This tells the whole story. He henceforth devoted nearly all his leisure to the family, rehearsed with the young vocalist all her arias, procured her opportunities to have her music heard, and had the satisfaction to know that Raaff himself, the most celebrated tenor in Mannheim, and even in Germany, declared that she sang not like a pupil, but like an adept in the vocal art. One incident here deserves to be specially mentioned, for it had a decided, far-reaching and direct influence on Mozart’s action, and on his development as an artist. He had set about writing an aria for the great tenor already mentioned, in order to win him over for his contemplated opera. “But,” he writes, with the utmost frankness, “the beginning of it seemed to me too high for Raaff, and I liked it too well to change it. I therefore resolved to write the aria for Miss Weber. I laid it aside, and resolved on other words for Raaff. But to no purpose. I found it impossible to write. The first aria haunted my mind and would not away, and then I decided to write it out to suit Miss Weber exactly.” What was the import of those words which he selected simply because an air to the same words, composed by the London Bach, had pleased him so much and kept forever ringing in his ears, and because he wanted to try whether, spite of everything, he was not able to write an aria entirely unlike Bach’s? What were the words? A king orders a youth who has made an attempt upon his life to be led to execution. But when he sees the young culprit, he immediately exclaims: “What is this strange power that agitates and moves me? His face, his eye, his voice! My heart palpitates; every fibre of my body quivers! Through all my feelings I look for the cause of this strange effect, and cannot find it. What is it, O God, what is it that I feel?” And hereupon follows that very aria, _Non so d’onde viene_: “I know not whence this tender feeling. Mere pity cannot produce a change so sudden!” Was not this the condition of Mozart’s own heart? He imagined that pity, and pity only, for the condition of the Weber family, and, at most, an interest in the “beautiful, pure voice,” and wonder at the combination of so much ability with such extreme youth, bound his heart to their home; but it was not that; it was the undivined depths which the first feeling of love opens before us; the wonder, the charm, the trembling, glowing exultation, the heart-felt, floating, exquisite bliss which with a longing foreboding discovers us to ourselves for the first time, and which, in the throes of our heart of hearts, seems to give a new birth to every drop of blood in our veins. In such a state, we may imagine, it was that he sang this: _Non so d’onde viene_--not as a musician, not as an artist, but urged thereto by that powerful, irresistible impulse of the heart which, in the last instance, begets in us all our truest life. And as Pygmalion, in a fit of such fiery ardor, moved the marble so Mozart melted