I came near losing my temper." Concerning the unappreciative
Mendelssohn, he writes to Clara:
"I am told that he is not well disposed toward me. I should feel sorry
if that were true, since I am conscious of having preserved noble
sentiments toward him. If you know anything let me hear it on
occasion; that will at least make me cautious, and I do not wish to
squander anything where I am ill-spoken of. Concerning my relations
toward him as a musician [1838], I am quite aware that I could learn
of him for years; but he, too, some things of me. Brought up under
similar circumstances, destined for music from childhood, I would
surpass you all--that I feel from the energy of my inventive powers."
Concerning this energy he says, some time after this, when he had
just finished a dozen songs: "Again I have composed so much that I am
sometimes visited by a mysterious feeling. Alas! I cannot help it. I
could wish to sing myself to death, like a nightingale."
One of the most interesting bits of information contained in this
correspondence is that, when quite a young man, Schumann commenced a
treatise on musical aesthetics.
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