The Days of a Ma?t Cigis 



^obu Among our new London friends made through the 



^p^riis Hoovers were the distinguished FeHx Moschelej and 

 his accompHshed wife, in whose Chelsea home, "the 

 GreHx," almost every prominent artist or Liberal 

 could be found at one time or another on Sunday 

 afternoon. Moscheles was the son of a noted musician. 

 For his christening in 1833 Barry Cornwall wrote: 



Felix should be happy ever 

 And his life be like a river — 

 Sweetness, freshness, always bringing. 

 Ever, ever, ever singing. 



The little lad was named for his parents' most inti- 

 mate friend, Felix Mendelssohn, his godfather, who 

 composed for him a cradle song, the famous "Wiegen- 

 lied." Happy omens followed him almost to the end. 

 Wholesome, energetic, and idealistic, he was also in 

 a way a child of fortune, never hampered by poverty 

 Notable or wealth. Artist, musician, and pacifist, an English- 

 humanism j^^j^ j^y choice, a cosmopoUte by taste and circum- 

 stances, he "had studied in Hamburg, Karlsruhe, Cam- 

 bridge, Leipzig, and Paris. His "Fragments of an 

 Autobiography" (1902) give characteristic glimpses 

 of the life of the bright minds of the London and 

 Paris of other days. "The classrooms of the Art 

 Academy at Antwerp were illumined by Moscheles' 

 elfin wit," and those who know identify him as little 

 Bill/ in Du Manner's "Trilby." 



I was especially drawn to Moscheles the peace- 

 maker, he being at that time the editor of Concord, 

 to which (by the way) I contributed a Christmas 

 message in 1914 — not a cheerful greeting, however, 

 as it followed close on what I had earlier called " the 

 month of horrors," August, 19 14. 



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