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