"Well", says Carol, "There is Fanny Mendelssohn. She was the sister of Felix Mendelssohn."
"Older or younger?"says Carl.
"She was his older sister, by four years. Again, arguably at least as brilliant as her wee little brother, but having the mixed fortune of being born female in Europe during the early nineteenth century, in a bourgeois household where appearances were of the utmost importance, so that Fanny was discouraged from playing or performing, since her father wanted her to settle down in a respectable marriage, and so a lot of her compositions were credited to her brother Felix."
"Didn't she die rather young?" asks Matthew.
"From a stroke", says Adam. "She was just forty-two.
"She probably died from the stress of being female in the nineteenth century", says Sarah.
"She actually died from a broken heart", says Adam.
"And you know this...how? says Lazarus to his friend.
"I knew the family", Adam says.
"In the nineteenth century", says Lazarus, with a less than patient grin on his face. "You knew a family back in the nineteenth century. Uh-huh. Yes, Adam And I collaborated with William Shakespeare for the writing of Hamlet, Macbeth and King Lear. Also A Midsummer night's Dream."
"I was friends with her son, Sebastian. He would have been just seventeen. Fanny and I were also close. She took me into her confidence..."
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