hn died, aged forty-two. Her grand playing, "which made
people afraid to perform in her presence," went down with her into the
silence of her grave; and the musical genius and originality which
should have left a lasting mark in the world faded, too, leaving but a
few small tokens of what might have been.

The "Songs without Words" are more closely associated with Mendelssohn
than any other of his works. The composer considered that music is
more definite than words, and these lovely songs had as exact an
intention as those which were written to accompany poetry. It was in a
letter of Fanny Mendelssohn's, dated December 8, 1828, that their title
first appeared, and they are referred to as if Mendelssohn had but
lately begun to write them. On the day after his arrival in London,
April 24, 1832, he played the first six to Moscheles. The earliest one
is No. 2, of Book 2, which Felix sent to his sister Fanny in 1830. "In
a Gondola," the last song in the first book, is said to be the earliest
of the six, in date. A few only were given titles by the composer.
Six books, each containing six songs, were published during his life,
and the seventh and eighth after his early death.

[Illustration: Song without Words. From painting by R. Poetzelberger.]

We reproduce the charming picture by a German painter, which, entitled
"Song without Words," is said to represent the young Mendelssohn and
his sister Fanny seated at the piano, side by side. Poetzelberger's
other works, which he has named "Con Amore," "Old Songs," and
"Trifling," are also distinguished by their graceful sentiment.

CHOPIN.

Liszt, the friend and rival of Chopin, wrote a biography of him which
may almost be ranked among the curiosities of literature. Liszt was a
genius, but not a good biographer, and his life of Chopin is largely a
rhapsody.

For instance, Liszt writes thus about Chopin's short-lived passion for
the singer Constantia Gladkowska. "The tempest, which, in one of its
sudden gusts, tore Chopin from his native soil, like a bird dreamy and
abstracted, surprised by the storm, upon the branches of a foreign
tree, sundered the ties of this first love and robbed the exile of a
faithful and devoted wife, as well as disinherited him of a country."
And the same tendency to "gush" is here again apparent. "Chopin," he
says, "could easily read the hearts which were attracted to him by
friendship and the grace of his youth, and thus was enabl