Page:The history of Mendelssohn's oratorio 'Elijah'.djvu/19

 THE LIBRETTO.

��in the work, and the hope that it may lead me to attain to greater excellence in the next. Therefore, I long to be rid of all care of the finished work ; and I feel as if I could only really thank you, from my heart, if you showed me that you like this oratorio sufficiently to help me to find a new ' text,' and thus encourage me to write another oratorio. If you would only give all the care and thought you now bestow upon ' St. Paul ' to an * Elijah,' or a * St. Peter,' or even an ' Og of Bashan ! '

" It may seem ungrateful that I write to you just now in this strain, and in a letter which should be all thanks ; but it is as I feel at present, and we are far too intimate with each other for me to attempt to hide from you my present mood. You know, don't you, that I am not ungrateful? But I have felt very strongly of late that I need and long for an external impulse to urge me on ; no recognition of work done can come up to that ; it gives me great pleasure, but it has not the stimulating effect upon me which a suggestion for new work would have."

This letter, which discloses an article of Mendels- sohn's artistic creed, is important, because it contains the earliest known reference to the oratorio of " Elijah." The date should be carefully noted, as it shows that Mendelssohn was engaged, more or less, upon his great oratorio for a period of more than ten years before it was given to the world in its finished and published form.

Klingemann does not seem to have been taken with his friend's proposal that he should compile an ( 3 )

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