confession to his father Mozart puts himself on the ground of the
loftiest sexual purity, and stakes life and death on the
truthfulness of his statements. H.E.K.])

239. "You surely can not be angry because I want to get married?
I think and believe that you will recognize best my piety and
honorable intentions in the circumstance. O, I could easily write
a long answer to your last letter, and offer many objections; but
my maxim is that it is not worth while to discuss matters that
do not affect me. I can't help it,--it's my nature. I am really
ashamed to defend myself when I find myself falsely accused;
I always think, the truth will out some day."

(Vienna, January 9, 1782, to his father. In the same letter he
continues: "I can not be happy and contented without my dear
Constanze, and without your satisfied acquiescence, I could only
be half happy. Therefore, make me wholly happy.")

240. "As I have thought and said a thousand times I would gladly
leave everything in your hands with the greatest pleasure, but
since, so to speak, it is useless to you but to my advantage, I
deem it my duty to remember my wife and children."

(June 16, 1787, to his sister, concerning his inheritance from
his father who had died on May 28.)

241. "Isn't it true that you are daily becoming more convinced of
the truth of my corrective sermons? Is not the amusement of a
fickle and capricious love far as the heavens from the
blessedness which true, sensible love brings with it? Do you not