Page:Selected letters of Mendelssohn 1894.djvu/35

Rh Every day when I enter my room I feel delighted afresh at the thought of not having to travel on to-morrow—that so much can be quietly postponed—that I am in Rome. Everything that my time of travel put into my head was soon driven out by something else, and my impressions chased each other through my mind, but here everything has time to expand calmly. Never, I think, was my work so much a pleasure; and to accomplish all the plans I have now, I must stick close to them the whole winter. To be sure, I must do without the great satisfaction of communicating what one has done to others who could appreciate and take part in it, but just that drives me to work again, because it all pleases me more than it could another, as long, that is, as I am in the thick of it.

I wish you would lecture P. It makes me angry at heart to see men of no vocation take on themselves the office of judging men who have aims of their own, even the most limited, and to the best of my capacity I lately did a musical person here the service of making that clear. He began talking about Mozart, and as Bunsen and his sister admire Palestrina, he sought to ingratiate himself with them; among other things, by asking me what I thought of the good Mozart and his various offences. But I replied that for my part I would gladly throw my virtues overboard and take Mozart’s sins in their place, at all events, it was not for me to measure his virtues. The people around us were a good deal amused. What a thing it is that such fellows should not