Strassburg can scarcely do without me.  You cannot think how much I am esteemed and beloved here.  People say that I am disinterested as well as steady and polite, and praise my manners.  Every one knows me.  As soon as they heard my name, the two Herrn Silbermann and Herr Hepp (organist) came to call on me, and also Capellmeister Richter.  He has now restricted himself very much; instead of forty bottles of wine a day, he only drinks twenty!  I played publicly on the two best organs that Silbermann has here, in the Lutheran and New Churches, and in the Thomas Church.  If the Cardinal had died, (and he was very ill when I arrived,) I might have got a good situation, for Herr Richter is seventy-eight years of age.  Now farewell!  Be cheerful and in good spirits, and remember that your son is, thank God! well, and rejoicing that his happiness daily draws nearer.  Last Sunday I heard a new mass of Herr Richter’s, which is charmingly written.

117.

Mannheim, November 12, 1778.

I arrived here safely on the 6th, agreeably surprising all my kind friends.  God be praised that I am once more in my beloved Mannheim!  I assure you, if you were here you would say the same.  I am living at Madame Cannabich’s, who, as well as her family and all my good friends here, was quite beside herself with joy at seeing me again.  We have not yet done talking, for she tells me of all the events and changes that have taken place during my absence.  I have not been able to dine once at home since I came, for people are fighting to have me; in a word, just as I love Mannheim, so Mannheim loves me; and, though of course I don’t know it positively, still I do think it possible that I may get an appointment here.  But here, not in Munich, for my own belief is that the Elector will soon once more take up his residence in Mannheim, for he surely cannot long submit to the coarseness of the Bavarian gentlemen.  You know that the Mannheim company is in Munich.  There they hissed the two best actresses, Madame Toscani and Madame Urban.  There was such an uproar that the Elector himself leant over his box and called out, “Hush!” To this, however, no one paid any attention; so he sent down Count Seeau, who told some of the officers not to make such a noise, as the Elector did not like it; but the only answer he got was, that they had paid their money, and no man had a right to give them any orders.  But what a simpleton I am!  You no doubt have heard this long ago through our....

I have now something to say.  I may perhaps make forty louis-d’or here.  To be sure, I should have to stay six weeks, or at most two months, in Mannheim.  Seiler’s company is here, whom you no doubt already know by reputation.  Herr von Dalberg is the director.  He will not hear of my leaving this till I have written a duodrama for him, and indeed I did not long hesitate, for I have often wished to write this style of drama.  I forget if I wrote to you about it the first time