Send me an answer soon, I beg.  Don’t forget my wish to write an opera; I envy every person who writes one; I could almost weep from vexation when I hear or see an aria.  But Italian, not German—­seria, not buffa!  I have now written you all that is in my heart; my mother is satisfied with my plan.

The mother, however, adds the following postscript:—­

“No doubt you perceive by the accompanying letter that when Wolfgang makes new friends he would give his life for them.  It is true that she does sing incomparably; still, we ought not to lose sight of our own interests.  I never liked his being in the society of Wendling and Ramm, but I did not venture to object to it, nor would he have listened to me; but no sooner did he know these Webers than he instantly changed his mind.  In short, he prefers other people to me, for I remonstrate with him sometimes, and that he does not like.  I write this quite secretly while he is at dinner, for I don’t wish him to know it.”

A few days later Wolfgang urges his father still more strongly.

92.

Mannheim, Feb. 7, 1778.

Herr Schiedenhofen might have let me know long ago through you that his wedding was soon to take place [see Nos. 7, 10, 19], and I would have composed a new minuet for the occasion.  I cordially wish him joy; but his is, after all, only one of those money matches, and nothing else!  I hope never to marry in this way; I wish to make my wife happy, but not to become rich by her means; so I will let things alone, and enjoy my golden freedom till I am so well off that I can support both wife and children.  Herr Schiedenhofen was forced to choose a rich wife; his title imposed this on him.  The nobility must not marry for love or from inclination, but from interest, and all kinds of other considerations.  It would not at all suit a grandee to love his wife after she had done her duty, and brought into the world an heir to the property.  But we poor humble people are privileged not only to choose a wife who loves us, and whom we love, but we may, can, and do take such a one, because we are neither noble, nor highborn, nor rich, but, on the contrary, lowly, humble, and poor; we therefore need no wealthy wife, for our riches being in our heads, die with us, and these no man can deprive us of unless he cut them off, in which case we need nothing more.

I lately wrote to you my chief reason for not going to Paris with these people, but another is that I have reflected well on what I have to do in Paris.  I could not get on passably without pupils, which is a kind of work that does not suit me—­of this I have a strong example here.  I might have had two pupils:  I went three times to each, but finding one of them not at home, I never went back.  I am willing to give lessons out of complaisance, especially when I see genius, and inclination and anxiety to learn; but to be obliged to go to a house at a certain hour, or else to wait at home, is what I cannot