It is an important fact, and one of grave significance in the case of a man of L. Mozart's tone of mind and thought, that he was led by his son's influence to enter the order of Freemasonry. The strong national feeling which existed in him, side by side with devotion to the tenets of his church, regulating his conception of moral duties, and influencing all his critical judgments, makes it conceivable that he should seek for enlightenment through an association which numbered among its members some of the most considerable and highly esteemed of his friends. I am not aware how far he was satisfied by the disclosures made to him, nor whether he remained an active member of the order after his return to Salzburg; his daughter saw grounds for believing that his subsequent correspondence with Wolfgang turned mainly on topics connected with Freemasonry. From Vienna Leopold Mozart travelled by way of Munich, where he had a pleasant visit, back to Salzburg. There he found awaiting him an announcement from his gracious master {MOZART'S FAMILY AND FRIENDS.} (322) that, as he had already exceeded his six weeks' leave of absence, if he did not report himself before the middle of May, "no salary should be paid to him until further notice." We can enter into the complaints he made to his daughter of the dulness of his life in Salzburg. He never saw his son again. A faint hope, expressed to Marianne (September 16, 1785), that Wolfgang, not having written for a considerable time, meant to surprise him with a visit, was not fulfilled; he himself, accompanied by Heinrich Marchand, paid a flying visit to Munich in February, 1787, but did not go on to Vienna. His paternal pride was gratified by the intelligence of Wolfgang's brilliant success in Prague; and he did not neglect to inform his daughter when Pater Edmund, who had been on a visit to Vienna, declared on his return that Wolfgang had the reputation of being the first of living musicians (February 3, 1786). He watched with anxious sympathy over the course of his son's worldly affairs, but refused with consistent severity any substantial support, the right to which Wolfgang had clearly forfeited by his independent attitude; paternal advice, in its most unsparing form, was always at his service. Leopold Mozart transferred to his daughter the tenderness and active participation which was now denied to him in his intercourse with his distant son. Thus he remained to the end true to his principles, but not untouched by the weakness and suffering of old age; he answers one of Marianne's anxious inquiries after his health (February 24, 1787):-- An old man must not expect anything like perfect health; he is always failing, and loses strength just as a young man gains it. One must just patch oneself up as long as one can. We may hope for a little improvement from the better weather now. You will, of course, find me very much thinner, but, after all, that is of no consequence.