(Milan, January 26, 1770. Wolfgang was on a concert tour with his father who admired Gellert's writings and had once exchanged letters with him. The lad seems to have felt ironical.)
105. "Now I am also acquainted with Herr Wieland; but he doesn't know me as well as I know him, for he has not heard anything of mine. I never imagined him to be as he is. He seems to me to be a little affected in speech, has a rather childish voice, a fixed stare, a certain learned rudeness, yet, at times, a stupid condescension. I am not surprised that he behaves as he does here (and as he would not dare do in Weimar or elsewhere), for the people look at him as if he had fallen direct from heaven. All stand in awe, no one talks, everyone is silent, every word is listened to when he speaks. It is a pity that he keeps people in suspense so long, for he has a defect of speech which compels him to speak very slowly and pause after every six words. Otherwise his is, as we all know, an admirable brain. His face is very ugly, pockmarked, and his nose rather long. He is a little taller than papa."
(Mannheim, December 27, 1777, to his father. On November 22, Mozart had reported: "In the coming carnival 'Rosamunde' will be performed—new poetry by Herr Wieland, new music by Herr Schweitzer." On January 10, 1778, he writes: "'Rosamunde' was rehearsed in the theatre today; it is—good, but nothing more. If it were bad you could not perform it at all; just as you can't sleep without going to bed!")
106. "Now that Herr Wieland has seen me twice he is entirely enchanted. The last time we met, after lauding me as highly as possible, he said, 'It is truly a piece of good fortune for me to have met you here,' and pressed my hand."
(Mannheim, January 10, 1778.)
107. "Now I give you a piece of news which perhaps you know already; that godless fellow and arch-rascal, Voltaire, is dead—died like a dog, like a beast. That is his reward!"
(Paris, July 3, 1778, to his father, who, like the son, was a man of sincere piety and abhorred Voltaire's atheism.)
108. "When God gives a man an office he also gives him sense; that's the case with the Archduke. Before he was a priest he was much wittier and intelligent; spoke less but more sensibly. You ought to see him now! Stupidity looks out of his eyes, he talks and chatters eternally and always in falsetto. His neck is swollen,—in short he has been completely transformed."
(Vienna, November 17, 1781, to his father. The person spoken of was Archduke Maximilian, who afterward became Archbishop of Cologne, and was the patron of Beethoven. [The ambiguity of the opening statement is probably due to carelessness in writing, or Mozart's habit of using double negatives. H.E.K.])