Don’t. So said the magazine ‘Punch’ about a century
ago. Here, in the not-very-good 1866 translation by Lady Wallace (she’s taken
out all his scatology; it’s a wonder there’s anything left) is part of a letter
from Mozart to his father:
Mannheim, Feb. 7, 1778.
HERR
SCHIEDENHOFEN might have let me know long ago through you that his wedding was
soon to take place, and I would have composed a new minuet for the occasion. I
cordially wish him joy; but his is, after all, only one of those money matches,
and nothing else! I hope never to marry in this way; I wish to make my wife
happy, but not to become rich by her means; so I will let things alone, and
enjoy my golden freedom till I am so well off that I can support both wife and children.
Herr Schiedenhofen was forced to choose a rich wife; his title imposed
this on him. The nobility must not marry for love or from inclination, but
from interest, and all kinds of other considerations. It would not at all
suit a grandee to love his wife after she had done her duty, and brought
into the world an heir to the property. But we poor humble people are
privileged not only to choose a wife who loves us, and whom we love, but
we may, can, and do take such a one, because we are neither noble, nor
highborn, nor rich, but, on the contrary, lowly, humble, and poor; we
therefore need no wealthy wife, for our riches being in our heads, die
with us, and these no man can deprive us of unless he cut them off, in
which case we need nothing more.
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