And how about Mozart? When at the beginning of April, the libretto of this poetical judgment on human life had come into his hands, his soul was directed with redoubled energy to its serious meaning. He received at that time, the news of the grave illness of his father, which led him to give expression to some remarkable sayings about death as the “true goal of our life--man’s true, best friend.” We shall yet see what suggested this. Besides, he had shortly before lost his “best and dearest” friend, Count Hatzfeld, and now, on the 28th of May 1787, he lost his beloved father also. The quintet in G minor dates from this time. The depths of his soul open up before us here. This quintet is a prelude to _Don Giovanni_. At this time, too, it was that the court organist, Ludwig Beethoven of Bonn, now in his sixteenth year, paid him a visit. Mozart paid no attention to Beethoven beyond predicting his world-wide fame, so entirely was he pre-occupied with his new work. The following September, his friend Dr. Barisoni, who had attended him two years before, when he was very dangerously sick, died; and Mozart wrote under some of his verses in his album: “It is well with him!--but it will never be well with me, with us and with all who knew him so well, until we are happy enough to see him in a better world, never to part again!” His thoughts went beyond the grave and endeavored to fathom the eternal relations of things. This was the mood in which he wrote _Don Giovanni_. Even into the brightest light of life, creep at last the dark shadows of annihilation!