For what are all!—a richer gem
Shines radiant from above:
It throws its sunshine over them,
And oh!—that light is Love!
A RECOLLECTION OF MENDELSSOHN.
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BY J. BAYARD TAYLOR.
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Scarcely a year has elapsed since the musical world has been painfully moved by the death of Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy. No loss, which the divine art has sustained since that of Von Weber, will be so difficult to replace, and probably no man of genius was ever more sincerely mourned, as a man. He not only possessed that universal sympathy with humanity, which is so noble a characteristic of the highest genius, but, unlike many great men, whose very isolation of intellect creates an atmosphere about them which the world is awed from seeking to penetrate, the familiar scope of his warm nature descended to an equality with all he met, and though all who named him as a composer, may not have understood or appreciated him, all who knew him as a man, could not choose but love him. The career of genius, unhappily, is not often surrounded at the onset with the worldly advantages, nor watched and cherished with the fostering care, which fell to his lot. His nature was never embittered by early struggles with an unrecognizing world, nor was his natural faith in man shaken by a keen encounter with selfishness and persecution. The development of his moral nature thus calmly ripened in harmony with his mind, each sustaining and ennobling the other. The contemplation of such a character is in itself exalting, and seems to give his memory a more than ordinary consecration.