Letters From Italy And Switzerland Author:Felix Mendelssohn Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: required to live happily,—a robber and a bride; then he attacked the young people of the present day for their universal tendency to languor and melancholy, and ... more »related the story of a young lady to whom he had once paid court, and who also felt some interest in him; a discussion on 1he exhibitions followed, and a fancy bazaar for the poor, where the ladies of Weimar were the shop women, and where he declared it was impossible to purchase anything because the young people made a private agreement among themselves, and hid the different articles till the proper purchasers appeared. After dinner he all at once began—" Gute Kinder—htibsche Kinder—muss immer lustig sein— tolles Volk," etc., his eyes looking like those of a drowsy old lion. Then he begged me to play to him, and said it seemed strange that he had heard no music for so long; that he supposed we had made great progress, but he knew nothing of it. He wished me to tell him a great deal on the subject, saying "Do let us have a little rational conversation together;" and turning to Ottilie, he said, " No doubt you have already made your own wise arrangements, but they must yield to my express orders, which are, that you must make tea here this evening, that we may be all together again." When in return she asked him if it would not make him too late, as Riemer was coming to work with him, he replied, "As you gave your children a holiday from their Latin to-day, that they might hear Felix play, I think you might also give me one day of relaxation from my work." He invited me to return to dinner, and I played a great deal to him in the evening. My three Welsh pieces, dedicated to three English sisters, have great success here ; and I am trying to rub up my English. As I had begged Goethe to address me as thou, he desired O...« less