absurd gossip, in which there is not a word of truth. I should like to know what pleasure it can be to certain people to spread such baseless reports. Because I am living with the family I must, forsooth, marry the daughter! There is no talk of affection--they jump over all that; I simply go to the house, and then get married. If ever in my life I was far from thinking of marriage, it is at this moment. I wish for nothing less than a rich wife; and even if I could make a good marriage now I must perforce wait, for I have other things in my head. God has not given me my talent that I might cripple it with a wife, and waste my prime in inactivity. Shall I embitter my life at its very opening? I have nothing to say against matrimony, but for me at present it would be an unmitigated evil. Well, if there is no other way, false as it all is, I must avoid even the appearance of it, although the appearance has no foundation except my lodging in the house. No one who does not live in the house can imagine how very little intercourse I have with them; for the children seldom go out--never except to the play--and I cannot accompany them because I am seldom at home at that hour. We have been on the Prater once or twice, but the mother was with us; being in the house I could not avoid going, and I heard no such foolish gossip then. I must tell you, too, that I paid only _my own_ share;[1] and the mother, having become aware of the gossip from others as well as from myself, objects to our going anywhere together again, and has herself advised me to move my quarters to avoid further annoyance, for she says she would not willingly injure me, however innocently. This is my only reason for leaving, and this is no valid reason; but people's mouths must be stopped. It would not be difficult to find a better room, but very difficult to meet with such kind and obliging people. I will not say that I am uncivil and never speak to the young lady to whom report has wedded me, but I am not in love with her; I chat and joke with her when I have time--that is in the evenings, when I sup at home; in the morning I write in my own room, and in the afternoon I am nearly always out--and so that is really all about it. If I am to marry all the girls I have made fun with, I shall have at least a hundred wives. Now farewell, my dear father, and trust your son, who has really the best intentions towards all honest people! Trust him, and believe him sooner than certain people who have nothing better to do than to calumniate honest folk. An unfinished allegro to a clavier sonata (400 K.) remains as a curious and amusing instance of the influence exerted on a composer by his immediate surroundings. After a very {THE MESSMERS--RIGHINI.} (251) cheerful first part, a plaintive tone is struck in the second, and a very strongly accentuated musical dialogue occurs. The names of the two sisters Weber are written against the characterising phrases of the music:--[See Page Image]