152. "Because you said yesterday that you could understand anything, and that I might write what I please in Latin, curiosity has led me to try you with some Latin lines. Have the kindness when you have solved the problem to send the result to me by the Hagenauer servant maid."
"Cuperem scire, de qua causa, a quam plurimis adolescentibus ottium usque adeo aestimetur, ut ipsi se nec verbis, nec verberibus ab hoc sinant abduci."
(The Archiepiscopal concertmaster, aged 13, writes thus to a girl friend.)
153. "Since then I have exercised myself daily in the French language, and already taken three lessons in English. In three months I hope to be able to read and understand the English books fairly well."
(Vienna, August 17, 1782, to his father. Mozart had given it out that he intended to go to Paris or London. Prince Kaunitz had said to Archduke Maximilian that men like Mozart lived but once in a hundred years, and should not be driven out of Germany. Mozart, however, writes to his father: "But I do not want to wait on charity; I find that, even if it were the Emperor, I am not dependent on his bounty.")
154. "I place my confidence in three friends, and they are strong and invincible friends, viz: God, your head and my head. True our heads differ, but each is very good, serviceable, and useful in its genre, and in time I hope that my head will be as good as yours in the field in which now yours is superior."
(Mannheim, February 28, 1778, to his father.)
155. "Believe me, I do not love idleness, but work. True it was difficult in Salzburg and cost me an effort and I could scarcely persuade myself. Why? Because I was not happy there. You must admit that, for me at least, there was not a pennyworth of entertainment in Salzburg. I do not want to associate with many and of the majority of the rest I am not fond. There is no encouragement for my talent! If I play, or one of my compositions is performed, the audience might as well consist of tables and chairs….In Salzburg I sigh for a hundred amusements, and here for not one; to live in Vienna is amusement enough."
(Vienna, May 26, 1781, to his father, who was concerned as to the progress making in Vienna.)
156. "I beg of you, best and dearest of fathers, do not write me any more letters of this kind,—I conjure you, for they serve no other purpose than to heat my head and disturb my heart and mood. And I, who must compose continually, need a clear head and quiet mood."