The father writes: “You know, my son, that you will have to do everything for yourself, and that you are not accustomed to get along entirely without the help of others; that you are not very familiar with the different kinds of coin, and that you have not the least idea how to pack your things, or to do much else which must be done.” He continues: “I would also remind you, that a young man, even if he had dropped down from heaven and stood head and shoulders above all the masters of art, will never get the consideration due him. To win this, he must have reached a certain age, and so long as a person is under twenty, enviers, enemies and persecutors will find matter for blame in his youth, in the little importance attached to him and his small experience.” And later: “My son, in all your affairs, you are hasty and headlong. Your whole character has changed since your childhood and boyhood years. As a child, you were rather serious than childish. Now, as it seems to me, you are too quick to answer every one in a jesting way at the very first provocation; and that is the first step towards familiarity which one must avoid in this world, if he cares to be respected. It is your good heart’s fault that you can see no defect in the person who pays you a clever compliment, who professes esteem for you and lauds you to the heavens, and that you take him into your confidence and give him your love.” Even if all this paternal chiding was provoked only by the one special cause of which we shall soon have something to say, it is, nevertheless, true that the father here touches upon some of Mozart’s characteristic traits, especially his confiding goodness of heart, his wit and jocoseness in everything, which were led into wrong channels by the quickness of his mind. The parting of father and son was heart-rending indeed. We are sure that the words in which Leopold Mozart describes his feelings, when Wolfgang, in company with his mother, started out on his travels in September, 1777, came from the very bottom of a father’s heart. “After you had gone,” he writes, “I went, very tired, up the steps and threw myself in a chair. I tried hard to restrain myself on the occasion of our leave-taking, that I might not make our separation still more painful, and in my excitement I forgot to give my son a father’s blessing. I ran to the window and begged a blessing upon both of you, but I did not see you go out through the gate, and we could not but think that you had already passed it, because I sat there a long time without thinking of anything.” Nannerl cried so much that she was taken sick, and it was evening before either she or her father had so far recovered from the shock as to be able to distract themselves by attending to some little home duties, and enjoying what remained to them of domestic bliss. “Thus did this sad day pass--a sadder day than I believed life could ever bring me,” says the father, in his account of it, when answering