The correspondence of Goethe and Zelter displeases me. I always
feel out of sorts when I have been reading it. Do you know that I
am making great strides in water-colors? Schirmer comes to me every
Saturday at eleven, and paints for two hours at a landscape, which
he is going to make me a present of, because the subject occurred
to him whilst I was playing the little "Rivulet" (which you know).
It represents a fellow who saunters out of a dark forest into a
sunny little nook; trees all about, with stems thick and thin; one
has fallen across the rivulet; the ground is carpeted with soft,
deep moss, full of ferns; there are stones garlanded with
blackberry-bushes; it is fine warm weather; the whole will be
charming.
--_Mendelssohn to Devrient_