Laporte: Mozart had a sense of humor. He knew a big thing from a little one. When yet a child the tendency to comedy was strong upon him. When nine years of age he once played at a private musicale where the Empress, Maria Theresa, was present. The lad even then was a consummate violinist. He had just played a piece that contained such a tender, mournful, minor strain that several of the ladies were in tears. The boy seeing this, relentingly dashed off into a "barnyard symphony," where donkeys brayed, hens cackled, pigs squealed and cows mooed, all ending with a terrific cat-fight on a wood-shed roof. This done, the boy threw his violin down, ran across the room, climbed into the lap of the Empress and throwing his arms around the neck of the good lady, kissed her a resounding smack first on one cheek, then on the other. It was all very much like that performance of Liszt, who one day, when he was playing the piano, suddenly shouted, "Pitch everything out of the windows!" and then proceeded to do it--on the keyboard, of course. On the same visit to the palace, when Mozart saluted Maria Theresa in his playful way, he had the misfortune to slip and fall on the waxed floor. Marie Antoinette, daughter of Maria Theresa, just budding into womanhood, ran and picked him up and rubbed his knee where it was hurt. "You are a dear, good lady," said the boy in gratitude, "and when I grow up I am going to marry you." Liszt never made any such promise as that. Liszt never offered to marry anybody. But it is too bad that Marie Antoinette did not hold the lad to his promise. It would have probably proved a valuable factor for her in the line of longevity; and her husband's circumstances would have saved her from making that silly inquiry as to why poor people don't eat cake when they run short of bread. These moods of merriment continued with Mozart, as they did with Liszt, all his life--not always manifesting themselves, though, in the way just described. As a companion I would choose Mozart--generous, unaffected, kind--rather than any other musician who ever played, danced, sang or composed--excepting, well, say Brahms. * * * * * South Bend: We take an interest in the lives of others because we always, when we think of another, imagine our relationship to him. "Had I met Shakespeare on the stairs I would have fainted dead away," said Thackeray. Another reason why we are interested in biography is because, to a degree, it is a repetition of our own life.