(Augsburg, October 25, 1777, to his father, who was showering him with exhortations on the tour which he made with his mother through South Germany.)
245. "Let come what will, nothing can go ill so long as it is the will of God; and that it may so go is my daily prayer."
(Mannheim, December 6, 1777, to his father. Mozart was waiting with some impatience to learn if he was to receive an appointment from Elector Karl Theodore. It did not come.)
246. "I know myself;—I know that I have so much religion that I shall never be able to do a thing which I would not be willing openly to do before the whole world; only the thought of meeting persons on my journeys whose ideas are radically different from mine (and those of all honest people) frightens me. Aside from that they may do what they please. I haven't the heart to travel with them, I would not have a single pleasant hour, I would not know what to say to them; in a word I do not trust them. Friends who have no religion are not stable."
(Mannheim, February 2, 1778, to his father. For the reasons mentioned in the letter Mozart gave up his plan to travel to Paris with the musicians Wendling and Ramen. In truth, perhaps, his love affair with Aloysia Weber may have had something to do with his resolve.)
247. "I prayed to God for His mercy that all might go well, to His greater glory, and the symphony began….Immediately after the symphony full of joy I went into the Palais Royal, ate an iced cream, prayed the rosary as I had promised to do, and went home. I am always best contented at home and always will be, or with a good, true, honest German."
(Paris, July 3, 1778, to his father. The symphony in question is no longer in existence, although Mozart wanted to write it down again at a later date.)
248. "I must tell you my mother, my dear mother, is no more.—God has called her to Himself; He wanted her, I see that clearly, and I must submit to God's will. He gave her to me, and it was His to take her away. My friend, I am comforted, not but now, but long ago. By a singular grace of God I endured all with steadfastness and composure. When her illness grew dangerous I prayed God for two things only,—a happy hour of death for my mother, and strength and courage for myself. God heard me in His loving kindness, heard my prayer and bestowed the two mercies in largest measure."
(Paris, July 3, 1778, to his good friend Bullinger, in Salzburg, who was commissioned gently to bear the intelligence to Mozart's father. At the same time Mozart, with considerate deception, wrote to his father about his mother's illness without mentioning her death.)
249. "I believe, and nothing shall ever persuade me differently, that no doctor, no man, no accident, can either give life to man or take it away; it rests with God alone. Those are only the instruments which He generally uses, though not always; we see men sink down and fall over dead. When the time is come no remedies can avail,—they accelerate death rather than retard it….I do not say, therefore, that my mother will and must die, that all hope is gone; she may recover and again be well and sound,—but only if it is God's will."