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I sat with Frau Mozart in her box almost opposite the King's box. And what was on the posters, do you think? Look, please! I brought it for you, wrapped around a little souvenir from the Mozarts and myself. Look, read it, printed in letters a yard long! 'Heaven forbid! Not Tarare! 'Yes! What cannot one live to see!

The octave consists only of five tones and two semi-tones, which can be put together in only a limited number of ways, of which but a small proportion are beautiful: most of these, it seemed to me, must have been already discovered, and there could not be room for a long succession of Mozarts and Webers, to strike out, as these had done, entirely new and surpassingly rich veins of musical beauty.

Mozart was a fervent admirer of Gluck, and the music of the older master had evidently an important influence on that of the younger and more gifted composer. Once more his thoughts were turned to Salzburg, for two of the leading musicians there having died, the Archbishop Hieronymus offered their posts to the Mozarts, father and son, at a salary of a thousand florins for the two.

In defect of Raphaels, and Angelos, and Mozarts, we have Royal Academies of Painting, Sculpture, Music; whereby the languishing spirit of Art may be strengthened by the more generous diet of a Public Kitchen. . . . Hence the Royal and Imperial Societies, the Bibliotheques, Glypthotheques, Technotheques, which front us in all capital cities, like so many well-finished hives, to which it is expected the stray agencies of Wisdom will swarm of their own accord, and hive and make honey! . . . Men have grown mechanical in head and heart as well as in hand.

We that is, the Cannabichs, Wendlings, Serrariuses, and Mozarts are going to the Lutheran Church, where I shall amuse myself gloriously on the organ. I tried its tone at the same rehearsal that I wrote to you about, but played very little, only a prelude and a fugue. I have made acquaintance with Herr Wieland. He does not, however, know me as I know him, for he has heard nothing of me as yet.

The latter case, at least, was not true with our friends in the palace. Franziska's parents and aunt soon followed the Mozarts. Franziska herself, the Baron, and Max of course, remained. Eugenie, with whom we are especially concerned, because she appreciated more deeply than the others the priceless experience she had had she, one would think, could not feel in the least unhappy or troubled.

Is it artistic? Is it musical? Would it not be better to train him to play a piece which he could comprehend and which he could express in his own way? "Of course I am not speaking now of the boy Mozarts, the boy Liszts or other freaks of nature, but of the children who by machine-made methods are made to do things which nature never intended that they should do.

It is strange how much wrong we do to the geniuses of the second rate, when they happen to be rivals of those whom we have voted geniuses of the first rate; for the Piccinnis and the Salieris and the Spontinis, who chance to fight earnestly against Glucks, Mozarts, and others, often show in their lives qualities of the utmost sweetness and sincerity, equalling that of their more successful rivals in the struggle for existence.

There we have Pascals who are mathematicians at five and discoverers at sixteen; there we have Mozarts, composers at three; there we have our inspired boy preachers already consecrated to their great ideal of work; and we have also our Jesse Pomeroys, fiendish murderers before adolescence.

The splendid coach, drawn by three post-horses, belonged to an elderly Frau Volkstett, wife of General Volkstett, who prided herself on her intimacy with the Mozarts and on the favors she had shown them. The carriage was painted a bright yellowish-red, the body adorned with garlands of gay-colored flowers, the wheels finished with narrow stripes of gold.