Felix.
To Paul Mendelssohn Bartholdy.
Leipzig, Jan. 9th, 1841.
Dear Paul,
Your letter of yesterday made me very happy; God knows why I could not get it out of my head that you were angry with me, for delaying an affair which you wished to expedite, and have so kindly expedited. I however see from your letter that I was entirely and totally wrong, and I thank you much for it, and subscribe to all you say on the subject. But there is one idea you must dismiss from your thoughts as much as I have done the other, and that is the dread of foreign influences, as you call them, which you allude to in your letter. You must not suppose that I ever act in any affair but from my own conscientious impulses, far less in a matter in which I myself and my happiness are so very closely involved. Believe me, that in general, I invariably strive to do and say nothing but what I hold to be right in my conscience and instinct, and it is a proof that we have, alas! lived much asunder, and only met in days of enjoyment, and not of work, when you fear that I am easily swayed, not only in conversation, but in action. No! all goes on very slowly with me, but when at last I do a foolish thing, I have at least one merit, which is, to have devised it entirely myself. With regard to this special case, I probably gave you cause for suspicion, by writing to you that I told my friends here, David and Schleinitz of the offer, and in my last letter I did not allude to them again. I can assure you, however, that both have long ago given me such proofs of sincere friendship, that I could not possibly have been silent to them on this occasion, and both urged my acceptance, and saw the thing in the most favourable light.
That not the smallest step I have taken in the whole affair may be unknown to you, I must add, that I felt myself obliged to communicate the circumstance candidly, some days ago, to the Kreis-Director, Herr von Falkenstein; for in this month the money becomes due which the King has the disposal of, and which, as you are aware, I last winter petitioned might be appropriated to found a school of music here. The King, who expressed himself in a very kind manner towards me, when he came to one of our subscription concerts, seemed well disposed to give his consent; then came Falkenstein to ask me if I would pledge myself (which really was my idea at that time) to organize this music school for some years to come. I now no longer could or would do this, so I thought it best to tell him the whole affair. He gave me his faithful promise to preserve the strictest silence, and I in turn agreed to give him due notice if I settled to go to Berlin, because that, he said, might be prejudicial to the plan of the music school; and thus it now stands.
I await the arrival of the statutes; at all events an opportunity may then occur to render an occasional service to the cause there, and to place many things on a better footing, and perhaps to introduce a better system into the whole class, and some good would be thus effected.
The examples which you quote of the advantage of public opinion interested me very much, but I own were far from pleasing to me. I do not call that public opinion, which is shown by sending anonymous and libellous verses, and by hissing an old masterpiece.[45] You will perhaps say this is only the beginning; but that is the very point; if a thing is not rightly begun it never comes to a good end, and I do not believe that public tracasseries can pave the way to public opinion; indeed, I believe that such things have always existed, and always will exist, independent of the vox populi, which is the vox Dei. It would be more important to me if you would tell me some particulars of the curiosa which are related of Minister Schön; pray do this if you possibly can. He seems to be a determined fellow!—Your
Felix.