isit. 'You
see, I have not forgotten the pleasure you gave me,' he said, with a
smile, as he rose from the piano. 'But now,' he added, as a new
thought entered his mind, 'I want you to see the garden, please.' Down
they went, and in a moment Mendelssohn had thrown off the musician's
cloak, and was a boy again. With a bound he leapt over a high hedge,
turned, and cleared it a second time, and then challenged his
companion to a race. Another moment he burst out with a song, as if
the open air had incited him to imitate the birds, and then, pointing
to a favourite tree, he ran to it and climbed it like a squirrel.

These meetings took place in the summer of 1821, a year which brought
much happiness to Felix, for ere it had drawn to a close he had found
a new friend. When the autumn came round, Zelter announced that he was
going to pay a visit of respect to his old friend and master, Goethe,
the aged poet of Weimar, and he was willing to take Felix with him.
Needless to say, Felix and his parents were equally delighted with the
proposal. The boy had so often heard Zelter speak of Goethe, whose
works, moreover, he was always quoting, that he felt he already loved
the master almost as much as Zelter did himself. Goethe's house at
Weimar was regarded as a shrine at which his countless admirers were
wont to pay homage, even though their devotion often met with no
further gratification than was to be derived from gazing at its walls
or peeping into the grounds, which were sacred to the poet's
footsteps. Hence the promise of an introduction to one who was the
object of so much hero-worship stirred the heart of Felix to its
depths, and filled his mind with reverential emotions such as few
events could have had the power to awaken in one so sensible of what
was due to a great and lofty intellect.

It was a bright November day when Zelter and his pupil set forth upon
their journey. Both were looking forward to the meeting, though with
somewhat different feelings. What Mendelssohn's feelings were we have
tried to imagine, but Zelter was nursing within himself a certain
pride and confidence in the prospect of introducing his favourite
pupil to so keen a judge as Goethe, which he would not have revealed
to that pupil for worlds. Felix's spirits, however, were so high on
this occasion that Zelter had enough to do to satisfy all his
questions without allowing his usually taciturn nature to relax under
the sunshine of the boy's enthusia