applauding with all their might and main, for the first performance of Mendelssohn's oratorio 'St. Paul' has just come to an end. Amidst the roars of applause the ladies of the chorus have risen from their seats, and, advancing to the spot where Mendelssohn stands bowing his acknowledgments to the audience and orchestra, they shower garlands upon him, and then to complete the display they place a crown of flowers upon the score itself.
Some time before this event the town of Düsseldorf had claimed his services as director of music, and a little later Leipzig had followed suit—the latter event marking the beginning of a connection fraught with results of the highest importance to the musical world, and of much happiness to Mendelssohn himself. It was at this period that he composed many of those charming part-songs, intended for performance in the open air, that have since become such recognised favourites; of these we need only recall 'The Hunter's Farewell' and 'The Lark' as examples. But the time is marked for us in even clearer notes than these, for to this era belong several of his 'Songs without Words'—those melodies which have grown into our hearts never, we may well believe, to be uprooted. Mendelssohn not only invented the title 'Lieder ohne Worte,' but also the style of composition itself. Sir Julius Benedict remarks that 'at this period mechanical dexterity, musical claptraps, skips from one part of the piano to another, endless shakes and arpeggios, were the order of the day.' Mendelssohn, however, would never sacrifice to the prevailing taste; his desire was to 'restore dignity and rank to the instrument,' and he accordingly wrote what Sir Julius aptly describes as these 'exquisite little musical poems.'