To A. Simrock, Bonn.
Leipzig, March 4th, 1839.
The manuscripts which I ought to have sent you last year are not yet finished; I wished to make them as perfect as I could; but for this both leisure and good humour were requisite, and during the period of constant concerts these too often failed. Now I hope shortly to complete the pieces, and thus free myself from debt.
But they are not “songs without words,” for I have no intention of writing any more of that sort, let the Hamburgers say what they will! If there were too many such animalculæ between heaven and earth, at last no one would care about them; and there really is quite a mass of piano music composed now in a similar style; another chord should be struck, I say.—I am, with entire esteem, your obedient
Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy.