some time together in Germany! We should see and hear much more of one another, in peace and quietness, than we could in the rush of a London season, crowded as you are there with work, and I with leisure. You would meet Klingemann too; we are daily expecting him; he must have been in Hanover for some time already. Once more, to wind up, Come!
Now that our wanderings are concluded, we doubly feel what a happy summer we have spent, what English comfort we have enjoyed, what happiness and what never-to-be-forgotten kindness we have experienced. It was delightful indeed! And then, on our return home, we could not help saying that in the whole five months in which we wandered over land and sea, by steam or on muleback, across roads and rocks, we could not remember one unpleasant moment, not one dull day, but that we had been enabled to enjoy everything in undisturbed delight and health. Then I felt as though we never could be thankful enough, and ought never to pray for anything but a continuance of such happiness. From first to last we have felt deeply grateful for the mercies showered upon us, the remembrance of which will never leave us as long as we live. In Switzerland—oh, well, of that I could talk for whole evenings, till you were thoroughly tired of my long stories, as dull and dry as the incidents they would describe were lively and bright. Then came a delightful fortnight with the Souchays at Frankfurt, then Leipzig and the first Subscription Concert. They flattered themselves you would have come to it, dear Moscheles; for David told me they had specially invited you. Hauptmann’s first Mass was performed at St. Thomas’s Church; then we had three new violin Quartets by Schumann, the first of which most particularly delighted me. Madame Schumann played Weber’s Concertstück, and some Thalberg, as beautifully and with as much fire as ever. Here I found all well,—that is, music excepted, which, Heaven knows, is anything but well. They are performing “William Tell” for the wedding festivities, curtailed into three acts, and they call it “the composer’s arrangement for the Parisian stage,” and are racking their brains to discover whether Rossini had any call to write operas or not. The Weissbier, the cabs, cakes, and officials are wonderful here, but not much besides.
I have requested an audience of the King, with a view to obtaining his most gracious permission to depart; but what with the wedding, his journey, etc., I have not yet been received. Should I be more successful next week, I hope to be in my well-known Leipzig home in another fortnight; but it must be with a really good grace that he allows me to retire, for I love him too well, and owe him too much, to let it be otherwise.
Oh, how my pen has run away with me! I dare not touch the next page, which Cécile wants. So let me add, on this one, love to the children, and my wishes for your welfare, but, above all, the wish for an early and happy meeting.
Ever your
Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy.
Leipzig, Nov. 18, 1842.
My dearest Friend,—How busy I have been lately you may gather from the fact of my only answering your delightful letter of the 20th to-day. But my chief reason for delay was that I wished to answer with due care and full consideration that part of it which mentions your intention of returning to Germany. This is a matter of so much importance to all of us, and I am so immensely delighted at the prospect, that at first I could not bring myself to think of it quietly and impartially. Now I have looked at it in every light, and of nothing else will I write to-day. If you really mean to leave England,—and from what you say I can no longer doubt you are in earnest,—this is the best time you could select, particularly if you thought of giving Berlin the preference. It appears to me that just now, when the King is so unmistakably anxious to secure for his capital artists of great reputation, a mere hint from you would suffice to elicit the most acceptable offers from that quarter. Such a hint is necessary, as, without it, nobody would believe, any more than I did at first, that you are really inclined to give up your position in England. Now, you have the very man in London to whom you might casually drop a word. You are on a confidential footing with him; and whilst, on the one hand, he has the warmest friendship and esteem for you, on the other, his suggestions and counsels have the greatest weight with the King of Prussia. Of course, I mean Bunsen.[48] If you were to speak to him, mentioning in a general way your intention of returning to Germany, I am sure a few words would suffice, and he would do his very best to secure to the King and to Berlin the honor of possessing you,—for as an honor any town of Germany you may select will look upon it. That, perhaps, you do not know; but then I do, most positively. To be sure, there is no official position—I mean no regular programme of musical duties—suitable for you, any more than there is for me, or for any musician whose heart is in his work; so my departure from Berlin would leave no place vacant for another to occupy. The very fact that no such place exists is the cause of my hesitating so long.
Now, however, it is decided that I am to have nothing to do with the Berlin public, but only with the King, whose qualities of head and heart I value so highly that they weigh heavier in the scale than half a dozen Berlin publics. Whether I am there or not, an excellent and honorable position would be open to you. But just think how delightful it would be if I did return, and we lived in the same place and saw our old dreams, that seemed so unattainable, actually realized! But that is a picture I will not attempt to draw in this letter. That I may have to return to Berlin, you see from the above. Probably it may be next year.