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dress, and had a great weakness for lace and watch-chains. But if he indulged his tastes overmuch in this particular, he was no less lavish in regard to giving where he thought help was needed. He could never turn a deaf ear to the appeal of a beggar, and his kindness was frequently imposed upon; even when monetary help was not forthcoming to meet the request of a brother-musician, he would contrive to find time amidst the pressure of his own work to compose a concerto for the latter's benefit. To the animal world, also, his affectionate nature went forth in no small degree, and he became deeply attached to a starling, which had learnt to pipe the subject of the Rondo of his 'Pianoforte Concerto in G Major.' And if his distresses failed to diminish his joy in the very fact of living, even less did they affect his powers of work. His father had declared that 'procrastination was his besetting sin,' and Mozart was certainly given to putting off the evil day as far as possible; but no one knew better than Leopold Mozart himself how tireless was Mozart's industry, or how boundless his powers of coping with a gigantic task which he had set his mind to accomplish. When, in September, 1787, he was at Prague, writing the score of 'Don Giovanni,' his favourite resort was the vineyard belonging to his friend Duschek, situated close to the city; here he would be seated at his work[13] whilst conversation or skittle-playing went on around him, often quitting his task to join in one or the other. The time was short, for the opera was to be produced on October 29, and when the evening of the 28th arrived it found the overture still unwritten. Nothing daunted, however, Mozart bade his wife brew him some punch, and bring her book of fairy-stories, and then, for hour after hour, he wrote on, whilst Constanze read aloud to keep him awake. When sleep could no longer be resisted he lay down for an hour or two, but when the copyist came for the score at seven o'clock in the morning it was ready for him. His musical memory was so marvellous that the merest scraps of notes, jotted down whilst driving, conversing, or soothing his wife in her pain, were sufficient to recall to mind without the slightest effort the exact ideas which he desired to reproduce. An entire work would thus be completed in his brain before he began to write a single note on paper, and it was no unusual thing for him to be thinking out a second part whilst writing dow
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