Mozart was a passionate jester and his jokes were coarse enough;
of that there is no doubt. But these things were innocent at the
time. The letters of the lad to his little cousin in Augsburg
contain many passages that would be called of questionable
propriety now; but the little cousin does not seem to have even
blushed. The best witness to the morality of Mozart's life is his
wife, who, after his death, wrote to the publishing firm of
Breitkopf and Hartel: "His letters are beyond doubt the best
criterion for his mode of thought, his peculiarities and his
education. Admirably characteristic is his extraordinary love for
me, which breathes through all his letters. Those of his last
year on earth are just as tender as those which he must have
written in the first year of our married life;--is it not so? I
beg as a particular favor that special attention be called to
this fact for the sake of his honor."

He was a Freemason with all his heart, and gave expression to his
humanitarian feeling in his opera "The Magic Flute." Without
suspicion himself, he thought everybody else good, which led to
painful experiences with some of his friends.

230. "Parents strive to place their children in a position which
shall enable them to earn their own living; and this they owe to
their children and the state. The greater the talents with which
the children have been endowed by God, the more are they bound to
make use of those talents to improve the conditions of themselves
and their parents, to aid their parents and to care for their own
present and future welfare. We are taught thus to trade with our
talents in the Gospels. I owe it, therefore, to God and my