Felix.
To Fanny Hensel, Berlin.
Soden, July 25th, 1844.
If you refuse to come to Soden for a fortnight, to enjoy with me the incredible fascinations of this country and locality, all my descriptions are of no avail; and, alas! I know too well that you will not come. I therefore spare you many descriptions. My family improve every day in health, while I lie under apple-trees and huge oaks. In the latter case, I request the swine-herd to drive his animals under some other tree, not to disturb me (this happened yesterday); further, I eat strawberries with my coffee, at dinner and supper; I drink the waters of the Asmannshäuser spring, rise at six o’clock, and yet sleep nine hours and a half (pray, Fanny, at what hour do I go to bed?). I visit all the wondrously beautiful environs, I generally meet Herr B. in the most romantic spot of all (happened yesterday), who gives me the latest and best report of you all, and addresses me as General Music Director, which sounds as strange here as Oberursel, and Lorschbach, and Schneidheim would to you. Then towards evening I have visits from Lenau, and Hoffmann von Fallersleben, and Freiligrath, when we stroll through the fields for a quarter of an hour near home, and find fault with the system of the world, utter prophecies about the weather, and are unable to say what England is prepared to do in the future. Further, I sketch busily, and compose still more busily. (A propos, look for the organ piece in A major, that I composed for your wedding, and wrote out in Wales, and send it to me here immediately; you shall positively have it back, but I require it. I have promised an English publisher to furnish him with a whole book of organ pieces, and as I was writing out one after another, that former one recurred to me. I like the beginning, but detest the middle, and am re-writing it with another choral fugue; but should like to compare it with the original, so pray send it here.) Further, I must unluckily go to-morrow to Zweibrücken,[76] and I don’t feel much disposed for this; still, there is first-rate wine at Dürkheim (as credible witnesses inform me), and I hear the country is very beautiful, and to-morrow week (God willing) I shall be here again, when I shall once more lie under the apple-trees, etc., dal segno. Ah! if this could go on for ever!
Jesting apart, the contrast of these days with my stay in England is so remarkable, that I can never forget it. The previous three weeks not a single hour unoccupied, and here the whole of the bright days free, without an employment of any kind, except what I choose for myself (which is the sole fruitful and profitable kind), and what is not done to-day is done to-morrow, and there is leisure for everything. In England this time, it was indeed wonderful; but I must describe to you when we meet each concert there, and each bramble-bush here.
Now, tell me what you are doing, and he, and all of you. It is high time that Sebastian[77] should write me a letter. Read him these lines from his uncle (no other part of the letter; he ought to think it contained something worth reading), and do really make him write to me. But I stipulate beforehand, that none of you are to read his letter, or he would be on ceremony, and write in a fine style, or even write first a rough copy.
Farewell, dear Sister; may we soon meet again. Do not forget the piece for the organ, and still less its author; forget, however, the stupidity of this letter, and that I am such a lazy correspondent.—Your
Felix.