Page:Selected letters of Mendelssohn 1894.djvu/135

Rh next works I look to see you steer a clear course in this direction, and that without your admirable command of outline, or your masterly control of instruments, etc., in detail, suffering in the least from an increased polish or sharpness of musical ideas. And as ideas are not things to polish or to sharpen, but to be taken and used as they come, and as God sends them, so labour is the single thing that remains to desiderate in an artist like yourself and in creative work like yours; only the direction in which it is applied may here and there be a point of discussion……