Note 44 — To Paul Mendelssohn Bartholdy.

His brother had gone to Leipzig, at the instigation of the Wirklich Geheimrath Herr von Massow, to negotiate with Mendelssohn the subject of a situation in Berlin. It was proposed to divide the Academy of Arts into four classes,—namely, painting, sculpture, architecture, and music,—and to appoint a director for each class, to whom the superintendence of the Academy should be entrusted alternately, and in fixed succession. The music class, for which Mendelssohn had been selected as Director, was to consist essentially of a large Conservatorium, in the expectation that in connection with the resources of the Royal Theatre, public concerts, partly of a sacred and partly of a secular nature, should be given. However promising Mendelssohn considered this project, he at once expressed considerable doubts, not so much that the plan could not be carried out, but that it would not be so; and the result proved how correct his judgment was on the point.