merriment for all time, and the opera acquires a new, personal
and peculiarly amiable charm from the fact that we are privileged
to see in the love-joy of "Belmont" and "Constanze" an image of
that of the young composer and his "Stanzerl."

After "Die Entfuhrung" (1782) came "Le Nozze di Figaro" (1786),
"Don Giovanni" (1787), and "Die Zauberflote" (1791). It would be
a vain task to attempt to establish any internal relationship
between these works. Mozart was not like Wagner, a strong
personality capable of devoting a full sum of vital force to the
carrying out of a chosen and approved principle. As is generally
the case with geniuses, he was a child; a child led by momentary
conditions; moreover, a child of the rococo period. There is,
therefore, no cause of wonderment in the fact that Italian texts
are again used in "Le Nozze di Figaro" and "Don Giovanni," and
that another, but this time a complete German opera, does not
appear until we reach "Die Zauberflote."

Nevertheless it is possible to note a development towards a
climax in the four operas respecting Mozart's conception of the
world. It has been denied that there is a single red thread in
Mozart's life-work. Nevertheless our method of study will
disclose to us an ever-growing view of human lift, and a deeper
and deeper glimpse into the emotional and intellectual life of
man, his aims and destiny. From the almost commonplace conditions
of "Die Entfuhrung," where a rascal sings in the best of humor
of first beheading and then hanging a man, we reach a plane in
"The Marriage of Figaro," in which despite the refinement and
mitigation of Beaumarchais's indictment we feel the revolutionary
breeze freshly blowing. In "Don Giovanni" we see the individual