MOZART 



3994 



MUD PUPPY 



wrote a number of masses and two operas, 

 King T homos and Zdidc. 



At twenty-six years of age he was in Vienna, 

 where he again met the Webers, fell in love 

 with Constant Weber, and over the protest of 

 his father married her in August, 1782. Then 

 followed nine years of desperate work, teach- 

 ing, giving concerts and composing with a 

 rapidity almost incredible, while a sickly, self- 

 centered and selfish wife daily plunged him 

 more deeply into debt. Constanza probably 

 loved him, but sjie was weak-willed, and meas- 

 ured his success simply by the money he made. 

 Amidst such trials he wrote his greatest operas, 

 Figaro, Don Giovanni and The Magic Flute, 

 masterpieces that will probably never lose their 

 popularity. In the summer of 1788 he com- 

 posed his famous symphonies in C major, G 

 minor and E flat, frequently called "the most 

 impassioned works in instrumental music," and 

 with these came a host of shorter compositions. 

 His efforts to pay his debts by frequent con- 

 cert tours exhausted his strength, and in his 

 thirty-fifth year the idea of death began to 

 haunt him. 



One day in the last year of his life a tall, 

 gray stranger appeared before him and offered 

 him a cash sum for a requiem, or death com- 

 position. The music was desired by an Aus- 

 trian nobleman, but the stranger would give 

 no further information. Mozart, in need of 

 money, undertook the work, but as his weak- 

 ness increased, he became possessed of the idea 

 that this beautiful composition, The Requiem, 

 was really for his own funeral, and day and 

 night he stole time to work upon it. Upon 

 his return from one of his concert tours in the 

 fall of 1791, his wife was shocked at his pallor 

 and weakness, and for once forgot about her 

 own petty ailments. But, help was too late; 

 his weakness increased until Sunday, Decem- 

 ber 5, 1791, when, trying to explain exactly how 

 The Requiem should be played, he sank back 

 upon his pillow in death. 



He was so poor that his funeral had to be 

 exceedingly plain, and as the day was stormy 

 no friends went to the grave in the common 

 burial ground for the poor. A servant sug- 

 gested placing a wooden cross on the spot, but 

 his wife said that doubtless the parish officers 

 would attend to it. So long a period passed 

 before she revisited the grave that the sexton 

 had removed the bones for those of another 

 pauper. To-day a beautiful monument for him 

 stands over the empty grave in Vienna, while 

 no one knows where Mozart's dust lies. R.D.M. 



Consult Gehring's Mozart; Holmes' Life of 

 Mozart. 



MUCILAGE, mu'silayj, a solution of the 

 gum of a small tree growing in Arabia and 

 other parts of Asia, from which gum arabic 

 (which see) is obtained. This gum exudes from 

 the bark of the tree after an incision is made, 

 and soon hardens on exposure to sunlight and 

 air. Gum of the best quality is semitrans- 

 parent and readily dissolves in hot water, form- 

 ing a mucilage whose thickness depends upon 

 the quantity dissolved. The name is also ap- 

 plied to paste solutions such as are used on 

 envelopes and labels and for a variety of other 

 purposes, a few drops of carbolic acid being 

 generally added to keep them from molding. 

 Mucilage has its place in medicine, being val- 

 uable in all irritations of the mucous surfaces 

 (see Mucus, below). 



MUCUS, mu'kus, a clear, sticky fluid which 

 forms a layer of varying thickness on the sur- 

 face of those membranes which line the cavities 

 communicating with the outside of the body, 

 such as the nose and mouth cavities and the 

 intestinal canal (see MEMBRANES, subhead Mu- 

 cous Membranes}. Mucus is produced by cer- 

 tain cells in the mucous membranes, and its 

 chief purpose is to keep those membranes 

 moist and slippery and to protect them from 

 irritating substances. The gullet well illustrates 

 its lubricating action; the secretion of mucus 

 in that tube enables the masticated food to 

 slip down easily into the stomach. Minute 

 particles of dust or lint breathed into the nose 

 are washed down into the throat by the mucus 

 and so are kept from passing to the lungs. 

 When too much dust, or particles of it contain- 

 ing disease germs, are breathed into the nose 

 the mucus becomes thick and yellowish and 

 is secreted in larger quantities. This is due to 

 infection of the membrane, and the condition 

 is known as a "cold." See COLD. W.A.E. 



MUD HEN. See COOT. 



MUD PUPPY, WATER DOG, or MUD EEL, 

 a long, slender salamander that lives in ponds 

 and streams of America. It differs from nearly 

 all the other salamanders in having gills which 

 develop in the larval stage and are retained 

 throughout the adult period. It grows to be 

 about a foot long, in color a slimy, dirty 

 brown, resembling a tadpole just before it 

 loses its tail; it has a body like an eel's, with 

 two short legs up under the head. There are 

 four toes on each foot. In the daytime the 

 mud puppy stays among the weeds and rocks 

 in the mud, but at night it moves quickly 



