Page:Selected letters of Mendelssohn 1894.djvu/89

Rh composing one that I am afraid will not turn out much, but it will do for us three; it is very well meant. The words are Goethe’s, but I won’t say what; it is too foolish to compose on just that theme. Besides, it doesn’t really suit the music, but I think it so heavenly that I must always be singing it. And that is the end for to-day. Good-night, my loves! .

, 13th August, 1831. I have just got in from a walk to the Schmadri-Bach and towards the Breithorn. All that one imagines of the mass and sweep of the mountains is very poor compared to the reality. That Goethe contrived to write nothing from Switzerland, but a couple of feeble poems, and some still more feeble letters, is just as unintelligible to me as a great many other things in the world. The road up to here was again all topsy-turvey. Where was an admirable road a week ago is now a wild heap of rocks, great boulders in piles, gravel and sand everywhere, no trace of human labour to be seen. The water has gone down, indeed, but the streams are not quiet yet; now and then one hears the grinding of stones that are hurled together at the bottom, and the waterfalls sweep down pieces of black rock in their white foam. My guide showed me a handsome new house standing in the midst of the furious current. He said it belonged to his brother-in-law, and that there had been a fine meadow all round it, that used to bring in a great deal.