To-morrow, mamma and I are to meet Misliweczeck in the Hospital garden to take leave of him; for he wished me last time to fetch mamma out of church, as he said he should like to see the mother of so great a virtuoso.  My dear papa, do write to him as often as you have time to do so; you cannot confer a greater pleasure on him, for the man is quite forsaken.  Sometimes he sees no one for a whole week, and he said to me, “I do assure you it does seem so strange to me to see so few people; in Italy I had company every day.”  He looks thin, of course, but is still full of fire and life and genius, and the same kind, animated person he always was.  People talk much of his oratorio of “Abraham and Isaac,” which he produced here.  He has just completed (with the exception of a few arias) a Cantata, or Serenata, for Lent; and when he was at the worst he wrote an opera for Padua.  Herr Heller is just come from him.  When I wrote to him yesterday I sent him the Serenata that I wrote in Salzburg:  for the Archduke Maximilian ["Il Re Pastore"].

Now to turn to something else.  Yesterday I went with mamma immediately after dinner to take coffee with the two Fraulein von Freysinger.  Mamma, however, took none, but drank two bottles of Tyrolese wine.  At three o’clock she went home again to make preparations for our journey.  I, however, went with the two ladies to Herr von Hamm’s, whose three young ladies each played a concerto, and I one of Aichner’s prima vista, and then went on extemporizing.  The teacher of these little simpletons, the Demoiselles Hamm, is a certain clerical gentleman of the name of Schreier.  He is a good organ-player, but no pianist.  He kept staring at me with an eye-glass.  He is a reserved kind of man who does not talk much; he patted me on the shoulder, sighed, and said, “Yes—­you are—­you understand—­yes—­it is true—­you are an out-and-outer!” By the by, can you recall the name of Freysingen —­the papa of the two pretty girls I mentioned?  He says he knows you well, and that he studied with you.  He particularly remembers Messenbrunn, where papa (this was quite new to me) played most incomparably on the organ.  He said, “It was quite startling to see the pace at which both hands and feet went, but quite inimitable; a thorough master indeed; my father thought a great deal of him; and how he humbugged the priests about entering the Church!  You are just what he was then, as like as possible; only he was a degree shorter when I knew him.”  A propos, a certain Hofrath Effeln sends you his kind regards; he is one of the best Hofraths here, and would long ago have been made chancellor but for one defect—­tippling.  When we saw him for the first time at Albert’s, both mamma and I thought, “What an odd-looking fish!” Just imagine a very tall man, stout and corpulent, and a ridiculous face.  When he crosses the room to another table, he folds both hands on his stomach, stoops very low, and then draws himself up again, and makes little nods; and when this is over he draws back his right foot, and does this to each individual separately.  He says that he knows papa intimately.  I am now going for a little to the play.  Next time I will write more fully, but I can’t possibly go on to-day, for my fingers do ache uncommonly.