Such was Mozart's courtship, such was his "Entführung aus dem Auge Gottes," as he used jokingly to call his marriage, because the house in which Madame Weber lived on the Petersplatz was called "Zum Auge Gottes." Truly this time brought him none of the peaceful happiness which the certainty of mutual love bestows under more prosperous circumstances, but it afforded him abundant opportunity for the display of his freedom as an artist, and of his inflexible constancy to what he thought true and right. Unaffected by the vulgarity from the atmosphere of which he had resolved upon rescuing his Constanze, unchanged by the violence and hastiness of his beloved herself, unmoved by the hard and often unjust judgment of his father, he preserved both the firmness of his conviction and will, and the tender susceptibility and charm of his affectionate heart. The mental and moral development of every man depends in no small degree upon whether his course of life has been smooth and his happiness easy of attainment, or whether he has obtained the conditions of his existence only after a long and severe struggle. We must not, therefore, turn aside our glance from the trials and troubles which have beset the lives of great artists and noble men; it was through adversity that they became what they were. FOOTNOTES OF CHAPTER XXVI. [Footnote 1: K. R[isbeck] says (Briefe über Deutschland, I., p. 193) it was considered proper in Vienna to treat the ladies of the party, even when they were in no way related to their escort. Mozart must have been thinking of his former liberality to the Webers, so severely blamed by his father (Vol. I., p. 418).] [Footnote 2: Zelter says that Righini's position in Berlin was almost identical with that of Salieri in Vienna; "he may have been of a rather more lively disposition, but he was of about the same height and breadth" (Briefw. m. Goethe, II., p. 29). Cf. A. M. Z., XVI., p. 875.] [Footnote 3: She used to give a concert every year "as a proof of her existence and industry," according to the notice for 1799 (A. M. Z., I., p. 523); "the latter quality is all that she can now truthfully boast of" (Cf. A. M. Z., VI., p. 471; VII., p. 469. Reichardt, Mus. Ztg., I., p. 128). As late as 1813 she ("who had once reigned supreme as a pianoforte-player in Vienna") appeared in public, and was pronounced "an accomplished and correct player, but cold and old-fashioned" (A. M. Z., XV., p. 300).]