The advice in the first line is not difficult to follow, and the latter is not to be feared with you. Towards Whitsunday, when I am to be at Aix, I intend to pass through Frankfort, and hope then to see and hear something new of yours.—Always yours sincerely,
Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy.
To Senator Bernus, Frankfort.
Leipzig, October 10th, 1845.
... I cannot tell you how often, indeed almost daily, I think of the last winter and spring which I passed so pleasantly with you in Frankfort. I could scarcely myself have believed that my stay there would have caused such a lasting and happy impression on my mind! So strong is it, that I have often pictured to myself, in all earnest, giving you a commission (according to your promise) to buy or to build for me a house with a garden, when I would return permanently to that glorious country with its gay easy life. But such happiness cannot be mine; some years must first elapse, and the work I have begun here must have produced solid results, and be a good deal further advanced (at least I must have tried to effect it), before I can think of such a thing.
But I have the same feeling as formerly, that I shall only remain in this place so long as I feel pleasure and interest in the outward occupations which here seem the most agreeable to me. As soon, however, as I have won the right to live solely for my inward work and composing, only occasionally conducting and playing in public just as it may suit me, then I shall assuredly return to the Rhine, and probably, according to my present idea, settle at Frankfort. The sooner I can do so, the more I shall be pleased. I never undertook external musical pursuits, such as conducting, etc., from inclination, but only from a sense of duty; so I hope, before many years are over, to apply myself to building a house.
Before then, probably, either a true and solid nucleus will have been formed among the German Catholics in favour of enlightenment and other new German ideas, and free ground and soil won for these, or the whole movement will have vanished and been superseded by other catastrophes. If neither the one nor the other occurs, I fear we run the risk of losing our finest national features, solidity, constancy, and honourable perseverance, without gaining any compensation for them. A collection of French phrases and French levity would be too dearly bought at such a price. It is to be hoped that something better will ensue!
To Pastor Bauer, Beszig.
Leipzig, May 23rd, 1846.
Your kind letter and the book caused me great pleasure. I received the parcel some weeks since, but as I have very little time left for reading, and as a work like yours cannot be quickly perused by a layman, you will be able to understand the delay in expressing my thanks. I have learnt much from your book, for it is in fact the first summary of Church history that I ever read; but from this very circumstance you are mistaken in my position if you think I could attempt either verbally or in writing to maintain my own opinions on such a matter, when opposed to yours, and that I might see it in a different light as a musician, etc. The only point of view from which I can consider such questions is that of a learner, and I confess to you that the older I become, the more do I perceive the importance of first learning and then forming an opinion; not the latter previous to the former, and not both simultaneously. In this I certainly differ much from very many of our leading men of the present day, both in music and theology. They declare that he alone can form a right judgment who has learned nothing, and indeed requires to learn nothing; and my rejoinder is, that there is no man living who does not require to learn. I think, therefore, that it is more than ever the duty of every one to be very industrious in his sphere, and to concentrate all his powers to accomplish the very best of which he is capable; and thus the recent Church movements are more unknown to me than you probably believe (perhaps more than you would approve), and I rejoice that the very reverse is the case with you. I cannot, in fact, understand a theologian who at this moment does not come forward, or who feels no sympathy in these matters; but just as little, many of those non-theologians whom I often see, and who talk of reformation and of improvement, but who are equally incompetent to know or to comprehend either the present or the past, and who, in short, wish to introduce dilettanteism into the highest questions.