"I leave the girl gladly who cares not for me,"
and then hastened away to Salzburg. Aloysia married a comedian, and lived a most unhappy life, gaining some fame from singing the music which Mozart wrote for her.
He remained at home for a year and a half, till called to Munich to write the opera "Idomeneo," and later to Vienna. Here, unfortunately, he met the Webers again, and, their father having died, he boarded in their house, and gave lessons to Constance, a younger sister of Aloysia. She was a plain, good-hearted girl, without much energy, but with a great appreciation of her gifted teacher. The result came naturally; he fell in love with the penniless girl, and, despite the distress of his aged father at his choice, married her when he was twenty-six and she eighteen.
Henceforward there was no hope of any thing save the direst poverty. To marry without love is a grave mistake; to marry simply for love is sometimes a mistake equally grave. He could of course do nothing now for his aged father or sister. Unsteady employment, a rapidly-increasing family, and a wife ill most of the time, made the struggle for existence ten times harder than before his marriage. Once when he had prepared to visit his father for the first time after the wedding, and had waited months for the necessary funds, he was arrested for a debt of fifteen dollars, just as he was stepping into the carriage.
The Emperor Joseph said to him one day, "Why did you not marry a rich wife?" With dignity Mozart at once replied, "Sire, I trust that my genius will always enable me to support the woman I love"; but unfortunately it did not. He wrote after his marriage: "The moment we were made one, my wife as well as myself began to weep, which touched every one, even the priest, and they all cried when they witnessed how our hearts were moved." How little they dreamed that they should weep more seriously when hunger stared their six children in the face!
From the time of his marriage till his death, nine years, says Rev. Mr. Haweis, "his life can be compared to nothing but a torch burning out rapidly in the wind." It was a period of incessant, astonishing labor. He dedicated six quartets to his dear friend Joseph Haydn, who said, "Mozart is the greatest composer who has ever lived"; wrote "Figaro" when he was twenty-nine, which had the greatest popularity, "Don Giovanni" at thirty-one, and the "Flauto Magico" gratis, for the benefit of the theatre director, who was in want. The two latter creations were hailed with delight. Goethe wrote to Schiller later of "Don Giovanni," "That piece stands entirely alone; and Mozart's death has rendered all hope of any thing like it idle."