Schopenhauer says that the genius is he who never quite outgrows the childhood of his attitude toward the world.  Mozart was always the sublime child.

All the qualities of youth give life and personality to his letters, and place them consequently among the most delightful letters in existence.  Ludwig Nohl collected most of them into two volumes, and Lady Wallace has translated them into English, with a certain amount of inaccuracy, but a surprising amount of spirit withal.  They may be picked up without much difficulty, though they are out of print; and any one interested in musicians or in lovers or in letters, should make haste to add these two golden volumes to his library.

As the first letter was written in his thirteenth year and the last in the thirty-fifth and final year of his life, and as they constitute two volumes of the size of this one, it is manifest that I am here empowered only to make a skimming summary of his heart-history—­woe’s me!

The human affections grow by exercise.  Mozart was so devoted and so enthusiastic in his fondness for his father and mother and his sister that his heart was graduated early for any demand.  The most unmusical people know that Mozart stands unrivalled among infant prodigies, that he was a pocket-Paderewski, at a period when most children cannot even trundle a hoop, and that he was deep in composition before the usual child is out of kilts.  Everybody has seen the pictures of the littler Mozart and his little sister perched like robins on a piano stool and giving a concert before crowned heads, with the assistance of the father and the mother, themselves musicians.

The elder Mozart made a life-work out of the career of his children, though he was a gifted musician and a shrewd and intelligent man on his own account.  He was in no sense one of your child-beating brutes who make an easy livelihood by turning their children into slaves.  He believed that his son was capable of being one of the world’s greatest musicians, and he gave a splendid and permanent demonstration of his theory.  Through all his vicarious ambition he kept his son’s love and kept it almost to the point of idolatry.  Indeed the boy once wrote, “Next to God comes papa.”

The domestic relations of the family were indeed as happy as they well could be.  Mozart’s letters to his sister, Maria Anna, who was nicknamed “Nannerl,” are brimful of cheerful affection and of sprightly interest in her own love affairs.  His relations with his mother and father were full, not only of filial piety, but of that far better proof of real affection, a playful humour.