e prophet, and a young tenor, Lockey, sang the air,
"Then shall the righteous," in the last part, as Mendelssohn says, "so
very beautifully, that I was obliged to collect myself to prevent my
being overcome, and to enable me to beat time steadily." Rarely,
indeed, has a composer so truly realized his own conception as
Mendelssohn did in the great tone-picture which he drew of the Prophet
of Carmel and the wilderness.

"I figured to myself," he says, "Elijah as a grand, mighty prophet,
such as might again reappear in our own day, energetic and zealous,
stern, wrathful, and gloomy, a striking contrast to the court
myrmidons and popular rabble--in fact, in opposition to the whole
world, and yet borne on angel's wings!" Nothing can be finer than
this, with that exquisite touch in the last words, "_in opposition to
the whole world, and yet borne on angel's wings_."

After returning to Germany he was soon busily employed in recasting
some portions of "Elijah" with which he was not satisfied; he had also
another oratorio on even a grander scale, "Christus," already
commenced; and at last, after all his life-long seeking in vain for a
good libretto for an opera, he had begun to set one written by Geibel,
the German poet, "Loreley," to music. But his friends now noticed how
worn and weary he used oftentimes to look, and how strangely irritable
he frequently was, and there can hardly be a doubt that some form of
the cerebral disease from which his father and several of his
relations had died, was already, deep-seated and obscure, disquieting
him. The sudden announcement of the death of his sister, Fanny Hensel,
herself a musical genius, to whom he was very fondly attached, on his
return to Frankfort from his last visit to England in May, 1847,
terribly affected him. He fell to the ground with a loud shriek, and
it was long before he recovered consciousness.

Indeed, it may be said that he never really recovered from this shock.
In the summer he went with his wife and children, and in company with
his brother Paul and his family, on a tour in Switzerland, where he
hoped that complete idleness as regards music, life in the open air,
sketching, and intercourse with chosen friends, might once more give
strength to his enfeebled nerves. And for a time the beauty of the
mountains and the lakes seemed to bring him rest, and again he began
to work at his oratorio "Christus;" but still his friends continued
anxious about him. He looked