not his wings soon be paralysed, like a caged eagle's, so that he would try to soar sunwards in vain?' "_Ferdinand_. 'One listens to all this, of course; but do you know, my dear friend, that what you say does not so much convince me as it seems to indicate your own _personal_ repugnance to working your way, laboriously, through all the necessary _scenas_, _arias_, _duettos_, etc., till you get to the point of composing the music.' "_Ludwig_. 'Perhaps; but I renew an old reproach. Why, in the days when you and I were living in such constant intimacy, would you never write me a libretto, eagerly as I begged you to do so?' "_Ferdinand_. 'Because I think it the most thankless labour imaginable. You must allow that no demands could be more exacting than those which you composers make upon us; and if you say that a musician can't be expected to acquire the technical skill which the mechanical part of poetry-writing demands, I, again, think that it is too much to expect of a poet that he should be continually harassing himself about the precise structure of your _terzettes_, _quartettes_, _finales_, etc., so as not to run the risk of transgressing against some of those forms, which you look upon--Heaven knows why--as so many matters fixed and established for ever and ever, like the laws of the Medes and Persians. After we have expended our best efforts with extremity of mental tension, in trying to apprehend all the situations of our story in a true poetical spirit, and to express them in the most eloquent language, and the smoothest and most finished versification, it is quite terrible how you run your pens through our finest lines, in the most relentless manner, and spoil our happiest ideas and expressions, by inverting them, or altering them, or drowning them in the music. I say this merely with reference to the uselessness of spending time and labour on elaborate finish. But then, many admirable plots, which have occurred to us in our poetic inspiration, and which we bring to you, all pride, expecting you to be delighted with them, you reject in a moment, as being unsuitable, and unworthy to be clothed in music. But this must often be sheer caprice, or I don't know what else it can be; because you often set to work upon texts which are absolutely wretched and----' "_Ludwig_. 'Stop a moment, my dear friend! Of course there are composers who have as little idea of music as many rhyme-spinners have of poetry, and _they_ have often put notes to plots which really are wretched, in all respects. But real composers, who live and move and have their being in true, glorious, heavenly _Music_, always choose poetic texts.' "_Ferdinand_. 'Do you say so of Mozart?'