A confirmation of this is found in a later expression of opinion made by Mozart to Joseph Frank, who found him engaged in the study of French scores, and asked him if it would not be better to devote himself to Italian compositions; whereupon Mozart answered: "As far as melody is concerned, yes; but as far as dramatic effect is concerned, no; besides, the scores which you see here are by Gluck, Piccinni, Salieri, as well as Grétry, and have nothing French but the words."[31] This view was confirmed by his stay in Paris, a stay quite as fruitful for his artistic development as that at Mannheim had been. Grimm's accounts show that Mozart had opportunities for hearing the operas of numerous French composers. Besides Gluck's "Armide" which was still new, "Orpheus," "Alceste," and "Iphigenia in Aulis," which had been revived, Piccinni's "Roland," Grètry's "Matroco," "Les Trois Ages de l'Opéra," and "Le Jugement de Midas" were given, as well as Philidor's "Ernelinde," Dezaide's "Zulima," Gossec's "Fête du Village," Rousseau's "Devin du Village." Added to these were Piccinni's Italian opera "Le Finte Gemelle," and doubtless many others of which we know nothing. It may well excite wonder that Mozart's letters to his father describe {PARIS, 1778.} (58) none of the new artistic impressions which he must have received in Paris. But, apart from the fact that personal affairs naturally held the first place in his home correspondence, it must be remembered that abstract reflections on art and its relation to individual artists were not at that time the fashion, and were besides quite foreign to Mozart's nature. His aesthetic remarks and judgments whether they treated of technical questions or of executive effects, are mostly founded on concrete phenomena. The practical directness of his productive power, set in motion by every impulse of his artistic nature, prevented his fathoming the latest psychical conditions of artistic activity, or tracing the delicate threads which connect the inner consciousness of the artist with his external impressions, or analysing the secret processes of the soul which precede the production of a work of art. He does not seem any more actively conscious of the effect wrought upon him by the works of others. Some men's impressions of a great work are involuntary, and they seek later to comprehend the grounds of their enjoyment; others strive consciously to grasp the idea of the work and to incorporate it into their being; but to the man of creative genius alone is it given to preserve his own totality while absorbing all that is good in the works of other artists.