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We now approach an interesting event in Haydn's career. In the
course of some banter at the house of Rogers, Campbell the poet
once remarked that marriage in nine cases out of ten looks like
madness. Haydn's case was not the tenth. His salary from Count
Morzin was only 20 pounds with board and lodging; he was not
making anything substantial by his compositions; and his teaching
could not have brought him a large return. Yet, with the
proverbial rashness of his class, he must needs take a wife, and
that, too, in spite, of the fact that Count Morzin never kept a
married man in his service! "To my mind," said Mozart, "a
bachelor lives only half a life." It is true enough; but Mozart
had little reason to bless the "better half," while Haydn had
less. The lady with whom he originally proposed to brave the
future was one of his own pupils--the younger of the two
daughters of Barber Keller, to whom he had been introduced when
he was a chorister at St Stephen's. According to Dies, Haydn had
lodged with the Kellers at one time. The statement is doubtful,
but in any case his good stars were not in the ascendant when it
was ordained that he should marry into this family.
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