Page:Selected letters of Mendelssohn 1894.djvu/20

6 pieces succeed admirably here, and I am practising my English again. I had asked Goethe to say “du” when he spoke to me, so the next day I received a sort of message through Ottilie that then I should have to stop longer than two days, as I had intended, or else he would not have time to get used to it. He said the same thing to me himself, and let me feel I should be losing nothing by stopping rather longer; besides, he asked me to dine with him whenever I had no other engagement, so I have been there daily till now. Yesterday I had to tell him everything about Scotland, Hengstenberg, Spontini, and Hegel’s æsthetics; then he sent me out to Tiefurt with the ladies, but forbade me to go to Berke, because a very pretty girl lives there, and he would not let me fall into misfortune; and to crown it all, I think to myself this is indeed the very Goethe about whom people used to affirm that he was not one person at all, but had been formed by the blending together of many smaller “Goethides!”—truly I should be mad if I regretted the loss of my time. To-day I am to play him some things by Bach, Haydn, and Mozart, and conduct him down to the present time, as he says. Besides, I have gone through the regular duties of the visitor, and have seen the library and Iphigenia in Aulis. .