e will
stop coming here. Take Madame Recamier's salon as it is now and compare it
with what it used to be! In the early days, after her arrival here,
everybody went because it was the swell thing, and you'd be sure of
meeting the intellectually elect. On the one hand you'd find Sophocles; on
the other, Cicero; across the room would be Horace chatting gayly with
some such person as myself. Great warriors, from Alexander to Bonaparte,
were there, and glad of the opportunity to be there, too; statesmen like
Macchiavelli; artists like Cellini or Tintoretto. You couldn't move
without stepping on the toes of genius. But now all is different. The
money-getting instinct has been aroused within them all, with the result
that when I invited Mozart to meet a few friends at dinner at my place
last autumn, he sent me a card stating his terms for dinners. Let me see,
I think I have it with me; I've kept it by me for fear of losing it, it is
such a complete revelation of the actual condition of affairs in this
locality. Ah! this is it," she added, taking a small bit of paste-board
from her card-case. "Read that."

The card was passed about, and all the ladies were much astonished--and
naturally so, for it ran this wise:

--------------------------------------------------
| NOTICE TO HOSTESSES. |
| |
| Owing to the very great, constantly growing, |
| and at times vexatious demands upon his time |
| socially, |
| |
| HERR WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART |
| |
| takes this method of announcing to his |
| friends that on and after January 1, 1897, |
| his terms for functions will be as follows: |
| |
| Marks. |
| Dinners with conversation on the |
| Theory of Music ................. 500 |
| Dinners with conversation on the |
| Theory of Music, illustrated .... 750 |
| Dinners without any conversation .. 300 |
| Receptions, public, with music .... 1000 |
| " private, " ...... 750 |
| Encores (single) .................. 100 |
| Three encores