Three days after the wedding Mozart wrote to his father a long account of it with a promise that he and his bride would take the first opportunity of asking forgiveness in person. "No one attended the marriage but Constanze's mother and youngest sister, Herr von Thorwarth in his capacity of guardian, Herr von Zetto (Landrath) who gave away the bride, and Gilofsky, as my best man. When the ceremony was over, both my wife and I shed tears; all present (even the priest) were touched on seeing the emotion of our hearts. Our sole wedding festivities consisted of a supper, which Baroness Waldstädten gave us, and indeed it was more princely than baronial. My darling is now one hundred times more joyful at the idea of going to Salzburg; and I am willing to stake--ay, my very life, that you will rejoice still more in my happiness when you really know her; if, indeed, in your estimation, as in mine, a high-principled, honest, virtuous, and pleasing wife ought to make a man happy." Now we enter upon the test of this romantic devotion--this wedlock of the twenty-six year old musician and the maiden of nineteen, who married in spite of the opposition of both families and in spite of the poverty that awaited them. There are many accounts of the domestic career of these two, written in a tone of patronage or cynicism. But this tone is gratuitous on the part of those who assume it. As thorough a study of the facts and documents as I can make, shows no ground whatsoever for refusing to accept this love-match as an ideal wedding of ideal congeniality, and mutual and common devotion. Poverty came with all its vicissitudes and settled upon the hearth, but we ought not to forget that both Wolfgang and Constanze had always been poor; that they were used to poverty, and were light-hearted in its presence. When they had no money to buy fuel, they were found dancing together to keep warm. Surely, for two such hearts, poverty was only a detail, and could in no sense be counted of sufficient weight to counterbalance the affection each found in each. As for Mozart's career we must feel that no amount of wealth would have availed against his improvidence and his extravagance in the small way in which fate permitted him to be extravagant. Nor could a life of bachelorhood or a life with some woman married for money conceivably have made him produce greater compositions--for no greater compositions than those he produced during his married life have ever been produced by any composer under any circumstances. Let us then read without conviction such accounts as we may find tending to belittle the goodness or cheapen the virtues of Constanze or of Mozart.