"4to, that you rest assured of my love. Not a letter have I written to you but that your portrait was placed in front of mine.
"5to, I beg of you to consider not only my honor and yours in your conduct but also in appearances. Do not get angry because of this request. You ought to love me all the more because I make so much of honor."
(Dresden, April 16, 1789, to his wife, in Vienna, who was fond of life's pleasures.)
198. "You can not imagine how slowly time goes when you are not with me! I can't describe the feeling; there is a sort of sense of emptiness, which hurts—a certain longing which can not be satisfied, and hence never ends, but grows day by day. When I remember how childishly merry we were in Baden, and what mournful, tedious hours I pass here, my work gives me no pleasure, because it is not possible as was my wont, to chat a few words with you when stopping for a moment. If I go to the Clavier and sing something from the opera (Die Zauberflote) I must stop at once because of my emotions.—Basta!"
(Vienna, July 7, 1791, to his wife, who was taking the waters at
Baden.)
199. "I call only him or her a friend who is a friend under all circumstances, who thinks day or night of nothing else than to promote the welfare of a friend, who urges all well-to-do friends and works himself to make the other person happy."
(Kaisersheim, December 18, 1778, to his father. Mozart was making the journey from Mannheim to Munich in the carriage of a prelate. The parting with his Mannheim friends, especially with Frau Cannabich, his motherly friend, was hard. "For me, who never made a more painful parting than this, the journey was only half pleasant—it would even have been a bore, if from childhood I had not been accustomed to leave people, countries and cities.")
200. "Permit me to beg for a continuance of your precious friendship, and to ask you to accept mine for now and forever; with an honest heart I vow it to you everlastingly. True it will be of little use to you; but it will be the more durable and honest for that reason. You know that the best and truest friends are the poor. Rich people know nothing of friendship!—especially those who are born rich and those who have become rich fortuitously,—they are too often wrapped up completely in their own luck! But there is nothing to fear from a man who has been placed in advantageous circumstances, not through blind, but deserved good fortune, through merit,—a man who did not lose courage because of his first failures,—who remained true to his religion and trust in God, was a good Christian and an honest man and cherished and valued his true friend,—in a word,—a man who has deserved better fortune—from such a man, there is nothing to fear."
(Paris, August 7, 1778, to his friend Bullinger, in Salzburg, to whom he felt beholden for the gentle and considerate way in which he had broken the news of his mother's death to the family.)
201. "My friend, had I but the money which many a man who does not deserve it wastes so miserably,—if I only had it! O, with what joy would I not help you!—But, alas! those who can will not, and those who would like to can not!"