The first act of the _Magic Flute_ was finished as far as the finale when Schikaneder was informed, to his sorrow, that the same thing was being played with the greatest success by the competing theatre. But he did not despair; it was resolved to change the point of the play, to transform the wicked wizard who had stolen the princess whom Tamino was to recover, into the sage and philanthropist Sarastro, and, instead of the disconsolate mother, to put the evil-minded “queen of the night” with her Moors and the three ladies in black. These changes occasioned a noticeable disparity and much that was contradictory in the opera as a whole; but, on the other hand, Mozart could now put his whole soul into it, and to this incident we are indebted for the most earnest and beautiful effusions of his mind and heart. The whole work now centered about the idea of free-masonry. By the earnest trial of their moral power, mortals must win their higher immortal portion, and with it their happiness. The bonds that unite the two lovers are purified and sanctified, transmuted into the more powerful and lasting life-bonds of marriage, which freed from all passion by the labors of love and resignation, discloses the real object and meaning of love. And, indeed, who had ever more purely tasted the sweets of this ever-virginal, marital love than Mozart, who even now, so many years after he was married, closed a letter to his wife with these words: “Good-bye, my dear, my only one. Two thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine and a half kisses are flying from me through the air. Put out your hands and catch them; they are waiting for you. A thousand sweet kisses. Thy Mozart forever.”