“After this curious colloquy the coffin was dismounted and shoved into the top of the grave already occupied by the two paupers of the morning; and such was Mozart’s last appearance on earth.”

To-day no stone marks the spot where were deposited the last remains of one of the brightest of musical spirits; indeed, the very grave is unknown, for it was the grave of a pauper.

IV.

Mozart’s charming letters reveal to us such a gentle, sparkling, affectionate nature, as to inspire as much love for the man as admiration for his genius.  Sunny humor and tenderness bubble in almost every sentence.  A clever writer says that “opening these is like opening a painted tomb....  The colors are all fresh, the figures are all distinct.”

No better illustration of the man Mozart can be had than in a few extracts from his correspondence.

He writes to his sister from Rome while yet a mere lad: 

“I am, thank God! except my miserable pen, well, and send you and mamma a thousand kisses.  I wish you were in Rome; I am sure it would please you.  Papa says I am a little fool, but that is nothing new.  Here we have but one bed; it is easy to understand that I can’t rest comfortably with papa.  I shall be glad when we get into new quarters.  I have just finished drawing the Holy Peter with his keys, the Holy Paul with his sword, and the Holy Luke with my sister.  I have had the honor of kissing St. Peter’s foot; and because I am so small as to be unable to reach it, they had to lift me up.  I am the same old “Wolfgang.”

Mozart was very fond of this sister Nannerl, and he used to write to her in a playful mosaic of French, German, and Italian.  Just after his wedding he writes: 

“My darling is now a hundred times more joyful at the idea of going to Salzburg, and I am willing to stake—­ay, my very life, that you will rejoice still more in my happiness when you know her; if, indeed, in your estimation, as in mine, a high-principled, honest, virtuous, and pleasing wife ought to make a man happy.”

Late in his short life he writes the following characteristic note to a friend, whose life does not appear to have been one of the most regular: 

“Now tell me, my dear friend, how you are.  I hope you are all as well as we are.  You cannot fail to be happy, for you possess everything that you can wish for at your age and in your position, especially as you now seem to have entirely given up your former mode of life.  Do you not every day become more convinced of the truth of the little lectures I used to inflict on you?  Are not the pleasures of a transient, capricious passion widely different from the happiness produced by rational and true love?  I feel sure that you often in your heart thank me for my admonitions.  I shall feel quite proud if you do.  But, jesting apart, you do really owe me some little gratitude if you are become worthy of Fraeulein N------, for I certainly played no insignificant part in your improvement or reform.