[Mendelssohn to Schubring.]
"Leipzig, December 6, 1838.[14]
"Dear Schubring,—Along with this you will receive the organ pieces and 'Bonifacius,' which I also enclose. Thank you much for the letter and for the manuscripts you have from time to time sent me for 'Elijah'; they are of the greatest possible use to me, and although I may here and there make some alterations, still the whole thing, by your aid, is now placed on a much firmer footing. With regard to the dramatic element, there still seems to be a diversity of opinion between us. With a subject like 'Elijah' it appears to me that the dramatic element should predominate, as it should in all Old Testament subjects, Moses, perhaps, excepted. The personages should act and speak as if they were living beings—for Heaven's sake let them not be a musical picture, but a real world, such as you find in every chapter of the Old Testament; and the contemplative and pathetic element, which you desire, ought to be entirely conveyed to our understanding by the words and the mood of the acting personages....
"I am now myself about to set to work again on the 'Elijah,' and to plough away at the soil as best I can; if I do not get on with it you must come to my aid, and I hope as kindly as ever, and preserve the same regard for your
"Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy."
The following letter is the next from Schubring that is printed; but it was not written till nearly two months after that from Mendelssohn, just quoted.
[Schubring to Mendelssohn.]
Dessau, February 2, 1839.[15]
"... Unfortunately I can offer you nothing besides my good [birthday] wishes, though I would willingly have done so. I always thought that the 'Elijah' would turn out all right, but it will not, and you must seek help elsewhere. At a distance I seemed to have thought out the subject quite nicely; but whenever I come to it at close quarters I cannot clearly distinguish the separate figures. Elijah is in the society of the angels; he is in good company, leave him there. It is unbecoming for men to drive away the angels. I have held to one point where the Lord Himself ought to or could speak to Elijah. It seemed to me that as Elijah appeared to Christ on the Mount of Transfiguration (Matthew xvii.), so Christ might come to Elijah, transfigure him, and show him from afar the streams of peace, which flow over the heavenly Canaan. These three personages—Christ, Elijah, and the heavenly choir of angels—might suffice, with suitable dramatic alteration, to transform the earth into heaven, until the removal of Elijah. But you well know how sluggishly my poetical vein flows; how, here and there, with great effort I manage to gather a few crumbs together, but then I get no farther. Unless I am in the pulpit—where the Lord usually helps me joyfully to honour Him by my preaching—the creative power fails me utterly."
For nearly seven years the subject of "Elijah" drops out of the Mendelssohn-Schubring correspondence, except two unimportant references. In a letter to Mendelssohn, dated January 17, 1840, Schubring says: "How about 'Elijah'? Have you quite put him aside?" And on November 10 of the same year: "You have told my brother that for the present you have given up composing oratorios. To this I have no objection; but I would like to see something else—sonatas, for instance, not short pieces."