I will carefully keep the account; so, if you want money, draw on your banker and friend,
I. Moscheles.
Düsseldorf, April, 1834.
My dear Moscheles,—I cannot tell you how much pleasure those letters from you and from your wife gave me. I don’t think the post ever put me in such high spirits before. I certainly never felt so happy and elated for days together
14. Regent’s Park. From a Sketch made by Mendelssohn in an autograph album given by him to his godchild. ([See page 69].)
as I did after getting them. You know how often I am beset by grievous misgivings, how I cannot do anything to my satisfaction, and how, when such doubts lay hold of me, I fancy the whole world must be aware of my shortcomings, even more than I am myself, and must overlook the very existence of my works. But such kind and friendly words as you have written about my Overture give me greater pleasure than anything that I could hear after completing a composition. This I know for a certainty: you might have sent me three of the finest Russian orders or titles for the Overture without giving me one hour’s happiness such as I have had from your letter. Do you really know how kind and amiable you were? Because, if you do, I need not attempt to thank you.
But now let me say how grateful I am for all the trouble you have taken with my Overture. It is quite a painful feeling to have a piece performed and not to be present, not to know what succeeded and what went wrong; but when you are conducting I really feel less nervous than if I were there myself, for no one can take more interest in his own works than you do in those of others, and then you can hear and take note of a hundred things that the composer, preoccupied as he is, has no time or mind for.