Mozart’s meeting with the celebrated piano manufacturer Stein, to whom he left it to guess who he was, was a very cheerful meeting, and the manner of it such as Mozart delighted in. He again characterizes as “bad” the playing of Stein’s eight-year-old little girl, afterwards Frau Streicher, who played so honorable and womanly a part in Beethoven’s life. His intercourse with his uncle’s family, in which the presence of his niece, (_das Baesle_), a young girl of eighteen, served somewhat to exercise his affections, and was the occasion, afterwards, of a series of jocose letters between them. He writes: “I can assure you, that, were it not that it holds a clever uncle and aunt and a charming ‘Baesle,’ I should regret exceedingly having come to Augsburg.” “Baesle” and he seemed made for one another, he thought; “for,” as he said, “she, too, has a little badness in her. The two of us banter the people, and we have very amusing times.” Their separation was of such a nature that the father had the “sad parting of the two persons, melting into tears, Wolfgang and Baesle,” painted on a panel in their room. All else concerning this sojourn in Augsburg must be looked for in the letters themselves, where the reader will find some exquisite genre painting. “How I like Mannheim? As well as I can like any place where ‘Baesle’ is not,” we soon hear him answer; for Mannheim, the home of the elector, Karl Theodore, who was as fond of reveling as he was of art, was the next nearest destination our travelers had in view in order to attain Wolfgang’s main object. True, he did not attain his object here either, but he had there that first genuine heart-experience which helped to mature his character as much as his mind was already developed beyond his years. His next meeting was with the electoral _Capellmeister_, Cannabich, who knew him when he (Mozart) was a child. He was “extraordinarily polite,” but the orchestra stared at him. As he writes: “They think that because I am so little and young, I have not much that is great in me; but they will soon see.” And the mother, soon after: “You cannot imagine how highly Wolfgang is esteemed here, both by musicians and others. They all say that he has no equal. They fairly deify his compositions.” And yet, so far, he had composed nothing here that could be called really great, no opera; and to write one was the chief reason why Mozart protracted his stay in Mannheim so long. Karl Theodore was, above all, the promoter and protector of those who endeavored to create a German national operatic stage, and his orchestra, under the leadership of Cannabich, was so exquisitely good that it and old Fritz’s tactics were considered the most significant and noteworthy phenomena in Europe at the time. Moreover, the elector was very affable with his musicians, who were everywhere looked upon as “decent people”--a complete contrast with those of Salzburg.