possible to live as cheaply in expensive Vienna as anywhere else;
it all depends on the housekeeping and the orderliness which is
never to be found in a young man especially if he be in love.
Whoever gets a wife such as I am going to have can count himself
fortunate. We shall live simply and quietly, and yet be happy.
Do not worry; for should I (which God forefend!) get ill today,
especially if I were married, I wager that the first of the
nobility would come to my help....I await your consent with
longing, best of fathers, I await it with confidence, my honor
and fame depend upon it."

(Vienna, July 27, 1782.)

238. "Meanwhile my striving is to secure a small certainty; then
with the help of the contingencies, it will be easy to live here;
and then to marry. I beg of you, dearest and best of fathers,
listen to me! I have preferred my request, now listen to my
reasons. The calls of nature are as strong in me, perhaps
stronger, than in many a hulking fellow. I can not possibly live
like the majority of our young men. In the first place I have too
much religion, in the second too much love for my fellow man and
too great a sense of honor ever to betray a girl...."

(Vienna, December 18, 1781. [The whole of this letter deserves to
be read by those who, misled by the reports, still deemed
trustworthy when Jahn published the first edition of his great
biography, believed that Mozart was a man of bad morals.
Unfortunately Mozart's candor in presenting his case to his
father can scarcely be adjusted to the requirements of a book
designed for general circulation. Let it suffice that in his