"Now I think I have talked nonsense enough for this time"--so Mozart concludes this interesting letter, as he was fond of doing when his desire to justify himself had led him into general aesthetic questions, on which he was averse to expatiating at any length. His opinion as to the relative positions of music and poetry in operatic works is unusually interesting. In complete opposition to Gluck, who considered music as subordinate to poetry, Mozart requires that poetry shall be the handmaid of music. In the sense in which the context shows him to have meant it, he is undoubtedly right. He exacts that the plan of the piece shall be well laid out; that is, that the plot shall be interesting, and shall as it proceeds afford dramatic situations fitted for musical expression. He requires further that the words shall be written merely for the music, that is, that the poetical conceptions shall be of a kind to stimulate the composer, to elevate and support him, while allowing him perfect freedom of thought and action. He had mentioned Osmin's song to Stephanie, and the music was ready before the latter had written a word of the poetry; the words he then prepared accorded so admirably with the musical ideas which had been running in Mozart's head, that faults here and there in the versification did not seem to him of much consequence. The impulse he required for his musical conceptions was the representation of the dramatis persona in certain definite situations, not the verbal framing of the poet's ideas.[38] The {DIE ENTFÜHRUNG AUS DEM SERAIL.} (228)