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Growing to maturity in the delightful family atmosphere that characterizes the better class of Jews and their descendants, Fanny Mendelssohn met and loved the young painter, Wilhelm Hensel. Her mother would not hear of an immediate engagement, but, after five years of art study in Rome, Hensel returned to become Fanny's betrothed.
The least enthusiastic, perhaps, is that of Hensel, Felix's brother-in-law. He says that she was not a striking person in anyway, neither extraordinarily clever, brilliantly witty, nor exceptionally accomplished. But to this somewhat indefinite observation he adds that she exerted an influence as soothing as that of the open sky, or running water.
The home they chose was in Leipzig, where Fanny Hensel visited them, and found Cécile possessed not only of "the beautiful eyes" Felix had raved over so much, "but possessed also of a wonderfully soothing temperament, that calmed her husband's whims and promised to cure him of his irritability."
The firm took on the subtle and psychological proportions that go with incorporation, however unassuming, capitalizing at fifteen thousand dollars, B. T. Becker, president; Jerry Hensel, trusted foreman of years, vice president and holder of ten shares; Carrie Becker, secretary and treasurer and, to propitiate the law, holder of one share.
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.
This was prepared without their knowledge, and in order that the non-musical Hensel might take part with the rest of the family, Mendelssohn wrote for him a number consisting wholly of one note repeated.
This house was a gathering place of artists, musicians, literary men and scientists; his genius had the stimulus found in the "atmosphere" of such a household. There was one member of that household between whom and himself the most tender relations existed, his sister Fanny, who became the wife of Hensel, the artist.
Even with this aid the Muses were unpropitious in the performance, and Hensel could not hit the right pitch for this note, while all his neighbours tried to prompt him, and the young composer sat at the piano convulsed with laughter. Fanny Hensel led a life of happy activity. She and her brother drew around them a circle of celebrities that included scientific as well as artistic leaders.
His impressions have been preserved in the Overture to "Fingal's Cave," while from the whole trip he gained inspiration for the Scottish Symphony. On his return to London and before he could set out for Berlin, Felix injured his knee, which laid him up for several weeks, and prevented his presence at the home marriage of his sister Fanny, to William Hensel, the young painter.
The Fräulein was pleased to hear her pupil ramble on with her favourite bits from Raff, and Hensel, and Schubert, and Mendelssohn, and Mozart, and was very well content to let her play just what she liked, and to escape the trouble of training her to that exquisite perfection into which Lady Lesbia had been drilled.
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