The evening before the first performance of “Don Juan” at Prag, Mozart told his wife that he intended to write the overture during the night, and asked her to make a punch for him and stay with him, to keep him awake. But exertion and sleepiness made the work so hard, that his wife begged him to rest on the sofa, promising to waken him in an hour. He slept so soundly that she let him sleep two hours. It was five o’clock when she wakened him. At seven the copyist was to come. Mozart worked now so rapidly, that in two hours the overture was finished. Criticised the Emperor One day Mozart and his wife were walking in the Augarten near Vienna. His wife was telling him about her dog’s devotion, and said: “You just pretend to strike me and see how he will jump at you!” Just as Mozart playfully struck his wife on the shoulder, the Emperor stepped from his summer-house. “Well, well,” said he; “just three weeks married, and fighting already!” Mozart explained, and the Emperor laughing, asked: “Do you remember the anecdote of Wagenseil? and how, when I played the violin, you called from among my audience, sometimes ‘Pshaw! that was wrong!’ sometimes, ‘bravo!’” Mozart’s Generosity Mozart was very generous. An old and honest piano repairer had put some new strings on his beloved instrument. “What do I owe you, old friend?” asked Mozart. “I am going away to-morrow and wish to pay you now!” The old man, who always grew dreadfully embarrassed if any one spoke to him, stammered: “To be sure—your Honor—I have been here—several—times I beg—a thaler.” “What, a man like you, come to me for one thaler?” With that he put several ducats into the old man’s hand and fled. George Friedrich Händel For a number of years after Händel settled in London he was financially very unlucky. His operas did not take, and when his friends complained that the house was so empty, he would comfort them by saying: “That does not matter at all, the music will sound so much the better!” Reading at Sight On a trip to Ireland, Händel was detained for a few days at Chester. As he wished to try some of the choruses that he intended to bring out in Ireland, he asked the organist of the Cathedral, Backer, whether he had any singers in his choir who could sing by sight. Backer named some of his best singers, among them a printer, Janson, who sang bass very well. Händel appointed the time for a private rehearsal at his hotel; but poor Janson, after repeated trials, made so many mistakes in the chorus of The Messiah, “And through his wounds” that Händel grew furious and after swearing at him in four or five languages, cried in broken English: “You villain, you, didn’t you say you could read by sight?” “So I can, sir,” replied Janson, “only not the very first time!” About as Well as the Cook When Gluck came to England the first time, in 1745, Händel was asked what he thought of him. His answer, preceded by an oath was: